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“Thank you for helping me,” I tell Ozzy.
“The second that piece of shit opened fire on my guys, he brought the club into it, sweetheart. If he thinks the Italians can keep him safe now, he’s wrong.”
The three of us stand to leave when Ozzy speaks again.
“I’ll make it clear to the Italians that Jace’s notebook isn’t up for grabs, and unless they want a war with usandthe Irish, they’ll cut him loose and let us deal with him.“ Ozzy looks Linc in the eye. “Once we have him, I’ll let you know.”
Linc nods, and we leave the office.
Lucy is waiting nervously by the bar. As soon as she sees me emerge from the hallway, she runs over.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
“We’re taking off for a few days. Ozzy said he’s going to take care of it, then we’ll come back,” I reply.
“Don’t worry, love, you’ll only miss me for a little while,” Jude interjects.
“Oh, Jude,” Lucy laughs like he’s the biggest idiot on the planet. “If you think I’m not going with Charlie, you seriously need to have your head examined.” She turns her attention back to me. “So, where to, sister?”
Jude lets out a low growl. “Bollocks.”
Chapter seventeen
Linc
There’sasoftknockon my door as I pack a bag.
“Yeah,” I call.
The door opens, and Charlie peeks her head in with a small, apprehensive smile gracing her lips.
“Hey,” she says in a quiet voice. “Mind if we talk for a minute?”
I tilt my head, and she enters the room, sitting on my bed that’s still in disarray from the night we spent tangled in my sheets.
We haven’t really talked since I stormed out of the clubhouse this morning. The ride cleared my head, but as soon as I got back, it’s been one thing after another. I know we need to have a serious discussion about everything going on and where the idea of us falls in the middle of it.
Charlie isn’t meeting my eyes as I lean against my dresser, waiting for her to speak. Instead, she sits quietly, nervously picking at her nails. I hate seeing her like this. This is the nervous girl I met six years ago who was afraid of her own shadow, not the woman I’ve gotten to know.
“I’m sorry,” she says, finally meeting my gaze. “I should have told you what I stole from Jace. Honestly, I was going to this morning. The truth is everything the last few days has felt like a dream, and I didn’t want to face reality.”
“What do you think reality would have looked like?”
She shakes her head and lets out a deep sigh. “I knew back in Texas the book had information on your friends. The idea that you would be loyal to them like you are with your brothers went through my mind more than once.”
“You mean the Irish?”
“Yeah. At the bar, you knew who they were, and it seemed like, at the very least, you and the club were in business with them. There I was, this girl you barely knew who had all this information that could hurt them. The idea you would do something to me or Lucy because of what I knew scared the shit out of me.”
“Charlie, the Irish are business associates, not friends. If I thought for a second they would have been any danger to you, Ozzy never would have told them you were here. They aren’t like the Italians or your ex. No one here is.”
“I see that now, but you have to understand, Linc, never, and I mean never, has anyone protected me. The last couple years I spent with Jace, everyone and everything came before me. If one of his slimy friends flirted with me, it was my fault for ‘throwing myself at them.’” She uses air quotes as though it was something she often heard from that monster. “The idea you would have reacted the same way kept me silent. But getting to know you and your brothers better, I realized this morning how dumb that was.”
“Damn straight,” I tell her. “We protect the people important to us, not throw them to the wolves.”
“I was scared you would have turned me over to them,” she says quietly.
I move to sit next to her and brush her dark locks away from her face.
