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My heart rate kicked up, and my stomach flipped. "Yeah, once I start cooking these Amara will get up. Better to get it over with now."
"You wanna call him or should I?" He pulled his phone out of the pocket in his jeans.
"You call but put him on speaker." I stopped what I was doing and rested my forearms down onto the counter, leaning closer so I could hear better.
Three rings later, Connor's baritone voice carried through the room. "Mad. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Maddox chuckled, and I raised my eyebrow but stayed silent. Who the fuck evenwasMaddox? First my parents, now Connor? "Hey, buddy. Can you do me a favor?"
"No promises, but I'll try."
"You know your friend that works for SPD? Ronin, I think it was?" Maddox drummed his fingers on the marble countertop.
"Mmhmm. What about him?"
"I need you to call him and ask about a bust last night. I just need to know what went down."
Connor blew out a breath. "I'm going to hate myself for asking this, but why?"
"Sorry, can't say. I just need to know how it went down."
"He's probably going to want to know how I knew about it."
Fuck, that was a good point. Maddox leaned closer to where the phone rested on the counter. "Use your charm to make the question go away. I promise I'm not going to do anything with the details. I just need to know for my own peace of mind."
"Fuck, you owe me so big."
Maddox laughed. "Fine. When will you contact him?"
"Give me fifteen minutes." I could appreciate his efficiency.
"Thanks." Maddox ended the call. Now we just had to wait. My mind shifted to what I should do with this information and Amara. I'd wanted to keep it from her while I handled it because I couldn't deal with the idea of causing her worry and stress about something going wrong. But now that it was done, once we had confirmation things had gone as planned, I had to tell her, didn't I?
I tried to put myself in her shoes. How would I feel if she went off acting on some vigilante justice and didn't tell me? The tightening in my jaw and elevation in my pulse told me all I needed to know. If I didn't tell her, I'd be risking every ounce of trust she'd put in me, and I couldn't have that. Especially not with this Lexi situation.
Once we heard back from Connor, I'd tell her over breakfast. I eyed Maddox, who was scrolling through his phone. Hopefully, having him here would be a buffer, and she wouldn't completely lose her shit when she heard everything I had to say.
I moved back over to the bowl I'd been throwing ingredients into and stirred another few minutes until the batter was smooth. I kept the kitchen well-stocked with waffle mix-ins these past few months, and today I was picking the kind I wanted for me. I reached into the pantry and pulled out a bag of chocolate chips, shaking them at Maddox. "Chocolate chip okay?"
He looked up and nodded, a crooked smile crossing his lips. I guess I wasn't the only one in need of some comfort food this morning.
As I poured chocolate chips into the bowl, Maddox's phone buzzed. We locked eyes before he answered the call, putting it on speaker again. It'd only been a couple of minutes, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but suddenly my palms were sweaty, and my mouth had dried up.
"Hey, Connor. What'd you find out?" Maddox played with the ring he always wore on his thumb, twisting it around.
"I don't know what you're into, but fuck, it's not good." My skin prickled, and my hair stood up at Connor's serious tone.
Maddox's eyes briefly flickered up to mine then dropped back down to his phone. "What does that mean? What'd Ronin say?"
He exhaled heavily. "I swear to god if you're involved in this somehow, it better not blow back on any of the rest of us."
"I'm not involved. Now tell me."
"Ronin was working last night when a call came in about a girl being dragged into a house against her will. They rushed to the house, and the approaching officers went inside. There were two teams, one searched the main level, one team took the basement."
Basement? Maddox's eyes met mine again, reflecting my own surprise back at me. We'd both thought the house was just two stories, not three.
He went on. "The guys who rented the house insisted no one was there; the call must have been a prank or something. Ronin was about to call off the search when the team searching the main level found a shit ton of ecstasy."
