Chapter 23
I may be a handful, but so are my tits. And I think that cancels it out.
— Ande to Shayne
QUINN
“ Where are we going?” Shayne asked the next morning.
I pulled up outside the bakery that was on the way to her job—which she agreed to go back to late last night with a text to Silas Mackenzie —and flashed her a grin. “ Sustenance for a long day.”
She rolled her eyes. “ It’s a six-hour shift.”
“ It’s still six more hours than you’ve worked in the last month after getting assaulted,” I pointed out as I closed my door then moved around to hers. “ Plus , it’s my day to bring donuts to the office.”
“ Why ?” she asked.
“ Okay , that’s a lie,” I admitted as she got out and headed into the shop with me. “ I owe the team some donuts because I might or might not have acted like an asshole over the last month.”
She snickered. “ You can be that sometimes, Quinn .”
I knew I could.
It came with the job.
It was so fuckin’ stressful sometimes.
“ Thanks ,” I tugged a stray lock of hair framing her face. “ What do you want?”
She looked at the plethora of baked goods in front of her and said, “ I don’t think I can ever come into Pie Hard and not ask for multiple things.”
“ Then get multiple things,” I suggested. “ And get extras so you can take some to my sister. Because if you don’t, she’ll just get all bent out of shape about it, and I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“ Ahh , one of my best clients,” the owner of Pie Hard , Maven Brumfield , said. “ How is she? I haven’t seen her in a few days.”
“ Busy AF ,” Shayne answered for me. “ She’s currently working at Angel Flight and the circus because there was an issue at the circus a few days ago with staff scheduling.”
“ Bummer ,” Maven said as she looked from Shayne to me. “ How’s your brother doing?”
My brows rose. “ Which one?”
“ Auden ,” she answered. “ He came in last week and looked pretty messed up about something.”
I thought back to last week, and winced. “ He , ah, didn’t say he had any issues. I guess I need to check on him.”
“ That’s my fault,” Shayne admitted. “ Your mind’s been solely focused on me and my crap, and not on your brothers like it usually would.”
“ He said something about a work issue.” Maven looked truly concerned, and I looked at her with a different lens.
“ You like my brother, don’t you?” I asked.
Maven’s mouth fell open, and her cheeks went red. “ Absolutely not. I don’t do police officers.”
My brows rose. “ Why ?”
“ Because her dad’s a dick,” Shayne answered. “ And from what little I’ve heard about him, he’s a police officer himself, and likes to control every single thing Maven does. To the point that he’s had the city in here trying to shut her down since she opened.”
Maven sighed. “ He tried it again yesterday.”
Another customer came in, and I started to point out everything I wanted, leaving us with four huge bakery boxes full of shit.
“ Jesus ,” a woman grumbled. “ Save some for the rest of us!”
I chuckled as we walked out, then waited for Shayne to catch the door to the back seat of the truck before placing our spoils on the floorboard.
It was when I was closing the door that I saw a person hiding in the bushes.
With a gun.
I reacted on instinct, launching myself forward and tackling the man to the ground. The gun came up, now aimed at my body, and muscle memory kicked in.
I executed one punch to the face, and the person went limp underneath me.
The person in black and yellow, with a black ski mask covering his face.
“ Goddammit ,” I grumbled darkly.
Standing up, I peered over my shoulder to check on Shayne , who was looking on with wide eyes. “ You moved fast.”
“ Fuckin ’ gangs.” I looked around. “ Do you see anyone else?”
She did the same, shaking her head. “ No .”
I looked back to the person, bent down to pick the rifle up he was going to use to shoot me, then yanked his face mask off while I was at it.
My heart sank.
“ God , I fuckin’ hate this job sometimes,” I snarled mostly to myself.
“ He’s a kid,” she whispered, looking on in shock.
“ A kid with a fuckin’ semi-automatic rifle,” I growled as I looked at the kid I’d just laid out with one hit. “ Did you get ahold of the cops?”
“ Yes ,” she answered. “ They’re on the way here now.”
I handed her my keys. “ Take my car and get to work. I’ll stay here and wait for someone to take me back to the station after I’m done here.”
She looked at me worriedly. “ But this is a brand new truck.”
As if the last ten minutes hadn’t just been the scariest of her life.
“ Baby ,” I couldn’t help the chuckle that left my lips. “ The truck is just that. A truck. I don’t care if you wreck it as long as you’re okay inside it when you do. Go to work. Then pick up some lunch and bring it to the office, because I imagine I’ll be there for a while.”
She patted my shoulder, then leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss me. “ Be safe, Quinn . You’re gonna break me if you leave a second time. Whether it’s intentional or not. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
With that heartbreaking comment she took one last look at the kid, then got in my truck and drove away.
The kid started to stir right when a police cruiser one of my brothers was driving pulled up.
“ Auden ,” I said as he came to a stop beside me. “ Why were you in a bad mood last week that the cute bakery owner noticed and can’t stop herself from asking how you are?”
Auden glanced up at the bakery, his eyes lingering a little too long on the woman I could see behind the counter clocking every single thing that happened outside her shop window.
He glanced back to me before saying, “ Bad day at work.”
He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t force him to.
“ What happened here?” Auden asked as he took in the kid with the busted up face now staring at us with fear in his eyes.
“ Kid tried to shoot me.” I jerked my head toward the gun that was now unloaded and lying behind me. “ Was wearing a mask, so I didn’t see that it was a kid, though. I might not have hit him so hard.”
“ Play stupid games,” Auden said, and I finished with, “win stupid prizes.”
Auden crouched down and looked at the boy who hadn’t moved from his spot on the pavement. “ Why aren’t you in school?”
The kid’s eyes went molten. “ Don’t need no school.”
“ Sounds like you might,” Auden quipped. “ Why were you trying to shoot my brother?”
The kid’s eyes widened. “ Was told to.”
“ By who?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
“ I , uh, I …” he stuttered.
I lifted the kid up by the scruff of his neck, then went and parked his ass in the cruiser’s open back door before saying, “ You have two options. You can tell me what you know, and why you were going to shoot me. Then you can go home and keep your nose clean. Or , I can read your Miranda rights to you. Then you can go to jail and be charged as an adult.”
“ I’m not close to an adult, though,” the kid snapped.
“ No ,” I agreed. “ But sometimes, when you make adult decisions, despite being a kid, you get to have the adult punishment. And attempted murder of a police officer is a big deal. You won’t be charged lightly.”
“ You’ll just let me go?” he asked.
“ I’ll let you go after talking to your parents.” I shrugged.
And ensuring that they got him the fuck out of the gang he was in, kept tabs on him, and ensured that he didn’t try to shoot any more police officers.
I could tell based solely on how scared he was that he hadn’t wanted to do this.
I could also, now that I was less hopped up on adrenaline, realize that he’d been hiding and trying to convince himself to do it. But he probably wouldn’t have been able to.
Mostly because after unloading the rifle, I realized he hadn’t even had a round in the chamber, let alone taken the safety off.
“ I’ll tell you everything,” he said as he held his hands up. “ Just don’t talk to my parents. You can take me to jail.”
Nice try, kid. Nice try.
After leaving the kid’s house with Auden on my heels, I had to have a good laugh.
Mostly because, the woman who was the mom of my would-be assassin, Jaylon , had gone off on him from the moment she realized he wasn’t at school.
When she realized what he’d done?
It’d been nuclear.
She had ripped him a new one, and there wasn’t a single thing he could do about it.
The kid was in the wrong.
And after a discussion, it was found out he’d been trying to be tough with his new friends at school. He’d been offered to have a gang initiation, but he had to ‘knock off’ the cop who was putting all their crew in jail or rehabbing them.
That officer being me.
“ Thanks for hanging with me for half the day,” I grumbled.
It had taken half a day, too.
First , we’d gone to the police station where we waited for the mom to get off work.
Then we’d gone to Subway to get the kid and his mom food since they wouldn’t be having time to make anything seeing as she would be too busy lighting a fire under Jaylon’s ass— Jaylon’s words, not mine.
And now we were heading back to the station, well after lunch.
Hell , we were heading more toward dinner now instead of lunch.
Auden parked the cruiser in his designated spot and got out.
I followed much more slowly, limping slightly when I got out.
“ Knee ?” he asked.
“ Knee ,” I grumbled. “ Knocked it wrong on the concrete when I tackled that kid.”
We walked into the station via the side door.
I veered right when he veered left.
I was just entering my office when I heard a woman’s throaty laugh.
That laugh wasn’t from the woman I wanted to hear it from, though.
“ What are you doing in my office?” I snapped, seeing Elliette there shooting the shit with a man I didn’t know.
“ This is my lawyer, Tim .” She pointed at the man beside her.
He didn’t look much like a lawyer. In fact, he looked more like a criminal than he did an upstanding member of the law.
I would know. I had to see these kinds of people every single day.
Hell , one even tried to shoot me today.
“ And ,” I said stiffly.
“ I want my job back until the investigation is over,” she ordered, crossing her arms over her chest.
Instead of answering, I went out of my office, across the hall, and down another hall until I got to a door that said ‘ Chief ’ on it.
I’d go to my dad, but he wasn’t at work today.
So Chief Austin it was.
And when I got there, I wished I didn’t have to interrupt him, because he looked angry as fuck.
“ I don’t want that bakery in my town, Seymour ,” Chief Austin snarled.
I wondered idly if the ‘bakery’ in question was the one owned by his daughter, who’d just said that she was getting harassed by the city, courtesy of her father.
I decided to keep my nose out of it, because despite everything I had to deal with, I liked my job.
Even more, I’d just built a new house.
I wasn’t poor, but I wasn’t rich, either.
I had a good sized nest egg, but it wouldn’t stay ‘good sized’ if I didn’t work.
Maybe I could sell feet pics…
“ Can I help you, Carter ?” Chief Austin snarled.
I hated that I was going to have to make his mood even worse, but it wasn’t like I had a choice.
“ Elliette Garrison is in my office with a ‘lawyer’ requesting her job back,” I said with little fanfare. “ Would you mind…”
Chief Austin stood up, and his rolling chair went slamming against the plate glass window behind him.
I inwardly winced.
“ Fuckin ’ A ,” he growled. “ Like I have time to deal with this bullshit today.”
He stomped his way toward my office, and I followed in his wake, making eye contact with three of my brothers who, might I add, were gathered around a desk eating my donuts.
And then there was my girl, sitting on top of Atlas’s desk, sucking her fingers clean of cream filling from her own donut.
This little shit…
I narrowed my eyes at her, letting her know without words that she was going to pay for it later.
She wiggled her fingers at me in such a cute way that I wanted to burn this memory into my soul.
God , I fuckin’ loved her.
I turned my attention back to the chief, then sped up when I saw I’d lost him in my daydreaming about my girl.
I heard her giggle behind me, and that lightened my heart despite the bullshit I was about to have to handle in my office.
When I got to my office, Chief Austin had taken my desk chair and was sitting in it with a glower on his face.
Elliette was already giving her spiel.
“…no outward harm,” Elliette said. “ And she didn’t say that I was hurting her, so I didn’t know. Had she communicated with me…”
Chief Austin interrupted. “ You’re a menace to this police department.”
Elliette sat up straighter, “ But , Chief …”
“ And , despite your assurance that you would have stopped had she communicated with you about her pain, that’s still not how this police department works. I pride myself in having a department where the citizens of Dallas can trust their chief of police, and the police officers who work under me. I will not have you in this department, or anywhere near it, with an attitude like the one you have. I’m sorry if you feel like that’s unfair, but it’s a fact of life.”
“ What are you saying?” the lawyer asked, sounding bored.
“ I’m saying that a board meeting was called early this morning, and the topic to discuss was the one we’re talking about now,” he answered. “ The investigation found plenty of wrongdoing. Again , I don’t condone it, and I won’t allow my department to become branded by bad press if we kept you on because you ‘didn’t mean to.’ As of 0600 this morning, you’re no longer an employee of Dallas Police Department . You will also not receive any letters of recommendation from me or any of your former bosses. Your locker, as well as your personal belongings, can be cleaned out before you leave. I better not see you in my department ever again.”
Elliette’s mouth dropped open.
Hell , so did mine.
I was unaware of any meetings happening regarding this particular topic.
Though , I was extremely glad that it had.
“ I will not leave!” Elliette snarled. “ Tim ! Do something!”
Tim stood up, caught Elliette’s arm, and guided her out of the office without another word. He whispered to her in the hall, urging her to control herself or face a very real possibility of jail time, and then said, “ Go gather your things.”
Elliette did, gathering all of her things and heading down to the locker room after her desk was cleared out of the gang division’s shared space.
Boseman , Assman , and Ameer all watched with placid looks on their faces.
The moment she was gone, Austin walked to the middle of the room and said, “ I want her replaced by the end of the day. You’re now two short in your division, and I want more eyes and ears on my roads.” Austin turned to me directly. “ That kid you nearly got killed by this morning?”
“ Yeah ,” I said warily.
“ Good call.” He gave me a grudging look of respect. “ Kid was a board member’s grandson. It didn’t go unnoticed, and they appreciate your respect and understanding in the matter.”
Then , without further words to any of us, he left the room.
“ Man ,” Assman said once the stomping of Austin’s boots could no longer be heard down the hallway. “ That man scares the bejesus out of me.”
“ Same , kid,” I said as I headed out of the room. “ I’ll be right back. I’m going to collect the donuts I promised y’all. While I’m gone, will y’all please look into the candidates on the desk?”
“ Donuts ?” Assman perked up.
“ Donuts ,” I confirmed.
I found my donuts, and my woman, right where I’d last seen her.
This time, she was eating a cherry iced donut, however.
I caught her, and the donut, up in my arms. The moment I was close enough to the donut, I took a huge bite and groaned.
She pulled the half of the donut that was in her mouth away from her lips and laughed.
“ Quinn !” she cried out. “ This was the last cherry iced one!”
I leaned forward to take another bite, but she held it up high over my head.
“ You know that I’m taller than you, right?” I teased, leaning forward and licking a stray flake of glaze off her lips.
“ Yes ,” she paused. “ But I was thinking you wouldn’t be willing to let go of me to reach for the donut.”
She was right.
I wasn’t.
“ You’re right,” I confirmed, pulling her in tighter.
She brought her hand down and held the donut to my lips.
I shook my head. “ I know you like those the most. I’m not eating it if it’s the last one.”
Her eyes went soft. “ There are three more. I was just teasing you.”
I took a bite, groaning at the taste. “ Gosh , this baker can bake.”
“ I know.” Her eyes were sparkly with mirth as she said, “ I think your chief saw me bringing these in. He took one look at the bakery boxes as he held the door open for me, and I thought he was going to slam it in my face.”
I scrunched up my nose and finished chewing before saying, “ I wish I knew what his deal was, but seeing as I try very, very hard to stay out of the chief’s business, I won’t be digging any further into it.”
Auden grumbled something under his breath, making me turn toward him.
He had a blueberry scone in one hand and a glass of milk in the other.
“ What was that?” I asked.
“ Nothing ,” he grumbled, glaring hard at his scone.
My other brother, Quincy , who was double fisting an orange muffin and a chocolate chip cookie, said, “ Auden has a crush.”
“ Fuck off and die, Quincy ,” Auden grumbled.
My brows rose as I glanced at Quincy for a quick beat and then said to Auden , “ That was rather harsh.”
“ That was what it was,” Auden grumbled as he took a large bite of his scone.
Atlas , his twin, snorted under his breath. “ If you wanted them to butt out, you should’ve never mentioned anything.”
Atlas had a point.
“ What are y’all doing?” Quaid said as he walked up. “ And why are you hoarding all the baked goods?”
Quaid bent over for the donut box, and I stopped him. “ This one is for my guys. You can have anything else.”
Quaid nodded and went to the brownies.
“ We’re talking about Auden and his crush on the baker.” Quincy took a bite of his cookie, looking smug and amused.
Shayne patted Auden’s thigh. “ If it makes you feel better, I think she feels the same way. She asked about you today.”
Auden perked up. “ She did?”
“ She did,” Shayne confirmed before turning to me and brushing the glaze flakes off my chest. “ How long are you working tonight?”
“ Well ,” I admitted, “ I have no immediate plans to leave work anytime soon. The chief tasked me with hiring two new people. I guess I have to get a couple of interviews going.”
She nodded and patted my chest. “ Okay , well then we can reconvene at your place.”
“ Our place,” I corrected her.
“ Is that a ring on her finger?” Atlas butted in.
“ What ?” Quincy stood up, almost pressing his face between my body and Shayne’s .
“ It is!” Quaid chirped as he picked up Shayne’s hand and shook it in Atlas’s face. “ Holy shit, Soleada ! Miracles do happen!”
Then Shayne was pulled out of my arms and passed around to my brothers.
I might or might not have been slightly offended and annoyed that I’d lost her heat, though I didn’t show it.
“ How about giving her back?” I said after Quincy held his arm around her shoulder.
Shayne snorted and pulled herself away. “ I have to go get a few things at the grocery store. I’m making dinner tonight.”
It pleased me that she was doing better.
I could still see a hint of sadness in her eyes, deep and ever present, but I could see that she was trying, too.
“ Let’s go,” I said as I caught another cookie. “ Don’t eat my donuts, please. My crew’s gonna need it after all the shit we’ve had to deal with.”
“ Are you calling me shit?” Shayne teased as we walked out, hand in hand.
I took a bite of the cookie in my hand, then offered it to her, before replying, “ Never .”
She winked at me, and we stepped outside, through the side door that would lead her to where she’d parked. I could see my truck at the corner of the lot and started guiding us toward it.
When we were close, and the truck was at our backs, and the building at our fronts, I twisted us and reversed our positions.
“ Tomorrow ,” I said as I backed her up against the wall outside. “ We’re going to go jump out of a plane.”
I was fuckin’ nervous as hell, but I was willing to do just about anything to put a smile on my girl’s face.
Her mouth dropped open. “ You’ll go with me?”
“ Where you go, I go, baby,” I teased.
A flash of movement had me looking to the right, but when I did, I saw nothing.
A sense of foreboding filled me, though.
“ Love you, Quinn ,” she said as she went up onto her tippy toes and licked the corner of my mouth.
My eyes went intense as she said, “ Chocolate .”
“ Sure .” I kissed her back, pouring every ounce of happiness into the kiss before pulling away. “ Drive safe.”
“ How will you get home?” she asked as I opened the truck door for her.
“ One of my brothers,” I said. “ Probably Quincy .”
She patted my cheek, and I closed the door.
Once she was strapped in and backing out, I headed back inside.
But not before another flash of movement caught my eye farther into the parking lot.
When I moved my attention that way, there was nothing to be seen.
So what had I seen move?