Chapter 19
Nineteen
New rule. You’re not allowed to work longer than the number of hours you slept the night before.
—Calli’s secret thoughts
CALLIOPE
“What’s wrong?” I asked as soon as he dropped the phone down onto the bed and snatched up the food.
“Give me a second,” he said as he walked outside with the food and tossed it into the yard.
The food hit with a thunk, and I raised a brow at his move.
Seemed a bit overreactive but…
“Did the delivery person say anything to you when she delivered the food?” he asked.
I’d never told him it was a she…
But I could put two and two together.
Based on his reaction, this woman who’d delivered the food wasn’t who she said she was.
Nor did he order any food…
“No. Just handed it and left,” I answered. “She drove a black…”
“Tahoe. California license plates,” he guessed.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Was that the woman who tried to bug Webber’s shop?”
“One and the same,” he grumbled.
“What’s going on?”
He contemplated not answering for a hot minute before he grumbled, “Your sister or Doc ever tell you anything about me?”
I blinked. “You mean, other than you like spicy food? No. You’re the one that I know the least. Which is saying something, because no one really talks to me at all. And Doc’s not one to share any personal info about y’all. So unless you share something with me yourselves…I wouldn’t know anything.”
He looked at me thoughtfully again before he said, “Probably that eight-foot-wide, eleven-foot-tall, topped in razor wire wall you have built up between you and the world.”
I flipped him off, which caused him to smile.
Albeit briefly.
“When I first came here, it was because I was sent to go undercover with the Truth Tellers MC.”
I blinked in shock.
“In the beginning, I just wanted to feel something. I went back to working as a police officer as soon as I was cleared to do so. But I just got bored. I wanted something different. So I moved to New Orleans. During a few cases, I got on the radar with the FBI. They knew my background. Knew that I was a biker. Knew that I’d fit right into an operation that they’d been working on for a while. ”
“An operation involving your motorcycle club?”
“Wasn’t my motorcycle club at the time,” I pointed out. “But yeah. I was tasked with working a joint task force that would get information leading to the arrests of a few choice members of the club. Webber, who was the vice president at the time, and the president.”
“Whoa,” I said. “What happened?”
“I met them,” he answered simply. “They weren’t the awful people that the FBI led me to believe.
I patched in as a prospect, and from there, I integrated myself into the club.
I did the grunt work. I spent a year of my life immersed in this life…
and I decided that I liked it. I liked them.
I liked how they thought. I liked how they didn’t take any shit.
I liked how they were down to earth and giving.
They didn’t take any shit from anyone, but they didn’t do it in a way that went against my morals.
And when they offered me the full patch…
I turned in my resignation to the task force and took the patch. I became a Truth Teller.”
“Did Webber ever find out?” I gasped.
“Yeah.” He shifted. “That was when I took a bullet to the chest for Silver.”
I remembered it vividly.
I’d been away at college earning my degree.
It’d been a big deal.
“So they let you stay?” I asked.
“They let me stay.” He chuckled. “Webber had told me to go. He took my cut and everything. He said not to come back…then that psycho shot at Silver, and I took the bullet meant for her. Webber changed his mind.”
“So they sent someone else,” I guessed.
“They sent Max. Max, who was the sister of the woman that I’d dated when I was in New Orleans.”
“Oh,” I said. “Did you have to break up with her to come to Dallas?”
“No,” he answered as he shifted from foot to foot. “She and I wouldn’t have worked out. She wanted more from me than I was willing to give. She was a good woman, but just not for me.”
“And the sister?” I asked. “What’s her story?”
“When I left, she’d been trying to get into the FBI, and had gotten her final notice that she hadn’t and wouldn’t make it.
When I left, she didn’t have a kid, either.
Apollo did some digging and found out that she’s now working as an independent contractor with the FBI.
They chose her because of her connection with me. Through Bernie.”
“Bernie?”
“Bernadette Waters. My ex.”
“Oh,” I said. “And they’re all here now? Trying to get you to say or do something incriminating?”
Before he could answer, Jasper’s phone rang, and he answered it on speakerphone. “Find anything?”
“Regular bug. She’s about half a mile down the road in her truck listening in. She doesn’t know that you found it, though. So she’s sitting there like a dummy with her headphones on waiting,” he said. “The sister skipped town. It’s just her now.”
“Good,” he said. “At least one of them is smart.”
“Agreed,” Apollo said. “You got another delivery vehicle heading your way.”
“That one we actually ordered,” Jasper said. “Thanks, Apollo. I’ll keep an eye out for her.”
“You do that,” he said. “Also, when the fuck were you going to tell me that you knew the best goddamn baker in the United States?”
My lips twitched.
“What are you talking about?”
“I was surveilling your house earlier and saw a man come up and deliver some cookies to you. I looked him up online and found out that he’s A.
Winthrop. He’s owned several bakeries all over the world.
He has a damn award-winning chocolate chip cookie that’s won accolades all around the damn world. And you’re hiding him from us?”
“Technically,” Jasper said, “Calli knows him. And she’d ordered cookies and invited him to the party, but it was canceled.”
“Dammit,” he muttered. “I would come get some, but Sutton already lost her shit when I suggested we go out to eat. She’s terrified of the ice.”
“Feel like she’s lost enough, buddy,” Jasper pointed out.
My stomach sank.
They’d all lost a lot.
Even Jasper.
“Why you gotta go make it make sense like that?” he grumbled. “I’m going to scramble her transmissions here in a minute letting her know you found the bug. I don’t want her staying on that block and not leaving with the storm on the way. Your ass would probably let her in.”
I snorted. “Hardly.”
That bitch wasn’t coming anywhere near my house.
I didn’t care if it was negative ten out.
“You’re with Calli?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Jasper confirmed.
“Hmm,” Apollo hummed. “Interesting.”
Jasper hung up on him, not bothering to ask what he meant by his comment.
Likely he already knew.
Which had me curious beyond belief.
“There’s our food,” Jasper mused as he heard the doorbell ring again.
This time, he got it, though he did shuffle his way to the door, clearly in pain.
I hid my smile behind my hand, which he caught when he turned around once he’d gotten our food.
“What?” he grumbled.
“Nothing.” I dropped my hand, hoping that my smile wasn’t too big. “I got a lot.”
He limped toward the counter and said, “You seriously need to get a couch.”
“I have one.” I paused. “Kind of.”
His head tilted. “Where?”
I pointed toward a couple of huge boxes that were stacked up in the corner of the living room and said, “There. The delivery people got them in here. But I can’t move the boxes because they stacked them. Doc said he’d come help me, but he hasn’t had a chance.”
“Those boxes were delivered here months ago. I thought they were part of your moving boxes. He’s had plenty of time to come help you. Why didn’t you remind him?” he asked as he started to pull out boxes of food.
I’d gone a little overboard.
Not knowing what it was that he liked to eat, I tried to get several different types of dishes. I just hoped that he actually ate all the hot stuff. Although I could eat spicy food, I didn’t necessarily like it. I saw no point in it when I had to spend half the time cooling my mouth off.
I’d rather be stuffing my mouth full of food than cooling it off.
“Which one did you get for yourself?” he asked.
“The sweet and sour chicken,” I answered as I finally came unglued from the floor.
I shuffled up beside him in my stocking-covered feet and came to a stop so close to him that I could feel his body heat.
The man was a furnace.
“Do you eat out of the carton or on plates?” he asked.
“I have paper plates,” I said. “I like to mix my rice and the sauce. It makes a mess otherwise.”
He nodded and started to open up containers.
He picked up a set of chopsticks and started to take small bites out of each container, and I watched in curiosity.
“What?” he asked when he caught me staring.
“I’ve never been able to figure out how to use those,” I murmured. “Searcy’s tried to teach me before but she says I’m a poor student.”
Jasper snorted. “Imagine that. The girl with the perpetually bad attitude being a poor student.”
I rolled my eyes and handed him a plate before I grabbed a fork and slammed the drawer closed with my hip.
Before I could dig the fork into the carton, though, he caught my hand and guided them into my hand.
With his chopsticks in my hand, and his hand curled around mine, he dipped the sticks into the box of sweet and sour and closed his hand over mine.
He pressed down lightly on my fingers, guiding me in how to use them without talking.
He adjusted my fingers when I moved incorrectly, then helped me pick up a piece of chicken dripping with red juices.
He twisted my hand and his in my direction, then guided the chicken into my mouth.
I leaned forward so that the juices didn’t spill all over me, and groaned when the taste hit my tongue.
“So good,” I murmured around the bite of food.
He grunted in reply and let go of my hand.
“The trick is to use only those few fingers,” he said as he urged me to try it on my own.