Chapter Six
Saturday, June 7 th .
Riverside District. Austin.
I’d been up half the night getting justice for Cindy and her little baby, and I slept a lot later than I should have. First thing I did when I opened my eyes was light up a smoke and check my messages.
I was surprised to see a text from Kamps.
“Nice one.”
“Thanks.”
And more surprised to see one from Regan.
“Did you catch him?”
“I did.”
“Good job.”
“Thanks.”
Happy that Regan texted me, I wrapped my arm in plastic, heavy on the duct tape, and took a hot shower. Toweling off my long mop of hair, I realized I was starting to feel a lot better. My arm hadn’t woken me up a single time in the night with the usual throbbing and me needing more meds.
Dressed in clean clothes, I was popping down a couple of slices of bread for toast when Neil called.
“Hey, Lukas.”
“Hey, yourself. I saw most of the game last night at the bar. Nice double play.”
“Thanks, cuz. Have you checked on Cindy?”
“I took her a burner phone so she could text me, but I haven’t heard from her today.”
“Would you mind giving me that number, Lukas? I’d like to get to know her a little better.”
“Sure. Write this down.”
“Thanks. I’ll give her a call and make sure she has everything she needs for her and for the little baby.”
“I realize it’s only a temporary fix, but how long can she stay at your shelter?”
“I’m working on finding her a permanent place and I’m trying to get her additional financial support from the state and from the city. I do that for all the girls and women who stay at Rosedale.”
“Fantastic. Let me know if I can help. I’ve got my truck if she has to move furniture or a baby crib or anything like that.”
“Thanks, Lukas. We can’t save them all, but we can make a huge difference to a few and get them pointed in a better direction.”
“Amen to that. You really are helping, and I wish I could do more.”
“Bring them in when you find them, Lukas. That’s all we can do.”
When I left my apartment, I wondered to myself if my arm was healed enough to ride my Harley.
I decided not to chance it. If I happened to dump my ride, I’d be paying for a new paint job, and I might have to go back to the clinic and face that doctor.
Even worse.
Cherrywood. Austin.
I hadn’t been home to my address of record for several days and I hated to make my Aunt Gail worry. She’d been too good to me and Tommy.
According to my brother, she took care of us better than our own mother—not that I would know—I never met my mother.
Tommy knew our mother and he was the one making the call, so I believed him.
I parked in the driveway reminding myself to get more clean clothes out of my dresser. I didn’t have enough stuff at my fake address to get through more than a couple of days.
No knock.
I walked in through the front door and Aunt Gail let out a little squeal as she ran towards me.
“Thank goodness you’re home, Lukas Donovan. You had me worried.” She noticed the bandage on my arm and teared up. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m okay, honest. A few stitches and I can’t ride my bike yet, but I’m fine.”
She gave me a hug and wiped her tears on her apron. “Sit down, dear. I’ll pour you a coffee.”
“Smells to me like you baked something good.”
“Butter tart squares. I got the recipe off the internet.”
“Can I try one? I’m starving.”
Aunt Gail hurried into the kitchen and brought me a plate of the new squares. I ate the first one and couldn’t believe how fuckin’ good they were.
Sugar rush.
I ate two more.
“So good. Those things are winners. I love them. Don’t lose that recipe.”
She laughed. “What have you been doing for the past few days?”
“Working less because of my arm and sleeping a lot.”
Shouldn’t have said that. Time to lie.
“Where were you sleeping, dear?”
“Umm…at a friend’s house.”
“Why didn’t you come home to sleep? I could’ve helped with the bandages.”
“I can’t always make it home.”
She smiled. “I know that, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“No, you don’t and most of the time, I don’t like it either. I don’t like you being alone at night and I like sleeping in my own bed upstairs.”
“Can you tell me what you were doing when you got hurt?”
“No, I can’t, but I can tell you one thing I was working on. This is a good story.”
She refilled our mugs and sat down to listen. I told her the whole sad tale about meeting Cindy in the laundromat and about the eviction and about taking her to Neil’s shelter.
Aunt Gail smiled when I was done. “I’m so happy that story has a happy ending, Lukas. You helped that poor girl so much. What was her baby’s name?”
“Flint. She wanted to name him something hard, so he’d be strong and tough when he grew up.”
That brought on the tears. “That poor child. What a rocky start to his little life.”
“Neil is hands-on now. Cindy and Flint have a much better chance of making it.”
“I’m so glad you saved her, dear. You do such good work.”
I rolled my eyes at that one, drank one more cup of coffee and then ran upstairs and got clean clothes.
I’d stayed a lot longer than I intended to, but I had to make up for lost time with my aunt. She was family.
Then I had to go.
I hugged Aunt Gail goodbye and as I started my truck, I got a text. The phone sat on the passenger seat so I could see who was calling or texting me.
Regan.
“I’m home right now. Come for lunch.”
“Okay.”
Shay Residence. University Hills.
I’d been to Regan’s place once before and barely remembered being there. Luckily, the address was still in the GPS and the directions took me to her townhouse in the University Hills area of Austin.
I rang the bell, and she opened it looking hot in tight black jeans and a snug T-shirt. She pulled the door open wide and smiled at me.
I stepped into the foyer of the townhouse, feeling the weight of the moment press against my ribs. I wasn’t sure why I’d agreed to come without even thinking it over. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was the way she’d looked at me at the bar the night before—like she wasn’t afraid of me—like she saw something past the walls I kept so carefully intact.
Despite the meds, my left arm throbbed, the bandage stretched tight over the wound. I should’ve been home, resting, not standing in the middle of Regan’s warm, living room, watching her and wondering what she had planned for me.
She was devious and I couldn’t trust her. That thought crashed into my head and startled me.
I didn’t see it at first. She was hot and I couldn’t see past that side of her.
Now it was obvious in the small smirk playing at her lips as she handed me a beer. She poured herself a glass of wine from an open bottle and held the glass up in a toast gesture.
She was making a power play. It was there in the way her gaze flicked over me, lingering on the bandage on my arm, the wood in my jeans.
She had me and she knew it.
I should leave.
I should say thanks for lunch—not that I had any—and get out of there before I made a mistake.
Instead, I stayed.
“You’re wound tight,” Regan murmured, her voice smooth as silk, rich with something unreadable.
This wasn’t the way I pictured her.
My pulse was a drumbeat in my ears, my body wound tighter than I cared to admit.
Regan’s fingers brushed over my uninjured arm, light and teasing, and my restraint snapped like a frayed wire.
My beer bottle hit the table with a dull clink as I set it down. A second later, I had her pressed against the nearest wall, my good hand fisting her hair as my mouth crashed against hers.
Regan met me head-on, no hesitation, her hands skimming over my chest, careful of the wound but not cautious in the way she took what she wanted from me.
I groaned, a mix of frustration and need. She was too good at this, too good at unraveling me. I dragged my lips down the curve of her jaw, her pulse hammering beneath my tongue.
“You don’t know what you’re getting into,” I muttered against her skin.
Regan laughed, breathless, her fingers slipping under my shirt, nails scraping lightly over muscle. “Neither do you.”
I didn’t. But I wasn’t stopping.
Even as my arm burned, even as every instinct told me to pull away, to stay in control, I was already lost.
Regan arched against me, her body molding to mine like she belonged there, and I knew this was reckless. Dangerous. Inevitable.
Her lips found mine again, softer this time, tantalizing and coaxing. She wasn’t rushing, wasn’t pushing—just letting me decide. And that was my undoing.
A growl escaped from my throat as I lifted her easily despite the sting in my arm, guiding her toward the couch, the hallway, the bedroom—I didn’t know, didn’t care.
All that mattered was her, the fire in her touch, the way she made me forget why I’d ever wanted to keep my distance.
By the time I pulled her down on me, my pain was a distant memory, lost in the heat of her skin and the dangerous, consuming need between us.
All concept of time gone, I woke up on the sofa and the townhouse was silent and still. I sat up and lit up a smoke not caring if she allowed smoking in her personal space or not
She wasn’t here.
I finished what was left of my beer and saw the note propped up against her empty wine bottle.
Had to go to work. Stay as long as you want.
“I didn’t get any fuckin’ lunch and I’m starving.”
Nobody listening to my complaint and still too caught up in the mellow afterglow to move, I lit up another smoke and wondered if I was in love with Regan Shay.
“No. It ain’t the same as when I was crazy out of my head over Yvonne. This is different. I want Regan for different reasons. Want her but I can’t trust her. All the warning signs are there.”
“I can feel the trouble surrounding her. Bad energy. Regan is not what she seems. She’s not a simple bar owner trying to get her profits up. She wants me for a reason, and I can already feel her starting to use me.”
“But for what?”
“She’s a manipulator and she uses her body and her great looks to get what she wants.”
Wish I knew what that was.
“Here I sit in her townhouse talking to myself. She won round one. I have to make sure there ain’t a round two, or who knows what I’ll be doing on the losing end of her goddamned puppet strings.”
I have to use my head. No way I can ignore the danger signs. I can’t keep seeing her even though a part of me wants to.
I stood up, gathered my clothes up off the floor and got dressed. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
Riverside Bar and Grill. Austin.
On the drive back to my other life, I grabbed Whataburger and fries and ate while I drove. I needed to touch base with the low-lifes in bar number one and find out what I’d missed in the dark alleys while I was bleeding out in my hovel.
First thing pissing me off was people in my space in the back corner. Three bikers were making my booth their home.
I could’ve made them move, but trying not to attract any attention, I sat in the next booth over. Didn’t like it and it didn’t feel right.
My angle on the bar was slightly skewed.
Lily hurried over to bring me a pitcher and flashed me a big smile. She leaned in and whispered, “Where were you? I was getting worried.”
“Working. No need to worry. I’m back now.”
“Brandy and Crissy were both in here looking for you.”
“They can keep on looking, Lila. I’m not interested in either one of them.”
Lila laughed. “Those girls got no morals. What standards they do got are dragging in the dirt.”
I laughed as I filled my glass with Shiners. “You called it, Lila.”
She’s too nice to be working here.
Nothing going on at the Riverside Bar. None of the Tango assholes I was interested in were here. Looked like a wasted trip.
I finished my beer and moved on to the next gang I was watching. Maybe I’d get lucky and turn over a rock there.
Dry as a Bone. MLK District. Austin.
The Mex Mafia boys hung out in this bar—Dry as a Bone—one of the toughest areas of the city. Not far from their clubhouse and their watering hole of choice.
Blacky wanted them bad for all kinds of filthy shit they’d been responsible for, and for all the time I’d put in so far, I had nothing useful.
Not yet.
That’s what surveillance was all about.
Waiting.
“Where the fuck you been, Lukas?” asked the bartender. I sat at the end where I was out of the mainstream, and he brought me a pitcher, a frosted glass and a coaster.
“Been around. Took a couple days off and did nothing but sleep.”
“Know how much I’d like to do that?” he laughed.
Nice guy. They called him Sparky . Used to be an electrician before he bought the bar.
After one in the morning, the Mafia club boys started drifting in, but they sat at a long table near the back of the bar, and I wasn’t close enough to hear what was going on.
They definitely weren’t going to invite me to join them and then spill their plans for the next big drug buy from the cartel.
I had to find that out on my own.
Didn’t have to wait long for action. One of the Mex club girls plunked her skinny ass on the stool next to me and started getting cozy.
So fuckin’ cozy it was dangerous.
Lucia Lopez. Beautiful girl with long, shiny black hair that almost reached her butt. Too thin for my liking, but I wasn’t interested so what did it matter?
Her sitting on the next stool to me spelled trouble and I considered finding another place to sit. Cowardly way out of the situation, but my arm…
“You gonna buy a thirsty girl a drink?” She winked at me.
“You think Mario would get pissed at me if I bought you a drink?”
“Don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t belong to him. He only thinks I do.”
“You guys have a fight?”
She shrugged her thin shoulders. “Like you care?”
“I don’t want you doing something to piss him off and then getting hurt because of it, Lucia. I’d hate to see that happen.”
My phone signaled a text, and it was Regan.
“Are you coming by the bar?”
“On my way.”
“That your girlfriend?” asked Lucia.
I shook my head.
Lucia smiled. “Guy who looks like you could have any woman on the fuckin’ planet.”
I grinned. “Thanks for that thought, Lucia. I’ll see you again.” I tossed a bill to Sparky, and he nodded his thanks.
Mahaffey’s Bar and Grille. Montopolis.
I dropped by Regan’s bar on my way home intending to stay for one beer. No fuckin’ way I was going to let her get her hooks into me for her own purposes—whatever they turned out to be.
I sat on the end stool, and she flashed me her dazzling smile. Her teeth were white enough to blind a person. My shades were in the truck.
She served three guys, then plunked a pitcher of Shiners down in front of me.
“I only need one glass. I’m not staying.”
“It’s almost closing time. Why don’t you follow me home? You didn’t get the lunch I promised you. I’ll make you breakfast and maybe we’ll get to know each other a lot better.”
Get to know each other.
Words that spelled danger.
This is where the train always derailed for me. Women always wanted to get inside your head so they knew what you were thinking, and that’s something I couldn’t let happen.
I couldn’t let anybody inside my head. I had too much classified stuff stored in my gray matter. What I knew went as high as high could go. Right to the fuckin’ White House.
I tipped up the glass and chugged the beer down. “Not tonight, Regan. I have to work.”
“I know you well enough already to catch you in a lie.”
“Me too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The smile vanished from her gorgeous face.
Do what you have to do.
I said the words I knew would piss her off.
“You figure it out.”