Chapter 30
Ranger
I’ve been watching this warehouse on the outskirts of Rockton for two hours. There’s nothing going on. I feel like I’m wasting my time, but the client already paid, so I’ll continue to sit here in my truck, waiting for my ass to go numb.
When my phone rings, for a moment I get excited it might be Elle, but when I see Joker’s name on the caller ID, I blow out my breath and answer.
“What’s up?” I ask, taking a drink of my now lukewarm coffee. Eh, I’m used to it.
“Got some information for you.”
“Shoot.”
“The hairs we found. Finally got results back and we’ve determined it’s a wig, man.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. Which leaves us back at square one.”
“Not completely.”
“How so?”
“Daniel pulled some strings and got access to a few of the cameras in the area. Elle’s brothers know people. It’s kind of scary everything they have their hands in.”
“Not important right now,” I tell him. “What did Daniel find?”
Saying his name out loud doesn’t hurt like it used to after Elle let me have it last week. The pain of not being there is still felt, but the crushing guilt isn’t.
“Said a person who kept their back to the cameras with long black hair went into the gallery right at the party opening, but they never came out.”
“They did all that damage while we were all there? Right under our noses?”
“Seems like. We know the studio was fine that morning. We’d all been up there for something, and we were the only ones in that building the whole day until that night.”
“Who would do something like this? Why?”
“You know as well as I do people are fucked up, Ranger.”
“So, we wait. We walk around looking for someone who wants to hurt Elle for how long? Fuck, we don’t even know if it was a smash and grab by a stranger or personal.”
“You really think it wasn’t personal? After the story she told us about the dorms?”
“No,” I sigh. “I don’t. I’m being optimistic.”
“Well, stop. It’s messing with my head.”
“And I’m the asshole,” I laugh at him.
“I hear you’re an asshole that smiles all the fucking time now.”
“Getting there. Who knew?”
“We all knew. All but you. I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s going on tonight?”
“Elle and Ginny are hanging out at her apartment and I’m on a stakeout. Supposed to be a straightforward job, but there’s nothing going on here.”
“Want some company?”
“Does it come with hot coffee?”
“It can. Send me your location.”
He hangs up, probably halfway out the door already, and I ping him the location. At least I won’t be here alone, dying of boredom.
Forty-five minutes later, Joker’s joined me in the truck’s cab with a fresh cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” I say, lifting the hot beverage to my lips. “This sucks,” I tell him, pointing to the building that I’m positive is empty.
“Money’s money, man.”
“Agreed.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes, lost in our own thoughts, when I bite the bullet and ask the question that’s been on my mind for a while.
“I need to ask you something,” I start, gathering my thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“The bomb. In the desert. The one I wasn’t there for.”
“What about it?”
“How bad was it, really? What happened that day?”
“Wait, you don’t know what happened?” He looks at me with surprise on his face.
I shake my head. “By the time I was released from the hospital, they’d already started processing me out. I wasn’t privy to any information, especially mission reports.”
“And how much guilt have you been walking around with for almost six years?”
“Oh, I’d guess my fair share?” I cringe.
“That’s what I thought. You think because he took point that’s why he got hurt when you’d always been point man.”
Not a question. A knowing statement. Joker has always seen through everyone’s bullshit.
“Am I wrong?”
“Captain,” Joker uses my title, snapping me back in time and to attention. “With all due respect, you weren’t that great of a point man. You didn’t have the power to direct bombs to only explode where you were. Fucking idiot.”
He reaches over and punches me in the arm and it takes everything I have not to flinch. He still smirks.
“If you had been there, that bomb still would have gone off where Danny-boy was standing. It wouldn’t have changed a fucking thing, other than you could have gotten hurt or killed, too.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means the whole fucking thing was a setup to take Daniel out of it.”
“Who the fuck would do that?”
“Closky.”
“His best friend?” I ask, astonished. “Our fourth?”
“The one and only.”
“How? Why?”
“The Russian Bratva.” Joker smiles. “Bet you didn’t see that one coming.”
“Closky was turned?”
“Not in the way you think. He was working for the Pavlov family, and the Allen family was a target. He joined the Army and befriended Daniel with the goal of taking him out as retribution or some shit for ‘The Family’ and he failed.”
“Fuck.”
“So, he stayed his bestie and worked with the daughter of the head of the family and they tried to ruin his life. Until he figured out that part of it and turned the tables. Guy’s an evil fucking genius when it comes to taking other people down.”
“I feel like such an idiot,” I say aloud.
“That’s because you are.” He chuckles. “But seriously, that’s why you’ve been keeping your distance from him? Guilt?”
“I had so much anger and guilt built up inside, I tried to shut down. You know this.”
“When Sarge told me you were here, I knew I was coming this way as soon as I was out. I knew you weren’t good, but I didn’t realize you were holding onto all of that. You were just an asshole. I thought you were grumpy.”
I laugh, the relief and emotions bubbling out as much as I want to keep them in. Now that Elle has found a way to open the gates, the flood of all of it won’t stop.
“I am an asshole.”
“Of course you are,” he laughs with me. “We all are, aren’t we? But you were a smartass asshole when I met you. Cocky, full of yourself, Captain Cross. When I got here, you were just a permanently PMS-ing son of a bitch with a hair trigger, looking for a fight or an argument.”
Looking back, I know he’s telling the truth. I know I wasn’t in a good place. I just didn’t realize how bad that place was until recently.
“She’s doing good things for you,” he tells me earnestly. “She’s done more in three months than any of us have been able to do in years. It’s good to see you smile again.”
“She sees things no one else does. And she calls me on my bullshit. That’s for sure.”
“She has since day one,” he laughs. “I think you need someone like that in your life. Someone that will fight with you and love you simultaneously.”
“She’s good at that,” I chuckle.
“And you know I’m going to tell Danny-boy about this and he’s going to be up your ass. He misses you. The you he knew.”
“I don’t know if he will ever fully come back, but I’d like to talk to him again as the man I am now.”
“He’d like that.”
We sit in silence, both of us watching the dark building, when I get a notification on my phone.
“Huh. Tiny just texted. Said he got a notification there’s a power outage at the apartment. Wanted to know if I was with Elle.”
“And Elle is with Ginny?” Joker asks, paying full attention to me.
“Yeah. They were hanging out and eating pizza.”
“We need to go.”
He’s halfway out of my truck when I get a second notification. The alarm at the shop. “They went to the shop. It’s all good,” I tell him, shaking my phone at him.
He stops, staring at the screen, looking up to make eye contact with me before jumping back in the truck and closing the door. “We need to go. Now.”
“What?” I ask, turning the screen to face me. It’s just the camera feed of the door.
“Go back on the feed,” he says before looking around frantically and hopping back out of the truck, running around to my side, and opening my door.
I’m rewinding the footage and freeze when I see it. Elle and Ginny running up the stairs to the loft and flinging the door open before disappearing inside. And right behind them is a figure silently running up the stairs behind them. My breath freezes as I pray the door caught, but it’s for nothing. They reach out and grab the handle, pulling the door wide open and following the girls inside.
“Move. Over,” Joker demands, pushing me from behind the steering wheel.
I numbly move over the console and into the passenger seat, staring at the phone. Willing it to show the figure leaving. But it doesn’t happen.
“Ranger,” Joker says my name, but I can’t respond. “Cross,” he tries again. “Fucking Jonathan!”
I finally look at him. He tosses his phone at me as he starts up the truck and peels out of the spot, leaving his bike behind.
“Call Daniel. Call him now. Tell him what just happened.”
I follow his orders, bringing up Daniel’s contact information and hitting call.
“This is Allen, what’s up fucker?”
“Is that how you talk to all your employees?” Joker asks, but the seriousness in his voice alerts Daniel.
“What’s wrong.”
“Elle,” I croak out at the same time Joker says, “Ginny.”
“Need your help. Please,” I beg the man on the other end of the line. “Please help us. A person followed them through the studio door and I can’t see what’s going on, but I don’t think it’s good. Please, Daniel. Help me.”
He huffs out a humorless laugh. “I’ve been waiting six years for you to call me, motherfucker. And it’s to beg? You don’t have to beg, man. Of course I’m going to help. But I also expect a real phone call when whatever is going on is over.”
“You got it. I’m sorry.”
“No need for all that shit. Where are you versus where they are?”
“We’re forty-five minutes out,” I tell him.
“Thirty!” Joker yells. “I’m pushing a hundred.”
“Don’t get yourself killed on the way, idiot!”
“Ginny’s afraid of the dark. If she was already panicking and that’s why they ran to the studio, she’s not okay. And I think it’s about to storm,” Joker replies.
“I hear you. I’m on my way. I’ll meet you there. Be safe.”
He disconnects the call, and I take a deep breath. “We have to save them. They have to be alright.”
“They will be. Between Scrappy and Pixie Scrappy, no man stands a chance. None of us are smart enough to win against them solo. Imagine what two of them will do together,” Joker tells me.
“Just get us there,” I repeat before trying to call Davis and Tiny. Both calls go to voicemail, and I wonder what kind of storm we’re running into as the first drops of water hit the windows. “Rain? It wasn’t supposed to rain tonight,” I mumble to myself.
“Guess mother nature changed her mind. Fickle bitch.”