6. Char
CHAR
From the beginning. It sounded so simple, and yet I still didn’t know where to start.
My brain rushed a million miles a second, trying to pick apart the conversation I had with that woman.
Important bits. They needed the important bits.
But when I felt a hand descend on my shoulder, it ripped me out of my trance.
I found Rat staring down at me.
“Let us do the meanings. Just talk about the conversation. What did she say to you? What kinds of things did you say back?”
I nodded quickly. “Yeah, yeah. That’s easier.”
He squeezed my shoulder softly before he backtracked to his chair, and I watched him all the way. His bruises were almost cleared up. A bit of yellow still tacked itself upon his face, but his limp was gone. His back was straight, and it didn’t seem like such an arduous task for him to move.
I couldn’t help the grin that crossed my face when he sat without a grunt.
“I’m glad you feel better,” I said.
He snickered and picked up his beer. “Yeah, that makes two of us.”
“Char?” Gauge urged.
I settled back in my chair and folded my hands in my lap. “She still believes that the guys are a threat to me. Drugging them was intentional to get past them so that we could talk, which probably means?—”
“She’s been watching your place,” Dallas said.
“Seriously, don’t worry about meanings,” Rat said as he set his beer down. “We’ve got this. Just talk. It doesn’t matter what order you do everything in.”
I swallowed hard as I dropped my gaze into my lap. “She’s the woman from the picture that you guys have. You know, with me when I was little.”
The sea of heads around me nodded, but no one spoke a word.
“She was?—”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I gathered my words.
“She admitted to me that she’s not an ATF agent.”
That perked Deac up. “Wait, she openly admitted that to you?”
I nodded. “Yeah. She did. I mean, just freely. Being an ATF agent is her cover for an undercover operation she’s running out of Los Angeles.”
“I fucking knew it,” Plug hissed. “That’s why my facial recognition software went haywire when I tried to search around for her.”
“What else, angel?” Gauge asked.
I shook my head. “She kept telling me that she wasn’t a threat, but I kept telling her that I didn’t believe her. She knows you guys run guns by the way.”
“What?” Deac asked flatly.
I sighed heavily and closed my eyes. “When I told her that I wasn’t sure if she was a threat or not, she said something to the effect of, ‘well they run guns that kill people but I’m the bad guy?’”
“Anything else?” Dallas asked.
“She said something about you guys getting to me? You know, turning people like me to your side. Good to bad.”
“Huh,” Mace muttered.
“Were you guys watching the bar before you purchased it from Miss Lilly?” I asked.
I picked up my head and looked around the room, only to find dozens of eyes locked on me. Deac’s face fell to stone. Gauge furrowed his brow. Dallas damn near came out of his chair with every word that fell from my lips.
Their reactions told me everything that I needed to know.
“She knows,” I said softly as tears crested my eyes. Dear fucking God, I was ready to rip my tear ducts out. “She knows you guys were watching the bar before you purchased it.”
“Sweet girl,” Dallas said as he reached out for me.
I leaned away, unwilling to be touched at that moment.
Overstimulated didn’t even begin to describe how much I hated sitting at that table.
How long were they watching the bar? For what purpose?
I still hadn’t figured out why in the fuck they needed the bar in the first place.
I mean, you don’t sell guns and stalk out a place of business you intend to purchase for no fucking reason.
I wanted to ask them so badly. But I was terrified of the answer. So all I did was draw in a quick breath of air before I continued.
“She said that Layborn is a common pass-through town, especially with her case that she’s working. She admitted to setting up shop in the area.”
“Did she say where?” Deadlock asked.
I shook my head. “No, just that she was here watching things. Which is how she stumbled upon me in the bar.”
“Makes sense,” Rico said.
I clicked my tongue. “She also said that every police officer has that one case that sticks with them. You know, changes them and sort of gives their career a bit of direction and passion. She said that my case was that for her. She now works with tracking down people who hurt children.”
“Children?”
“We don’t hurt children.”
“The fuck does she think we’re doing? Running a ring?”
“Can’t be. There has to be something else.”
The murmurs kicked up drowned out the voices in my head telling me that I needed to get up.
I wanted to walk away from the table and breathe, but I was their only source of answers.
The guys were in deep. Deeper than I believe any of them thought.
I had to help them. Even if I still didn’t have all of the answers that I wanted for myself.
Deac asked the important question. The one that I knew churned at the front of his mind.
“How did she give you that fucking bruise?”
I raised my wrist and looked at the black and blue skin shining right back at me. All eyes were on me—well, my wrist—as I turned it and moved it to see how much pain I’d be in. The throbbing made me wince, but outside of that the pain wasn’t all that bad.
It looked awful, though.
“Apparently,” I said flatly before I fixed my voice, “she attempted to make arrangements for my success after the case. She didn’t?—”
A chair scooted closer to me before Dallas slid his hand against my knee. “She didn’t what, Char?”
I closed my eyes. “She didn’t realize that I had to live on the streets and drop out of school to survive after all of the foster homes they tossed me into tried t—to?—”
I heard chairs shuffling and scooting along the floor, but I held up my hand.
“It’s okay. I’m okay. Just—just give me a second,” I said breathlessly.
They all hovered around me, casting shadows toward the middle of the table. My body, cloaked in them. All of them, waiting to jump at whatever I needed.
How could these men be bad?
I looked at them. Really looked. Not just at the concern on their faces or the tension in their shoulders but at the three of them together, the way they’d arranged themselves around me without a single word passing between them.
Dallas’s hand on my knee, already there before I even registered I needed it.
Deac across the table, not touching me but watching me the way he watched everything — like he was already ten steps ahead, already calculating what I needed before I knew myself.
And Gauge, who had gotten up without anyone asking him to and was quietly sliding more food onto my plate because I’d barely touched what was already there.
They hadn’t talked about any of it. There was no meeting, no plan. They just did it. All three of them, moving around me like they’d been doing it their whole lives.
Something settled in my chest. Heavy and warm and terrifying, the way things felt when they mattered too much to look at directly.
I looked back down at my hands instead.
“I tried to grab the doorknob to escort her out after telling her that whatever arrangements she made were ignored, and that’s when she grabbed my wrist. She was angry, and talked about how she risked her entire career or whatever to make sure I got set up good after what happened to my parents.
Guys, it made her really fucking angry to find out that none of the stuff she planned had happened. ”
“Did she tell you what she had arranged?” Plug asked.
I shook my head. “No, I just told her that if she didn’t let me go, the first phone call I placed was to the sheriff.”
“Good girl,” Deac said as he eyed me from across the table.
My cheeks flushed at his words. “And before she left, I told her that if I ever saw her again, I’d figure out whoever the fuck her boss was and tell them that she’s harassing someone on her off hours whose life she’s already ruined.”
I figured they’d enjoy that part, but when no one made a sound, I lifted my head. I gazed around the room at the sets of widening eyes that stood tall above me, all of them, gazing down at my profile.
“You said that to her?” Plug asked.
“Using those words?” Deadlock asked.
A smirk spread across my face. “You’re damn right, I did.”
And that’s when all of their heads fell back in wild laughter.
God, it felt so good to laugh with them.
To listen to their guffaws reach toward the ceiling as they all dropped back down into their seats.
Hands patted against the table and someone clapped their hands.
Plug damn near lost his breath and held his chest, as if he laughed so hard that his heart could stop at any moment.
It felt good to laugh. It felt good to smile.
And as my giggles raised to their level of bombastic clarity, I found myself leaning against Dallas to catch my breath.
But leave it to Rat to bring us all back down into reality. “Char, you’re a fucking badass, you know that?”
I cleared my throat and had to cough a bit before my voice came back. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
He chuckled. “However, you know what it sounds like?”
The table quieted as all eyes turned to his direction.
“What does it sound like?” I asked.
Rat reached for his beer and tossed the rest of it back. “It sounds like she’s on a rescue mission with you.”
That clicked over something in my memory that I had long since forgotten about.
“What?” Deac asked.
“What did you just remember?” Rico asked.
“Char?” Dallas asked as he took my hand. “What is it?”
I shook my head. “I-I-it’s… it’s something that she said to me the last time we spoke. She?—”
“What did she say?” Plug urged.
I drew in a deep breath. “It was when she revealed that she knew you and I, Dallas… you know.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I know.”