by Nina Levine
As Velvet took a seat and Madison made introductions, I excused myself to go to the bathroom.
The atmosphere in the restaurant was electric. Storm had worked long hours to get Trilogy back up and running, and the guys were celebrating hard. I made my way to the bathroom fairly easily, but got held up on my way back, so decided to backtrack and find another way through to my table.
Lost in my thoughts, I ran into Griff. “Whoa, Harlow, you okay?” he asked after we collided.
“Sorry, I was miles away.” I smiled up at him. “I love Sophia, and I’m really glad you finally introduced us.”
Griff was a man of few words and even less facial expressions, and he didn’t let me down. He simply nodded and said, “Figured it was time to bring her into the club.”
The way he said it made me think he could be making their relationship permanent, but I didn’t push him for more. The little he’d given me was probably all he planned on sharing.
“You do realise you’ve lost her to Madison now, right? At least for some hours every week. She’s planning weekly get togethers for the Storm women now.”
His lips twitched and he nodded again. “Figured that would happen. Sophia will love that.”
As I stood watching him and thinking about how much his life was changing, two hands slid around my waist and warm breath tickled my ear. “By my calculations there are about three more hours of tonight left before I can take you home and practice my proposal to you again. Don’t drink too much tonight, sweetheart, because I’m planning the longest fuckin’ proposal known to man.”
It should have been lust that whooshed through me at his words, but instead, guilt hit me fair in the chest.
I need to tell him there will be no more drinking for me for nine months.
I’ll tell him tonight.
Later.
Before I could respond, Griff’s phone rang and he gave Scott a perplexed look. Scott’s body tensed against mine as we listened to Griff’s call.
“Why are you calling me?” He spoke into the phone with irritation. “We settled the cash the other day which cleared up everything between you and the club.”
Silence while he listened, and then – “That shit’s between you, your brother and whoever the fuck he’s buying drugs from.”
He listened some more before moving his phone away from his mouth and saying to Scott, “It’s that chick we gave that money back to the other day…Says she’s got some drug dealers threatening her.”
“What the fuck does she want us to do about it?” Scott asked as he ran one of his hands over my ass. His body against mine and his hands all over me turned me on, but guilt still filled my mind, as did concern for Scarlett.
“She wants us to go to her house and help her.”
“Jesus, she kicks me in the balls and then wants my help?” Scott muttered.
Griff nodded and opened his mouth to say something, but I cut in. “I think we should help her. Scarlett doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who asks for help unless she really needs it.”
Scott let me go and moved next to me. “Well, she strikes me as the kind of woman who can take care of herself.”
I raised my brows at him. “You’re really gonna let a woman calling for help, fend for herself?”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Fuck…” Eyeing Griff, he said, “I’ll take Wilder with me, check it out. You right to keep the party going here?”
“Yeah, you guys go.” He put the phone back to his ear. “Scott will be there soon.” When he hung up, he said to Scott, “I’ll text you the address.”
“I’ll go with you and show you where she lives,” I said.
Scott’s eyes darted to mine and he shook his head. “Fuck, no. I don’t want you anywhere near this.”
“Surely I’ll be safe if I’m with you.”
“No,” his voice was firm, “I want you to stay here. If I take you with me, I won’t be able to concentrate on anything but you, and that will put everyone at risk.”
The baby.
“You’re right,” I said softly as I reached for his hand. “Please be safe.”
His face softened and he squeezed my hand. Dipping his face to mine, he kissed me. “I’m always safe, sweetheart,” he tried to reassure me, but my gut swirled with apprehension. Maybe it was the thought of our child, but I had a bad feeling about something.
I reached my hand around his neck and pulled him back for another longer kiss. “I love you,” I whispered, trying to keep the fear from my voice.
He frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I placed my hands on his chest and pasted a smile on my face. “You should go in case Scarlett really needs you.”
Keeping his attention focused on me for another few moments, he stayed silent, but I knew my man, and he was still trying to decide if I needed him. Eventually he said, “Okay, but if you need me, you call.”
“I will,” I promised and watched as he left.
Turning to Griff, I said, “Can you please let me know if something happens while they are with Scarlett.”
His forehead creased. “You sound worried.”
“I am worried, Griff. I’m not sure why, but I am. I never ask to be involved in club business and I’m not now, but I would like to be kept in the loop on Scott. Please.” The unease hadn’t left me, so I held my ground with Griff. I would not finish this conversation until he gave me his word he would do what I asked.
He contemplated my request and I thought for sure he’d argue with me, but he didn’t. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Thank you.”
I left him and headed back to the girls.
God, I hope my gut is wrong.
I want to marry that man.
11
Scott
The last thing I wanted to be doing was checking in on a woman who’d been nothing but a pain in my ass since we’d first met. It’s funny what the woman you love can convince you to do. However, as I stood in Scarlett’s tiny kitchen and listened to what she had to say, I sensed there was something to her concerns.
“Tell me exactly what he said,” I demanded. She’d just described a run-in she had that day with a guy in a supermarket car park, and he sounded like he had ties to Julio.
“He threatened to disable my brother if he didn’t pay up within two days, and then he said he knew I was connected to Storm and that I should tell you guys to watch your backs.”
I frowned. “I thought you’d paid your brother’s debt?”
Her shoulders tensed. “I did. This is a new debt.”
“Fuck,” Wilder muttered. “Why are you paying his debts?”
“Because he’s dead if I don’t,” she stated, as if the answer was obvious.
“Have you got the cash?” I asked.
She swallowed hard and met my gaze. “No. I’ve got some, but not all of it.”
“Okay, let’s back this up. Did he say anything else? We need something more so we can figure out who he is,” I said, my mind racing as I tried to piece this together. It had to be someone either watching her or watching us, and my bet was on someone watching us.
She rubbed the back of her neck and I caught sight of Wilder’s attention being diverted to her chest. I didn’t give a shit what he did with his time, but I needed his attention completely on Storm at the moment, so I shook my head at him when I caught his gaze. He nodded and quickly glanced back at her face.
“He didn’t say anything else to me, but I did overhear him on the phone as he walked away from me…something about a Julio,” she finally said, giving us the name we needed.
I pulled my phone out to call Griff, however the sound of glass smashing diverted my attention. Wilder reached for his gun at the same time I reached for mine.
Signalling to him, I said, “Front window?”
“Sounds like it, brother.”
“Stay here while we investigate,” I said to Scarlett and after she’d nodded her agreement, we h
eaded to the front of her apartment.
Scarlett’s apartment was old and shabby, as were the sheer curtains on her front windows. Along with the outside light she had left on, they made it easy to see the two guys standing on the front balcony. A gush of wind caused the curtain to blow to the side just as one of the guys spotted us and raised his gun to take aim.
“Fuck!” I yelled, at the same time as Wilder shoved me to the ground.
The gun sounded and thankfully the bullet missed us. I scrambled to my feet and closed the distance to the front door. Yanking it open, I ducked to avoid the fist coming my way. And then another gun sounded, confusing the hell out of me because it wasn’t either of these two guys, and it sounded like it came from behind us.
“Get the fuck out of my apartment!” Scarlett yelled, and tension punched through me at the thought of her getting caught up in this.
“Jesus, Scott, she’s got a fucking gun!” Wilder roared.
He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know, and while I wanted to go to her and rip that gun from her hands and tell her to get the fuck back, I was dealing with more pressing matters – one guy trying to knock me out and another waving a gun around.
As I straightened, I punched the guy in his stomach.
“Motherfucker,” he yelled, stumbling backwards.
Aiming my gun at both of them, I thundered, “Who the fuck are you?” I didn’t recognise either of them, cementing my belief they were from Julio’s crew, but I needed confirmation.
“It doesn’t matter who we are, all that matters is why we’re here,” the guy with the gun snarled as he raised it at me.
“Why you’re here is pretty fuckin’ clear,” I snapped. My brain worked overtime trying to figure out how the fuck this was going to go down.
He smirked. “Nothing’s ever as it seems.”
What the hell?
My finger twitched on the trigger of the gun, but I refrained from pulling it. I needed to confirm who they were. However, before I could do that, Scarlett pulled the trigger on her gun, and all hell broke loose.
She shot at the roof, but it spooked the two guys and the one with the gun also fired his. Thank fuck my reflexes were quick – I ducked in time to avoid being shot.
“Fuck, Wilder, can you restrain her?” I yelled.
“I’m already on it,” he threw back and I blocked out their arguing as I did my best to defend all three of us.
I lifted my leg and kicked the guy in front of me as hard as I could in the stomach, which pushed him backwards into the one with the gun. He dropped the gun, so before either had a chance to recover, I moved to kick it out of reach. They were scrambling to get to their feet, and the panic I read on their faces put my mind at ease. It looked like I was about to get to the bottom of who sent them.
Standing over them, I aimed my gun again, and demanded, “Tell me who the fuck you work for or - ” I directed my gun at one of the guy’s dicks, “ – shit’s about to get real fuckin’ messy.”
Fear sliced across his face and he held his hands up. “Stop! It’s Julio…he sent us.”
“Why?” I asked, keeping my gun aimed at his dick.
He opened his mouth to speak, but his mate silenced him by slitting his throat from behind with a knife I’d never seen coming. As the guy slumped back with blood oozing from his throat, his mate shoved his body to the side so he could stand. Everything happened so fast – one minute I had the situation under control, and the next the tables had been turned.
I did the only thing I could in that moment – I shot him.
As his breath was stolen from him, so too was our chance at gaining new information about Julio.
I raked my fingers through my hair and turned to face Wilder. He held Scarlett around her waist, but now that the threat had been erased, he let her go.
“You good?” I asked her.
“Yeah, but damn that’s a mess,” she said, nodding at the dead men and blood on the floor of her apartment.
Wilder stepped over the bodies and closed the front door. Eyeing me, he said, “We need to get this shit cleaned up before any cops turn up.”
I called Griff. “We need some help here, brother,” I said when he answered.
After I filled him in on what had happened and he told me J and Nash were on their way, he said, “This complicates shit.”
“Yeah.”
“We need to start calling in favours, Scott. Once Julio figures this out, we’re gonna need our backs covered.”
Fuck.
Not the way I wanted shit to go down.
12
Scott
I stood at the end of our bed and watched as Harlow slid her dress over her head. Something was different about her, but I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it. After I’d dealt with the mess at Scarlett’s home last night, I’d headed straight back to Trilogy and she’d been beside herself with worry. I’d never seen her so consumed with fear before, but hadn’t been able to convince her to share those fears with me.
As she smoothed her dress, she looked over at me. “How long do you think Scarlett will have to stay here with us?”
I’d made the decision to bring Scarlett with us when we left her apartment last night. No way was she safe in her own place. Not until we dealt with Julio. “Hopefully not long.” I hadn’t shared with her the events of last night except to let her know Scarlett wasn’t safe.
She watched me for another couple of moments before finally nodding and saying, “Okay.”
I moved to where she stood and wrapped my hand around her wrist, halting her as she took a step away from me. “Are you pissed off with me for bringing her here?” I couldn’t read her and it frustrated me.
“No.” She tried to pull her wrist free, but I gripped it tighter.
Christ.
Why won’t she talk to me?
Pulling her close, I ran my free hand through her hair. “Harlow, what’s going on? You’ve been off ever since I got back from Scarlett’s last night.”
She sighed. “It will sound stupid.”
“Try me.”
After a moment of hesitation, she finally opened up. “I have this weird feeling deep in my gut that something bad is going to happen to you. Last night I was really worried and then you came back with Scarlett and said she wasn’t safe, and I’m still feeling sick with worry. You never exaggerate things, so for you to bring her here tells me you’re worried, too.”
I let her wrist go. “It’s true, I am worried. But we have this covered¸ so I want you to go to work and try not to think about it too much, okay?”
Her eyes searched mine and then she said, “I will.”
“Can you take Scarlett with you? I don’t have enough men to spare one to stay with her today.”
“I’m happy for her to come to the café with me, but good luck convincing her to do anything.”
She had a point – convincing Scarlett to leave her apartment last night had been a tough gig. “I’ve got an idea of how to talk her into it. Let’s see if she goes for it.”
Loud banging on the front door interrupted our conversation, and I left her to see who it was.
“Mr Cole, we finally meet.” Two cops stood on the other side of the door. I knew they were detectives because I’d come across one of them before.
I planted my legs wide and crossed my arms over my chest. “What can I do for you?”
The short, pudgy one at the front that I’d never met before took a step to enter the house, but I put my arm out to block him. He raised his brows. “We’ve got things to discuss.”
I didn’t budge. “Those things can be discussed here.”
A scowl flashed across his face. “Some new evidence has come to light with regards to your father’s death.”
“What kind of evidence?” They’d come up with nothing solid so far, and I suspected they were simply on a fishing expedition.
His chin jutted as smugness glinted in his eyes. “Evidence that points to your club.”
Bullshit.
We’d made sure there was no evidence.
I kept my arms crossed. “So you’re going to interview me?”
A brief flicker of hesitation passed over his face and he stalled for a second. Not the body language of a confident man. He tried to cover it, but I didn’t miss it. “Not a formal interview yet, but we would like to talk to you about it and - ”
I cut him off. “Either you call me in for an interview or we don’t talk. I’m not talking to you off the record.”
The tall detective at the back who was familiar to me, but who I was having trouble placing, took over. “We’ll be in touch.” Even his voice was familiar, but my memory was a tangled mess and I couldn’t place him. He tapped the short one on the shoulder to indicate they were leaving, and in that moment, I realised he held the power in that relationship.
I called Griff as I watched them leave. “You had any cops sniffing around about Marcus’s death?”
“No. Have you?”
“Yeah. Harlow told me they called around while I was away, and they’ve just shown up again, saying they have new evidence that points to the club. When I called their bluff they caved. They also sussed Mum out, but she didn’t give them anything. I’m just trying to figure out what their game is because we covered our tracks thoroughly.”
He was quiet for a moment and then said, “I’ll do some digging, see what I can find out.”
We ended the call and I headed back into the house to find Harlow. I ran into Scarlett on the way, and took a moment to talk to her about spending the day at the café.
“I need you to hang out with Harlow today so I can be sure of your safety. You good with that?”
She frowned. “Not really what I had planned for the day.”
The woman is a pain in my ass.
“What do you have planned?”
“I need to find my brother and make sure he’s okay.”
“So how about you let me do that while you go with Harlow?”
Her eyes narrowed at me. “Really?”
I raked my fingers through my hair. It was going to be a long, fucking day. “Yes, really.”
