13. “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves” #2
“We’re not focused ,” Raye bit out, then got in Kevin’s face. “What are you into?”
“Fuck you,” he spat.
She caught him by his collar and shook him. “What are you into!”
Kevin seemed to be making a move to push Raye off, but all the girls shifted, and not incidentally, Tex shifted too, so he stopped making that move.
“Kevin,” Willow said quietly, and the room stilled at her tone, though before Raye did, she let Kev go and stepped away. “Trevor’s dead and Harlow’s space was violated. What did you bring into our lives?”
“I didn’t do it, babe,” Kevin said.
“Do what?” Willow asked.
“It’s gonna get sorted,” he lied.
“How will it do that if you are what you obviously are, intent to run away?” Willow returned.
“I just need time,” Kevin declared.
“Time for what?” Willow kept at him.
“Time to get some shit straight,” Kevin said, still avoiding responding to a direct question with a direct friggin’ answer.
“What shit?” Willow asked.
Kevin suddenly shot to his feet, Tex closed in, Raye closed in, the rest of us closed ranks in front of Willow, and Kevin shouted, “ I just need time! ”
Everyone was silent.
Raye let this go on for a few beats before she asked calmly, “Time for what, Kevin?”
Kevin shook his head in frustration, but said, “It was Trevor’s idea.”
Raye expelled an impatient breath that this guy was being such a pain, and I was right there with her.
“And Trevor’s a lunatic,” Kevin added, though that didn’t give us anything. He looked toward Willow. “You know that, Will.”
Willow nodded. “I know that. And I know that you’re a user. And a loser. I know that I wasted years on you. Years . And I know that me,”—she threw a hand out—“and all my girls need bodyguards now because of something you brought into our lives.”
Kevin sneered at me. “It wasn’t my idea to set me up with one of your undercover friends.”
Raye cut in. “These are your choices. You can either tell us what’s going on or we can hand you over to the police so they’ll know who stole all those wallets and purses and phones from their dates, and you can face that music. Your choice. You’ve got five seconds to decide.”
Kevin scowled at her, but alas, that five seconds was three seconds too many because suddenly, Mace, Javi, Gabe and Jacob were there.
Strolling through us like he owned the joint, Mace announced, “We’ll take it from here.”
“You will not!” Raye exclaimed. “We’re in the middle of an interrogation.”
You had to hand it to him, when Raye said this, Mace didn’t even crack a smile. He simply commandeered Kevin, who was shouting, “Who are you fuckin’ guys?” (to no one answering). Mace handed him off to Jacob.
Jacob pushed Kevin out the back door with Mace and Gabe following, though Gabe tossed a look over his broad shoulder toward Willow that had my sister senses sparking.
What was that?
Raye and Luna followed them out the door, probably to continue protesting they were stealing the suspect we’d subdued. Tex followed, probably not to protest but instead make sure Kevin stayed subdued.
Javi came to me.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded.
A smile split his face the likes I’d never witnessed before.
He then said a deep, amused, “Babe.”
I liked his deep amusement, also his smile, but I was confused.
“What?” I asked.
“That table dive was legend.”
Oh no!
They had cameras in The Surf Club.
I forgot!
I felt heat in my cheeks, and Javi’s smile brightened to approximately the light of the sun.
“We get there, we can play chaser and the chased, and you can dive on me like that whenever you want.”
Oh God.
I needed someone to murder me again.
“Though, without the hit to the gonads at the end,” he went on. “I’ll need those.”
No, I didn’t need someone to murder me.
I was going to die of mortification.
For sure.
He got super close, and I was so deep in wallowing in my embarrassment, I didn’t even twitch.
He then dipped his head down super low so his face was in mine.
“Fucked up last night,” he whispered.
“What?” I whispered back, surprised at his words, and, let’s face it, more than a little affected by his nearness.
“Baby, those panties?”
My inner thighs quivered at his tone.
“ Damn ,” he half-whispered, half-groaned.
Something else quivered.
Cataclysmically.
In fact, I was relatively certain right there in the staff room, standing up and fully dressed, I had my first Javi-induced orgasm.
“Shoulda let you succeed in attacking me,” he concluded.
“Shut up, Javi.”
He grinned. It was another new one. Roguish and sultry.
Thus, my whole body quivered.
“Bro,” Jacob called from the door.
Javi looked over his shoulder then came back to me. “I’ll be waiting outside at seven.”
“Will you tell me what you learn from Kevin?” I requested hopefully.
He smiled at me like I was cute, bent closer to press his lips hard to mine, then he turned and was gone.
Raye and Luna huffed back in, and we all huddled around Willow.
“You okay?” Shanti asked her.
Willow was looking at no one while addressing everyone. “How could I be so stupid as to waste so much?—?”
“Nunh-unh, nope,” Luna cut her off. “Sometimes our hearts lead us astray. We don’t kick ourselves in the asses for it. We just learn from it and move on.”
“Even I have to admit he’s a serious charmer when he wants to be,” Shanti said.
“Yeah,” I put in. “I knew I was messaging a skeeve, but some of the stuff he said while we were doing that, if I didn’t know what kind of guy he was, I’d totally fall for it.”
Willow latched on to that. “Really?”
I nodded fervently. “Totally.”
Willow seemed relieved.
“Let me guess, the boys confiscated our only lead,” Jessie deduced.
“They had him zip-tied and shoved in the back of a Denali before we could say boo,” Luna confirmed.
I wished I’d seen that.
Even so.
“Excuse me, I am so sorry ,” I snapped. “But none of them took him down from a table dive.”
I mean, I didn’t show my panties, no matter how cute and flirty or how much Javi liked them (yeah, and another quiver), to everyone in my place of work for nothing!
And we’d gotten nothing from Kevin.
“That should have bought us at least ten more minutes of interrogation time,” I kept snapping.
“Agreed,” Raye snapped with me.
We all stood there, silently grousing at the strongarm antics of the Hottie Squad, until Tex ambled in.
“You could have stopped them,” Jessie accused Tex.
“Why would I do that?” Tex asked. “When they’ll be busy questioning him, at the same time doing shit that actually earns an invoice, and that means we’re free to break into that Kevin moron’s apartment and search it.”
Oo!
Great idea!
Raye immediately went into command mode.
“Tex, Luna and me are on that after work.” She looked to Willow. “You need to keep a low profile.”
“I’ll say,” Shanti mumbled.
Willow only nodded her agreement.
“We’ll meet at Angels Headquarters at noon tomorrow to do a debrief on anything we find and then head out for wings and beer with Shanti’s cousin. And maybe, after that, swing by Titus’s garage,” Raye finished.
She put a hand out in front of her.
Jessie put hers on top, I put mine in, Luna, Willow, Shanti (at this point, Tex blew out a breath and walked out of the staff room).
“One, two, three…” Raye said while bouncing our hands.
“Angels unite!” we all said while breaking.
And after that, we got back to work.