39
Crooked Mind
Cade
I stare at the bills on my plate, a sudden sense of loss attacking my chest.
“She’s seen through you from the beginning, Cadey. Weak play,” Jake chastises me with a sly grin.
“She isn’t acting like herself,” Mikael tosses his napkin down and sits back in his chair. “She barely ate.”
“She’s been under attack for most of the last week,” Gabriel answers him shrewdly. “Anyone would be paranoid.”
He sounds deflated now that she’s out of his sight. His stiff act of pompous manners isn’t helping her relax with him. I hoped that if I pissed both of them off enough, it would break through that.
“She ain’t fightin’ back like she should,” Ace argues.
He’s right. Last week, Amanda would have smirked and flipped me off. She would have jibed at Gabe to give her a raise to cover it. I miss that snark already. Who knew that I would regret losing dry, cutting wit at every sentence I uttered? The flat response I just got has twisted my heart into knots.
“Maybe none of you are worth the effort,” Jake points out mildly.
My eyes jerk up to him as he takes another bite of food. Everyone stares as he chews as slowly as he can.
“I’m just saying if you didn’t listen when she needed you, why would you now?”
“Bullshit,” Ace snaps and slams his chair back to get up.
“She needs to relax a little. Get comfortable with us again,” Mikael stands up, ready to stop him from going after her in a rage. I know he wouldn’t hurt her, and so does Mikael.
Amanda doesn’t anymore.
“You’re going to scare her like this,” I tell him with a glare. “Especially now.”
That freezes him better than any threat Mikael could have made.
Jake chokes on a laugh and reaches for his water to take a heavy swallow.
“We need to figure out what is going on with her,” Mikael covers his dramatic act with a glare.
“She’s upset at the arrest, and she knows Blake had a hand in it. She’s retaliating,” Gabriel muses out loud.
Jake has his phone in his hand, watching her through whatever camera system he has set up, I’m sure. I want to snatch the phone out of his hand to watch it myself.
He glances at me with a smirk. The bastard has been with me long enough he can practically read my mind.
“She’s fine, Cadey. Relax.”
Fucking asshole. If he doesn’t stop calling me out, I’m going to deck him.
“You put a camera in her room?” Mikael asks in exasperation.
“Which one did you put her in?” Ace turns on Jake with a scowl. He doesn’t care about Jake’s spying, which surprises me. He’d usually be pissed about it.
“Hers,” Jake answers casually without looking up.
“Hers?” Gabriel asks in confusion.
My lips go slack as I realize just how much Jake has been doing behind the scenes. He has some kind of need to keep people comfortable. I can’t count how many times gifts have appeared in my room that he thinks will make my life easier. Ranging from weapons to antidepressants that he’s stolen from some innocent individual. I even came home once to brand new soothing wallpaper. His ability to get shit accomplished is mind-boggling.
“You didn’t,” I protest and put a hand over my face to hide my sudden glee. I know he did, and I’m rooting for him all the way. Jake is in, and he won’t hesitate to push so I can get in as well. I know it.
“You’re spoilin’ her already?” Ace asks in a thoughtful tone. He isn’t yelling and tossing chairs, either. It makes my hand drop away as my expression settles into wary suspicion.
He isn’t acting jealous at all. Why?
Ace’s eyes flick to me, and he raises a brow, startling me.
He wants a team-up? We’ve never crossed the lines before. It’s why I’ve been somewhat flirting without going all out. Not that Jake got that memo. Obviously. We don’t tread on their turf and vice versa.
I look around at Mik and Gabe to find them staring back at me with the same look.
Holy shit. They’re serious.
“When did you start?” Gabe’s attention shifts to Jake with idle curiosity.
“As soon as I saw her,” Jake chuckles at something she does and closes out the app to focus on us instead. “Her beautiful eyes cut me to the bone with the way she saw me. It left an impression. You understand, of course.”
Gabe blinks at the assurance and has to look away as he nods.
“How is she supposed to relax here if she knows she’s being watched all the time?” Mikael interrupts the meeting of the minds before Jake can push harder and do more damage to Gabe’s mental health.
“If I had known I wouldn’t get the phone taken away from me by several possessive, second-tier stalker prudes, I would have found out about her harassment sooner,” Jake tells him with a dark glare. A real one this time instead of the show he puts on for other people. “Imagine it. Her perfectly safe with us and content instead of hiding out and terrified. The cameras stay .”
“Enough of the blame game,” Ace falls back into his seat. “We all know who’s at fault, and we’re gonna beg.”
Do we have time for that? The way she’s acting I don’t think any of us will be able to break through to her. She sees right through most of my manipulations, Mikael and Ace are practically wrapped around her little finger, and Gabe is clueless about how to handle her. That leaves the ball in the spastic hands of Jake.
“What did you guys talk about?” I ask him as a bill soaks up the sauce left on my plate. My eyes track to her food. The dish is mostly full because she picked at it. I normally would have teased that it was too rich for her just to watch her puff up. Now, the joke is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways.
“Our histories, like we planned,” Jake says calmly. Too calmly. It has the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
“And?” Mikael whispers, ready to get slammed into the ice with her reaction. We’re all tense as we wait for her judgment of our pasts.
“She was angry for us,” he looks around as his brows go down thoughtfully. “Sad that we suffered. No pity. No remorse for our actions. Thanks for the reminder. I want to see what she did to Blake.”
To say I’m surprised at the nonchalant explanation would be an understatement. I don’t know what to say. What woman would listen to any of our stories and not feel pity? Or fear? She should be running from us as fast as she can.
“Did she talk about anything else?” Gabriel frowns darkly. My brows furrow at the odd comment.
“No,” Jake answers in his own frosty tone. “She stayed quiet. Even when I told her about Ace tearing the gang apart.”
“You told her that?” Ace gapes at him as his face pales. “How could you think that was a good idea? Are you tryin’ to keep her away from us? You ain’t helpin’ for shit!”
If he went into full detail, I’m fucked. The pointed act of tasting everything she could ingest takes on a horrifying new meaning. Does she think I’m going to poison her?
I think Jake is ignoring him for a second before he straightens in his seat with wide eyes.
“Because I thought your rage matched hers. I was right and very wrong. She is more methodical than I could have ever dreamed,” he whispers and stares at his phone as if he just won a free vacation to his favorite beach. “I’d suggest sleeping lightly tonight, gentlemen. Very lightly. How much time did she spend with him? And no one saw anything? How? ”
I snatch the phone from him with a scowl and find myself looking at a file. An emergency intake form. The list of Blake’s injuries is definitely eye-opening. One-half of his body is basically as mushy as Jake claimed that guy’s ribs were. He’s still in surgery. We’ve had her for several hours by now. There’s no way he’s going to be able to function well after this.
“Jesus,” I whisper, impressed despite myself. “She did this?”
“Give me that,” Ace yanks the phone from me and reads for himself.
“That’s my girl right there,” his smile is feral as he scrolls. I didn’t realize there was more. “He had something she wanted. When he didn’t hand it over, she broke bones.”
“Exactly,” Jake smirks at him and turns to Gabe. “We’re missing something here. Something more than an arrest and a divorce. Even the cheating didn’t have her this angry.”
“We’re past an ex threatening and bullying her,” Mikael agrees. “This goes way beyond property theft, too. But if it isn’t any of the above, what tipped her into violence against him specifically? A combination of it all?”
“He seems so boringly normal,” Jake shrugs, and I agree. He’s a run-of-the-mill scumbag, not high-powered, with a million guys at his disposal. “For an idiot that buys property through shady means for a golf course, of all things. He hasn’t even finished it yet. It’s been six years in the making.”
“It has to go back to that,” I mutter, but it doesn’t feel exactly right. If he’s bullying her to keep her quiet like I suspected in the beginning, she’s blown that out of the water. So, why isn’t she singing about it? Even with the photos missing her word would have a lot of weight if she took it public. Instead, she’s getting revenge. What the fuck did he do to her? Did he visit her in the police station?
The thought makes me swallow hard. With as many connections as he has the corrupted cops would look the other way if he did something there. No one knows we have our own people put in place. She would have been a sitting duck regardless.
“The affairs?” Gabriel asks with a disgusted turn of his lips.
“This is personal in a different way,” Mikael mutters as he looks through Jake’s phone.
“That friend was in a set of photos, wasn’t she?” Ace asks and glances at Gabe. “Maybe it starts there.”
“Fullerton? Was she in any?” Jake asks with sudden attention. “She’s the one who had Amanda’s place trashed. I plan on speaking to her in the morning. If this is payback, who else could she fixate on?”
“I know one of the women in the gym for sure. The blond. Where are the pictures now?” Mikael turns to Jake with a disgusted scowl.
“As I said, with the Judge. If Amanda wants them, I’ll snag them for her in the morning,” he shrugs.
“We need to find Manny,” Ace glances at Mikael, who hands Gabe the phone.
“Manny,” Gabe says in a flat tone, but his eyes widen the further he reads. He’s starting to look a little pale. I’d laugh if I wasn’t in the same fear-filled boat with him.
“I’d like to know what had our imp so filthy when she arrived home Sunday. I only caught a brief glimpse before she ran.” Jake turns thoughtful.
That means she ran straight to the office and waited for the doors to open. She thought she would be safe, and we threw her right back into the cold.
“Mikael, get the list of properties and names from the office. Ace, take Cade with you to talk to Manny.”
Gabriel has control in a snap, the perfect frozen leader for us all. It’s our respect for him that keeps us in line. There’s no hesitation from any of us to get done whatever he needs despite the urge to stay here with Amanda. He’s probably making an opportunity to speak with her alone and try to make amends.
If only we could all manage to get that.
“Jake-”
“I’ll be staying here,” he smiles at Gabe and gets a flat look in return. “Our little imp is up to something, and I want to know what.”
Gabe frowns at him in confusion.
“You think she’s gonna go get the photos herself? Now? ” Ace asks in disbelief.
“We have security systems all over the place and cams too. Not to mention the fence, her lack of a car, and the automatic shutdown on the windows.” I shrug in exasperation. “She’s not going to get through all of that tonight. She’s exhausted and hurt.”
“She’s angry, Cade,” Jake reminds me with a pointed look. “So angry she has herself locked up tight. And too focused by half. She acts as if we don’t exist right now, so it isn’t on us . You got damaged vehicles, not a hospital stay. This is something more, and it’s right at the tip of our tongues. She doesn’t trust any of us to back her up. How far do you think she’ll go?”
“Putting Blake in the hospital should have worn her out,” Mikael frowns at him.
“She has her eyes on a prize we don’t know about yet. Something that has her acting without thought of consequences. I don’t like it, Mik,” Jake’s expression has gone flat with insistence.
“A loose cannon,” I mutter in concern.
We were loose cannons before. Jake and I. The last job we did together before Gabe came along, we didn’t care if we made it out. We took risks we shouldn’t have. Laughed about it without caring. When Jake lost interest in going on, I followed him without a second thought. I still would.
The thought of Amanda feeling that way hollows me out.
If I have any chance of keeping her away from that cliff’s edge, I’ll take it.
“Gabe, you need to back off for now. Go with someone else. Mik. Jake, stick with her and stay sharp ,” I tell him, and he nods. We’re on the same page here. So, why does it feel like Jake is reading a different book than I am?
The other three are gaping at me as if I just spouted off in a foreign language. Maybe I did to them. I’m not as obviously calculating with them as I am with Jake. It needs to change. Especially if they’re offering an olive branch to us so we can all keep Amanda.
I stand up and jerk my chin at them. “Let’s go.”
I don’t wait around for them to finish looking at each other in confusion. They can have their psychic connection bullshit all they want, I don’t care. It’s Amanda I’m focused on.
Jake and I are familiar with the risk-taking routine. They aren’t. When they went dark they imploded while we exploded all over anyone we could get our hands on. We aren’t as rage-filled as Ace and Mik about it, so I guess they missed the signs.
Amanda is a destructive combination of both sides, and we’re the only ones who can contain it.