Chapter 16 #3
Allie grabs her arm, urging her back to her seat. “Don’t freak out until we know what’s happening.”
Ang tightens her grip on the napkin in her hand, but allows her younger sister to pull her down.
Allie typically isn’t the one remaining calm, cool, and collected in these types of situations, but becoming a mother and moving in with Pope seem to have been good for her.
Good for all of them.
Pope wraps his arm around the back of her chair protectively. “Is that where Luca is?”
Nana releases a heavy sigh from the head of the table. “You know I don’t like this talk at the table.”
Savage cuts an apologetic look to her. “I’m sorry, Mom, but this is important.”
“That’s what you always say.”
She pushes back her chair with a huff, grabs her plate, and disappears into the kitchen, unwilling or unable to hear any more family business drama that she does not want to be involved in.
The matriarch of the Hawke family has suffered enough at the hands of people like Satriano and likes to pretend the suffering is done, even when things keep happening that leave all of us devastated—including her.
I worry at her age, her heart won’t be able to handle another tragedy.
Savage slides his phone onto the table. “Jude called Luca, and he went over to check it out with one of our security teams while Byron went to Jude’s, so he wasn’t there alone.”
Angie glares at him. “Is he okay?”
The panic lacing her voice slices through my chest, and I must not be very good at hiding my worry because Gage’s hand finds mine on top of the table and squeezes.
Jude’s anxiety can spiral, and after witnessing the explosion at the café and the shooting, another incident so close to home could easily send him to a very dark place. So Ang’s concern is warranted.
Gabe nods. “Jude is fine.”
“What about The Grind?”
Savage shakes his head. “Luca couldn’t find anything. No one there, nothing amiss inside or out that he could detect.”
Angie releases a heavy sigh of relief. “That’s good.”
He nods. “It is.”
Gabe shifts restlessly in his chair. “But…”
She tenses again instantly, as does everyone else around the table. “But what?”
Leave it to Gabe to get right to the point. “We all know how vigilant Jude is, and how he keeps an eye on everything from his place. If he thinks he saw someone that shouldn’t have been there, then there probably was someone suspicious.”
Dad nods. “And we still don’t know who took a shot at Satriano’s man…there are likely other players in town who may assume we’re mixed up with Satriano, thus making us targets.”
Pope scowls. “The goon certainly didn’t have any idea who shot him, or at least didn’t say anything to me. I tried to get as much as I could out of him, but either he was well trained to keep his mouth shut or he didn’t know.”
My stomach continues to turn. All the research, investigation, and frankly hunting we’ve been doing trying to track down the various potential threats has been exhausting.
And my head keeps coming back to one person who still remains a massive mystery.
“You don’t think this has anything to do with Michael McDonald being in town, do you? ”
Gage stiffens next to me, his hand tightening on mine again. “Why don’t Gabe and I go over there, just to check it out and be sure Luca didn’t miss anything.”
Gabe cuts his gaze to us and zeroes in on where our hands are clasped together. I try to tug mine out from under Gage’s larger one, but Gage holds it steady.
Shit.
There’s no hiding it now. Not that there really was after Nana’s question.
Gabe nods. “That’s a good idea. We’ll go after dinner. I don’t think this is a red-level emergency, do you?”
He raises a brow and Gage shakes his head, but there’s something unspoken between them that I can’t quite figure out. Probably some secret code they used in the Rangers that the rest of us aren’t privy to.
Everyone quietly returns to their dinner plates, but the conversations have suddenly died off, the tones more hushed and reserved, as if everyone can sense the shift in the mood.
I can’t say I’ve ever been happy about any potential danger to any of the members of the family or the businesses, but at least it drew attention away from us for the rest of the night.
Gage leans over, finally releasing his hand to wrap his arm around the back of my chair. “You going to come with us, Hellcat?”
“Of course, I am.”
His eyes soften, concern furrowing his brow. “You’re really worried about this…it could be nothing.”
“You weren’t here when it happened. The explosion and attack on The Grind…
” I release a heavy sigh as my eyes burn and I fight the tears that want to come.
“The Hawkeye Club is our second home, but The Grind is kind of like, I don’t know, the heart of it all.
And when it was gone, when it was tarnished with blood from Kennedy, Stone, and Isaac, it just felt like everything was wrong.
Like the heart of Hawke Enterprises stopped beating.
” I look up at him, trying not to slip and do something stupid like reach out for him to hold me when I feel so out of sorts again. “And now something else might happen…”
Gage’s jaw hardens along with his gaze. “We’ll make sure it doesn’t.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “But I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that it doesn’t.”
Somehow, I believe him.
Having him by my side, having a partner capable of defending the Hawkes the same way I do and who is willing to do it with that kind of commitment in his voice makes it really seem possible.