Chapter 60 #2
I stopped several feet away. “Interesting. I ain’t asked you a fucking question yet.”
“Don’t have to.” Gator scratched his beard and looked me over. “You got that Angel-of-Death look goin’ on, and I just got this place the way I like it. Ain’t lettin’ you bleed all over my floor.”
Juju came in behind me and locked the door. The quiet shift inside the room told me every Bourbon King had stopped whatever he was doing, but my eyes stayed on their president.
“Where is my daughter?”
Gator sighed. “Knew there was gonna be foolishness.”
“Where is she?”
“Nope.”
The casual refusal wiped away most of the humor that had been hanging around his words.
My jaw tightened. “You know where she is.”
“Sure do.”
“Then tell me.”
Gator gave a short laugh and shook his head. “You rode all the way down here thinkin’ you were gonna stomp into my bar, give me that scary fuckin’ stare, and I’d hand you directions?”
I took another step toward him. “You remember why they call me Angel?”
His expression barely changed. “Everybody remembers, brother. You ain’t exactly subtle.”
“Careful, Crawley.”
The humor disappeared from his face.
“No. You be careful.” Gator straightened and held my stare. “You’re standin’ in my house threatenin’ me over a woman who already said she ain’t ready to see you.”
The words landed exactly where he intended them to.
“You know how many fucking places I’ve been looking for a woman when I didn’t know her name, what she looked like, or whether she was even alive?
” I closed the distance between us until only a few feet separated us.
“I lost her mother. I lost her sisters for eighteen fucking years, and I lost her before I ever got the chance to know she’d been born.
Now you’re standing here telling me my daughter is close enough that you know where she sleeps, and you expect me to get back on my fucking bike and ride away? ”
Something shifted behind Gator’s eyes, but his answer didn’t change.
“What I expect is for you to quit actin’ like a damn couyon long enough to listen. Fiona said she ain’t ready. Not King. Not Romeo. Your girl.”
My fists clenched at my sides.
Gator saw it and blew out a breath. “Gaw’d Almighty, Angel. Don’t make me work this hard before I’ve had enough whiskey.”
“Tell me where she is.”
“No.”
Movement came from my right.
Thore stepped around the bar.
I remembered the big bastard. Hard not to. He was built like somebody had taken a normal man and decided to add another hundred pounds before letting him out into the world. He stopped beside Gator, shoulders squared, making it clear that if this became physical, he intended to be first in line.
Gator glanced over at him. “Easy, big man. I don’t need Devlyn bitchin’ because y’all broke my furniture.”
Thore ignored him and kept his eyes on me. “Back up, brother.”
I looked him over.
Big didn’t bother me.
I’d spent twenty-five years as an enforcer in a one-percent club. Men bigger than me had tried to put me in the ground before Thore was a twitch in his daddy’s balls.
“Or what?”
Thore took a step closer. “You wanna find out?”
Behind him, Gator groaned. “Perfect. Now the two biggest motherfuckers in the room wanna measure dicks.”
My fist tightened automatically.
Gator pointed between us. “And don’t break the good whiskey. I mean it.”
Thore didn’t look away from me, and neither did I. He was younger, strong, and big as a fucking refrigerator.
He had no idea how many fucking men I had put down because somebody pointed and told me they were a problem.
“Son,” I said quietly, “you really don’t want to do this.”
His jaw clenched. “Try me.”
Gator stepped sideways enough to see around him. “Angel, listen to me before you get stupid. Your girl is safe. She’s with Romeo.”
That stopped me for half a second.
Gator caught it.
“Yeah,” he continued, the joking gone from his voice.
“You know that boy. Know him better than most people down here do. Whatever else you wanna be pissed about, you know damn well Romeo ain’t lettin’ anythin’ happen to her.
” Gator held my stare for a second before adding, quieter, “He fuckin’ loves her, Angel.
Ain’t talkin’ about some new-old-lady bullshit either.
That man changed the moment he got his first look at her. ”
His words made me pause. Seven years riding with Romeo had taught me exactly what lived beneath that easy grin when someone he cared about was threatened. If Gator was telling me Romeo loved Fiona, I knew exactly what Romeo would become if anyone tried to hurt her.
That didn’t mean I was leaving.
“I want to see her.”
“And she don’t wanna see you yet.”
“You keep saying that like it’s gonna change something.”
“It damn well oughta.” Gator folded his arms across his chest. “You really want the first thing you ever do as that girl’s daddy to be ignorin’ the first thing she asks of you?”
My fist loosened before I could stop it.
The bastard saw that too.
Then anger closed around it again.
“You don’t get to tell me how to be her father.”
“Nope.” Gator shrugged. “But somebody’s gotta tell you when you’re actin’ like an asshole, and apparently today that somebody is me.”
“Fuck you.”
His grin flashed. “See? Now we’re talkin’ like old friends.”
I took another step.
Thore moved with me.
This time, there was nothing playful about the way he planted himself between us.
His chest hit mine hard enough to push me back half a step, and the old instinct that had kept me alive for fifty fucking years took over before thought caught up.
My weight shifted. My right hand tightened.
I watched his shoulders, already calculating where the first opening would be.
Power wasn’t how you dropped a man Thore’s size.
Experience was.
Gator’s voice came from behind him. “You two seriously gonna make me explain to Devlyn why there’s blood all over her bar?”
Neither of us answered.
Braveheart pushed away from the wall. Juju moved farther into the room. Donut abandoned his food, which might have been the clearest indication yet that things had gotten serious, and Worm slowly closed his laptop.
Six Bourbon Kings.
One Angel.
I’d faced worse odds before and come out on fucking top.
Gator’s phone rang, but nobody moved.
The sound cut through the room again, absurdly normal against the violence hanging in the air. Gator kept his eyes on me as he reached into his pocket and pulled it free.
His gaze dropped to the screen, and something changed in the air.
“Romeo,” he said quietly.
Every muscle in my body locked.
Gator answered immediately. “What you need?”
I couldn’t hear a word from the other end, but whatever Romeo said wiped every trace of humor from Gator’s face.
He straightened.
His eyes lifted and locked directly on mine.
For several seconds, I listened to one side of a conversation. My daughter was in trouble. If any of these motherfuckers thought they were leaving me behind now, they were about to remember exactly why they called me the Angel of Death.
Then Gator said, “We’re on our way, cousin.”