Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
“I wouldn’t normally ask, you know it, but—”
“She was dancing, he was watching me, not her. Second row. Faded-out polo. But new jeans.”
“New jeans?”
Hawk didn’t make that query because he didn’t get it.
He made that query because that nailed it.
“And I’d stake my life that I saw him Sunday in King Soopers,” Mo added.
“We’ll move,” Hawk declared. “Now. And you’re in.”
Thank fuck.
Hawk disconnected.
Mo pulled oxygen through his nostrils.
Then he turned and knocked on the door to Lottie, shouting, “Mo!”
Every inch of his skin crawled. His muscles felt twitchy.
He wanted to be out there.
He needed to be in the dressing room.
She opened the door.
He crowded her in.
He then said a prayer of gratitude that she hadn’t fucked around putting on her street clothes.
“What’s going on?” she asked as the door clicked behind him.
He locked it without looking at it. If a girl needed in, she’d just have to knock.
Lottie’s face was pale.
“He’s here.”
“Ohmigod,” she breathed. “How do you know?”
“I know.”
“Are they—?”
“Just do your thing, Lottie. Let’s get you home.”
“But, are they—?”
He lifted both hands and framed her face.
Her eyelids went hooded and her body swayed to him.
Fuck.
Fuck.
She was so fucking his.
Mo fought how badly he needed to claim that and repeated his order of, “Just do your thing, baby.”
It took her a beat.
But then she whispered, “Okay, Mo.”
That was his girl.
He pressed in lightly and let her go.
It was slow, he could tell she was concentrating on her movements, but she walked back to her mirror.
Mo stood by the door, put his back to the wall and aimed his eyes at the floor.
“You okay?” she called.
“Don’t think about me.”
“That’s impossible.”
Of course it was.
God, he needed to fuck her.
“Just focus,” he ordered.
“Right.”
“And not on me,” he added.
“Mm-hmm,” she mumbled loudly.
She was totally gonna focus on him, just be quiet about it.
He kept his gaze to the floor.
Her voice broke the silence.
“You can’t tear him apart when you get to him, Mo. I’m not visiting my man in the pokey and I hear conjugal visits are hard to arrange.”
His neck still bent, he turned his head her way.
“Lottie, shut up.”
“You got it,” she whispered.
He looked back to the floor.
Lottie went back to being Lottie.
She took off her makeup. Brushed out her hair.
Saw to business.
Including the business of giving him room to do what he had to do.
Soon.
Fuck.
Soon.
Thank Christ.
Now all he had to do was stop himself from committing murder between now and getting her on her back in her bed.
With what he’d been through since meeting Charlotte McAlister…
Piece of cake.
* * * *
He’d been wrong.
It was not a piece of cake.
What he had not been wrong about was that this was their guy.
Threat neutralized, Lottie was home, asleep, had no idea he was not there, and Axl was sitting in her living room just in case she woke up and found out he was not there, Axl could tell her what was going down and she’d continue to feel safe, not all of a sudden without a bodyguard.
Mo was in the guy’s house with Hawk and Smithie.
The man had been identified by Smithie and his bouncers as an irregular regular. He didn’t come often, but they’d all seen him, more than a few times. Too innocuous to be red flagged, they’d never have called it.
Until Mo had.
In his house, there was no sick-fuck shrine to Lottie.
What they found after Jaylen asked the man for a word, he tried to bolt, Axl locked him down, they detained him in Smithie’s office and got his wallet off him, then sent a team to his house, a team that included Hawk, were a number of very disturbing journals.
And a basement that was being equipped to do all the things to Lottie he’d written that he intended to do.
Yes. He was building his confidence and preparing to follow through.
That was part of his visit to the club that night. Keep an eye on his mark, or now his marks, build his hate and assess the lay of the land.
The man was still in Smithie’s office.
This huddle was about next moves.
“Any involvement of law enforcement at this juncture that has any hope of sticking would include perjuring ourselves repeatedly,” Hawk noted.
“I’m down with that,” Smithie said.
Mo said nothing.
He was still trying to get out of his head how much plastic sheeting had been put up in the basement.
And the neatly aligned instruments laid out on a table.
But Hawk knew Mo would never perjure himself to the cops.
Unless ordered to do so for the good of the mission.
Or to protect someone who meant something to him.
So he didn’t have to answer.
“Second option is I contact a man I know who’s adept at disappearing people,” Hawk went on.
Mo focused more fully on his boss.
“I’m down with that too,” Smithie declared heatedly.
He was still seeing plastic sheeting as well.
Not to mention that table of instruments.