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So she held onto him and listened as he went through everything.
“So you’ve never seen any of them before?” Regent asked.
“Not that I recall. But I didn’t get a really good look at them.”
“Did Aston tell you that she felt she was being watched on her way home from the pool tonight,” Victor said.
“What? No! What time was that?” Maxim asked.
She glared at Victor. “Tattletale.”
His lips twitched.
“Um, I don’t know,” she lied.
“She said around eleven,” Regent added.
“You are both off my Christmas card list!”
“Aston, please tell me you weren’t swimming at eleven at night!” Maxim yelled.
“You need to calm down,” she scolded.
“Aston.”
“Fine. Yes, I was. But I usually swim that late at night, I just haven’t been doing it lately. And I’ve never had a problem.”
“You are never swimming that late at night again without me,” Maxim decreed.
She decided that in order to get him to calm down she better agree with him. “All right.”
“Gonna spank your ass for that too.”
“Maxim!” she protested, going red. Yikes.
“So there’s no way to know if these guys belonged to Leeds or not,” Regent mused.
“But it’s not likely this was random, right?” Maxim said. “Someone sent those guys to attack me. Leeds or someone else.”
“Someone else?” she asked, moving her head to look around at them. Her moment was over. “Like who?”
“You’re thinking about Patrick?” Victor rumbled.
Who was Patrick?
“I haven’t heard that he’s back,” Regent said. “He ran after we got rid of the Ventura Gang and Santiago. As far as I’m aware he no longer has any allies here.”
“Doesn’t mean he couldn’t pay some assholes to go after Maxim,” Victor pointed out.
“But why go after me?” Maxim asked.
“Because he can’t get to Regent or me,” Victor said.
“Thank fuck he didn’t go after Jardin,” Maxim muttered. He turned to her. “Thea, my brother’s fiance, has custody of her two brothers, Ace and Keir. If he had the kids or Thea with him when he was attacked . . .”
Right. She got it.
No, it was better that they’d gone for Maxim. At least he had her watching his back.
“I still don’t think this is Patrick’s work,” Regent said. “It’s too straight-forward for him. He’s more of a snake, hiding in the long grass, ready to strike.”
“So our best guess is Dayton,” Maxim said grimly. “That fucking asshole must know we’re on to him.”
“We told Aston that we’ve been looking into Dayton because of the bad batch of Mixology on the streets,” Regent explained. “And because someone died from taking some of that bad batch in your nightclub. But we haven’t explained our other reason for looking into him.”
“Right,” Maxim said, then glanced at her. “That might be a conversation for the two of us to have in private.”
She stared at him before gazing around at them. “I don’t know what you do for a living, but you obviously have money. And you have armed guards at your gate. Which means you likely have enemies. Also, you didn’t seem all that shocked when I called you in the middle of the night to tell you that Maxim was bleeding from a stab wound.”
“Baby,” Maxim said gently.
Regent stared at her for a long moment. It surprised her that Maxim stayed quiet. But she knew Regent was the oldest. And he was obviously the head of this family. She saw this in the way he held himself. How people listened to him. Deferred to him. And she hadn’t known him long, but it seemed like they didn’t do it out of fear. Which is the only reason she’d been brave enough to say what she had just said.
“I think we need to get this out in the open,” she said. “Because if . . . if Dayton is behind all of this, then I’m guessing he could come after all of you again. Which means he could come after Jardin and his family. Or Gracen. Right?”
“Nobody is touching Gracen,” Victor rumbled.
“Or he could come at you,” Regent said.
“Nobody is touching Aston either,” Maxim said in that same tone that Victor had used.
Badass alpha voice.
“Am I right when I say that you don’t always operate on the right side of the law?” she asked.
Maxim tensed before letting out a sigh. “Our family runs the largest criminal syndicate in Louisiana. For years, the Malones have owned New Orleans. Our father groomed Regent to take over, just like his father did to him. And his father before him. And all of them, apart from Regent, have been fucking psychopaths. I hope you understand why I hesitated to tell you all this. It’s not something I can tell just anyone. Well, many people know what the Malone name means. But still . . . it’s one thing to hear rumors and another to have your man come straight out and tell you that his family has been in the crime business for years.”
