Chapter 10 #2
“I miss the Gypsy I knew. You’re right, she’s an adult and chose her path, I still feel guilt I left her behind, wasn’t there to look after her, and she picked the wrong one.
But I made a decision well before I was eighteen and walked into a recruitment office.
That decision was the right one for me. I know where my life is heading, and it’s not to an eventual bullet to the head or a cell in a penitentiary.
All growing up, everyone around Dad was doing some version of what Dad did.
Most of our ‘uncles’ met one of those two ends.
It isn’t like they don’t know that’s the ticket they’re punching.
If those are the risks they’re willing to take, that’s on them.
I intend to retire too, do it well, and do it traveling, grilling meat for my kids and grandkids when they come over for dinner, and being commissioner of my fantasy football league. ”
“I approve of these goals.”
“You like football?”
“I like football players’ asses in their tight pants. Does that count?”
He roared with laughter.
After our conversation, I was thrilled to hear it, so I grinned at him in the dark.
“You gonna give me shit about my commitment to my fantasy football league?” he asked.
“Only if you forget to take out the trash,” I answered.
I said that, but he’d already learned how I felt about him taking out the trash.
I knew this lesson had sunk in when he aimed in the dark again, and this kiss lasted longer.
We were all tangled up after it, and I knew by his feel he was done talking (oh yeah, we were getting to know each other real good) and wanted to sleep.
So I settled against him.
He settled into me.
And then he said sleepily, “Thanks for listening to my family damage without making me feel like a freak.”
That was not a sleepy subject thread to pick up, so I decided to leave it alone, for now, and just say, “You’re far from a freak, Knox Chambers. You’re just a good guy, through and through.”
He made a contented sound deep in his chest that was part growl and part purr and made me wonder how committed I was to letting him sleep rather than sucking him off before I let him sleep.
Since he dropped right off, that decision was taken from me.
However, I didn’t drift away because I was processing all he’d told me.
Of course, there were always criminals, and they were people, so they had the capacity to procreate. And it wasn’t like I didn’t know crime could run in the family.
It just surprised the hell out of me that a man like Knox had that history.
I mean, if you didn’t have anyone to guide your way, how did you find your way?
My guy so totally was not a freak. He was so totally extraordinary.
And it was tremendously distressing, knowing he grew up with that, and knowing they didn’t seem inclined to let him go.
But he was here.
They were wherever they were.
And he’d chosen his path, and it didn’t include them.
So it might not all be good.
But it wasn’t as bad as it could be.
I thought that then.
Which meant I had no idea what would happen in the future.
And just how very much was missing.
And how that would blow up in both of our faces.
* * *
So, I was a wuss.
After Knox dropped the bomb about not sleeping with Cheyenne in all the time they were together, I texted him that morning to say I wasn’t dropping by, and I’d see him after work for our chat.
I expected him to call me on my wuss-hood, but he just replied, Okay, baby. You pick for dinner. You know I’ll eat whatever you bring.
I did know this.
And like every little detail about Knox, I treasured it and it gutted me.
Knox wasn’t a picky eater; he was an adventurous one.
In our short time together, we’d done Korean barbeque and he’d introduced me to Lucky Boy, even if I’d grown up in Phoenix and never heard of this tiny place that served delicious burgers and shakes, and all good things fried, like corn dogs, mushrooms and hot poppers, and had been doing so for decades.
And Lucky Boy was what I’d decided we’d have for dinner.
I was able to live through my wussiness during the day when I was busy earning a living, and my mind was busier with fretting about my upcoming conversation with Knox.
The one meaningful thing I’d accomplished all day was giving Byron my sister’s number, which made him smile such a huge, loopy, happy smile, it temporarily lifted the confusion in my head and made me happy too.
I was hopeful, since about five seconds after I walked away from his table, he seemed to be sending and receiving a ton of texts all day—all of which brought the return of his cute, dopey smile—that wasn’t going to go directly south.
Reminders of my wussiness didn’t come back when it was close to quitting time either.
This was due to the text I received from Knox, which made me feel a far different feeling.
Forget food. Just get your ass to my house after your shift.
I wasn’t fond of this turn in tone, or his order, so I returned, What’s your deal?
Just get here, was his reply.
Did something happen? I asked.
We’ll talk when you get here.
I was rethinking our chat, mostly the fact that I didn’t want to work all day, fret all day, simmer in my wussiness all day, and then walk in on a cranky hot guy.
Maybe he was cooped-up cranky. Just one dinner out in a full week didn’t top up a guy like Knox.
Maybe he’d stewed about me dissing him on a morning visit and bringing over Jacques, and he was wound-up-about-that cranky.
Either way, I didn’t want him to take that out on me.
But I also didn’t want to delay this any longer, whatever it turned out to be.
We had to figure ourselves out.
I had to talk the Angels down from getting involved in Knox’s family business.
And I had to continue my work at forming a relationship with my sister.
I’d been delaying all of it (the thing with Dream for nigh on thirty years), and none of it could be delayed any longer.
Thus, Raye and I were at the lockers getting ready to leave, when, out of the corners of my eyes, I saw her pull out her phone and engage it because she received a text.
“Luna,” she called.
I turned fully to her.
“We have a visitor in the parking lot.” Her eyes were big so I knew to brace. “Dimitri.”
At this news, my eyes got big too.
There were cameras on the parking lot at SC (and inside SC, not so incidentally), and they weren’t only Tito’s. The Nightingale boys had tapped into them, and I knew without asking she’d just got a text from whichever Nightingale boy was staffing the control room that day.
I’d mentioned those kidnappings and car chases of the Rock Chicks?
Yeah.
The men weren’t taking any chances with the next gen.
After our first and only run-in with Dimitri Alexeyev, we’d asked Arthur to give us the scoop on him.
We’d learned he wasn’t the head honcho of the Russian mob; his uncle was. But he was the face.
And he nor his outfit were something to mess with (we already knew that).
Fortunately, it seemed he kinda liked us.
Because we’d met him, we already knew he was six foot two inches of lean, blond, classically handsome gorgeousness.
If he wasn’t a high-level criminal who had more than likely done some very bad things, and he wasn’t so terrifying, and I wasn’t in love with Knox—straight up, I’d go there.
“Is there a warning we shouldn’t go out?” I asked.
“No,” she answered. “Just the intel he’s there.”
“And Tex isn’t in this room, barring the door or throwing grenades through it,” I observed.
The grenade thing wasn’t a joke. Tex had a bag of them. I’d seen them at his and Nancy’s house.
Fortunately (so far), Angel business hadn’t required him to put any to use.
“No, he isn’t,” Raye confirmed.
“So we can take that as, whatever this is, they don’t think it’s a threat,” I surmised. “But they’re giving us a heads-up.”
“I think we can take it as that, yes,” she agreed.
“What level of freaked should we be that he knows where we work?” I asked.
I stated the question, but we both answered at the same time, “Eleven.”
Also at the same time (what could I say? bona fide research showed besties minds synced, and that’s the gods’ honest truth), we both put our hands to our crossbodies, in which were our Tasers.
“How high on the pissed-o-meter do you think he’ll get if we go out to there, Tasers in hand?” I asked.
We both looked down to our hands on our bags then to each other, and simultaneously we said, “Eleven.”
This meant we took our hands off our bags.
“Ready?” Raye asked.
To have a chat with a mob underboss, even a hot one?
No.
This was my thought.
But I was an Angel.
Thus, I nodded.
We headed out to the door.
Instantly, we saw a cush, shiny, sleek, expensive black Mercedes sedan idling by Lucia’s herb garden.
But Dimitri Alexeyev was in the parking lot leaning against Tweety, Raye’s bright yellow Juke.
We headed to Dimitri and Tweety.
“Long time no see,” Raye greeted.
Dimitri let out a bunch of Russian, the only word of which I caught was angely, doing this through a glamorous smile.
We waited until he was out of words before I asked, “All good?”
“All is very well, Munroe.”
Yeah, we had street names.
And yeah, we named ourselves after the other Angels. Charlie’s. Even though we were Arthur’s.
I sensed, since he knew where we worked, he was only calling me that to humor me and he knew my real name.
And I was at odds that all was very well with him.
He’d been cool and not only hadn’t murdered us on sight during our last mission, he let us take a bunch of money to give to our semi-kinda-sorta friend and recalcitrant informant, Duane, who had been in the crosshairs of some assholes (and who also seriously needed to paint his house, but that wasn’t the only reason we asked for money for him).
On the other hand, the things that could go “very well” for Dimitri were probably not awesome for the greater citizenry.