24. Leroy Neiman

TWENTY-FOUR

LEROY NEIMAN

I hadn’t jumpstarted my heart in the second it took Eric to grab my hand and drag me to the bedroom.

Once he got me there, he bent so he was an inch in front of my face.

“I know you’re gonna rally the women and go out,” he stated.

Fuck yes, I was going to rally the women and go out.

I didn’t get the chance to confirm.

Eric kept talking.

“Whatever you get, you feed to us. We know of this crew, but we don’t know where their operations are. But they’ve got guns, Jessica, and you know they don’t hesitate to pull the trigger. You get a location before we do, you feed that to us too. And then you back the fuck off.”

I nodded, and I meant it.

I wasn’t going to tangle with these motherfuckers. I didn’t even want Eric to tangle with them, and I was half convinced he was an immortal god.

What I wanted was Homer back in his tent.

Then, in a voice I’d never used in my life, it was small, fragile and afraid, I begged, “Please find him.”

I watched the fire burn in Eric’s eyes, but he didn’t respond verbally.

He didn’t have to. I read him loud and clear.

He then caught me by the back of my head, pulled me to him for a hard kiss, let my head go but took my hand and dragged me back down the hall.

Raye was cuddling Henny to her chest (of course).

“We’re gone,” Eric grunted at Cap.

And then they were gone.

After the door closed, Raye told me, “I already called Harlow and told her to head over.”

“Call her again and tell her to switch to the Sportage on the way,” I ordered, moving to my Vans to put them on. “We’re gone too.”

* * *

I had separation anxiety from Henny after we headed out, and I honestly considered bringing him with us, in case he experienced the same. But I decided to wait to bring him out on operations after he was used to me and my chicks.

So, while Jinx rallied the crew to meet us at the diner, we swung by the Sun Valley Motor Lodge to have a conversation with Mr. Shithead.

He might not know anything, but he also might, and we were going to leave no stone unturned.

When he saw us approach the reception area, he didn’t act like a dick.

Such were the powers of porn.

We swung in, and I could have kissed the girls for letting me lead it.

I dispensed with any pleasantries, as they’d be lost on him anyway, and asked, “Do you know a dealer named Lil Clown?”

“Where’s my titty mags?” he asked back.

That was when it became clear I probably shouldn’t be leading this.

This was because I launched myself over the counter at him, and with my hips balanced on it, my legs in the air, I caught him by the neck of his tee and dragged his face to mine while the girls all tried to pull me away.

“I asked…do you…know a dealer …named Lil Clown ?”

“Je-Nat, come back,” Harlow pleaded.

I shook him by his collar. “ Do you? ”

“Get off me,” he demanded, testing the limits of his tee by pulling back on my hold even as he wrapped his fingers around my wrist to try to yank it free.

“ Answer me! ” I shrieked.

“I don’t fuck with that shit, woman,” he said. “I get mine legal by going to the dispensary. Now back the fuck off.”

The girls managed to pull me away and Luna took my place—not accosting him, talking to him.

“As you can see, this is important to her,” she began.

He jerked at his not-too-clean and now misshapen T-shirt. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“So, I swear on all I find holy, those things being books, interior décor and really good vodka, that I’ll bring you ten mags of your choice and ten movies if you have any information on this Lil Clown asshole or his crew,” Luna bargained.

“I deal in hookers and rooms,” he returned. “I see deals go down. I don’t pay attention. They don’t like people paying attention. It’s just whores and beds by the hour and the occasional moron who wanders in thinking he’s gonna get a deal while the spring training is on.”

“Fuck,” I bit off, turned on my Van and prowled out of motel reception.

The girls followed me.

When we got to the tail of the Sportage, Harlow sidled in close.

“I think you need to try some breathing exercises,” she suggested.

“I think we need to get our asses to the diner,” I retorted.

“I think we need to source a lot more informants,” Raye muttered to Luna.

“I think you’re right,” Luna agreed.

“Can we go?” I asked impatiently.

Raye got in my space, which I didn’t appreciate at that juncture, but I did nothing about it because she was speaking. “I love you. Heart and soul. I get it. It guts me that he’s with them instead of in the world where he feels safe. But, babe, Harlow’s right. You need to chill the fuck out.”

This was true.

I needed to chill out.

I drew in an unsteady breath.

“Another one, please,” Harlow requested.

I drew in another one. It wasn’t any steadier, but I did it.

“We’re gonna find him, or the men are gonna find him, Jess,” Luna said. “Trust the process.”

The Nightingale crew found Raye’s sister who had been dead for nineteen years, and her killer.

They’d find Homer and the rest of them.

I took in another breath. It was a whole lot calmer.

Then I said, “Let’s go.”

We climbed in the Sportage, and we went.

* * *

When we hit the diner, the girls weren’t inside.

They were loitering outside, all of them wearing non-sex worker outfits of jeans and sweaters or tees and jackets with the addition of sneakers.

Though, Divinity’s sneakers were wedges.

And they were all there, that whole crew: Jinx, Persia, Divinity, Skyla, Lotus, Cameo and Genesis.

And standing with them were Bambi and Bambi’s mom, Betsy.

Bambi’s name wasn’t Bambi, it was Christina. And Bambi wasn’t a sex worker anymore. Bambi had been trafficked, saved by the Angels and the Hottie Squad, and then she spent a lot of time in counseling and attending support groups (and, the last I heard, she was still doing both).

Now Bambi was no longer Bambi unless she was in this environment, an occurrence, considering her history, that was rare and only happened so she could keep in touch with the crew, both ours and Jinx’s. This happened over burgers at the diner.

Outside this environment, she was Christina and she was in beauty school.

But now, for some reason, she was here.

We got out and headed to them.

“Sucks you didn’t bring the Merc,” Skyla muttered, eyeing the Sportage.

“We don’t have a lot of time, and we don’t have a lot of resources,” Raye declared. “So anything you got that we can go on would be appreciated.”

It hit me then that Jinx and her chicks had somehow been fully briefed somewhere along the way. That meant one of my chicks briefed them.

God, totally worth a repeat at this point. I loved my girls.

“We know that, that’s why we’re goin’ with you,” Jinx stated.

Yeah, they’d been briefed.

“I don’t—” Raye started.

“Listen, no denyin’ you bitches get the job done,” Jinx declared. “But you don’t just roll up on these kinds of guys. You hear me? They see a familiar face, they won’t blow it off. The other way around?” She shrugged.

This was good advice. I was freaked for Homer, but I didn’t want my face blown off in the hunt for him, or any of my chicks’ faces for that matter.

Jinx motioned to Bambi. “When she was in the game, Bambi here was dealers’ choice.”

That explained why Bambi was there.

And that really sucked for Bambi, and as much as I wanted all the help I could get, I wasn’t sure about her state of mind wading back into this world.

“I knew Clown. I don’t know who Clown is working for now,” Bambi said. “But I know his old crew and where to find them.”

Luna had the same thoughts as I did. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

Bambi lifted a shoulder but said, “I’m sure you and the girls had other things to do that didn’t include finding me and the others and getting us out of that nightmare.”

“What comes around goes around,” Betsy piped in to sum things up.

Jinx got impatient.

“We’re gonna roll out…together,” she stated. “When we get somewhere, we’ll tell you if you can get out of the car or not. No questions asked, you bitches do as I say. Entendido ?”

She was kind of scary when she got bossy.

Though, that wasn’t the only reason we all nodded.

“Bambi, you’re in their ride,” Jinx kept bossing. “We’ll all follow.” She turned to Betsy. “You go home.”

“They helped my girl and me, I want to help them,” Betsy said.

“This is time we don’t have, mama,” Jinx told her.

Betsy looked like she was going to be stubborn.

I fought screaming in impatience.

Betsy backed down. “Okay. You girls be super careful out there, okay?” Betsy asked.

We all nodded again.

Bambi hugged Betsy and we all went to our cars.

“Where they hang, if they still hang there, isn’t far from here,” Bambi told us, then gave Luna, who was driving, directions as we headed out of the diner’s parking lot.

She was in the front with Luna, which meant Raye, Harlow and I were wedged in the back.

“What?” Harlow asked me.

I was a little freaked at how well she knew me.

“Nothing,” I lied.

Bambi gave Luna more directions.

I looked behind us and saw Jinx behind the wheel of an older model Audi with some of the girls seated in her car, another car following them with the rest of the crew.

“What?” Raye asked, now watching me closely.

I faced forward, stretched my neck side to side and reminded them, “I know who knows where these operations are, which means they probably know where Homer is.”

“Your brother,” Harlow whispered.

“Jeff,” I confirmed.

“And you’re not calling him because?” Raye prompted carefully.

I looked to her. “I’m not calling him because, if he and Javi knew we were after these guys, they’d be down from the mountains in a shot. They also wouldn’t tell me where these guys are. But they sure would drag their asses down here and intervene.”

And by “intervene,” I meant possibly get dead like Joaquim and Jamal did.

“Maybe they can work with the men,” Harlow suggested.

“And maybe I don’t want my brother in that line of fire. I don’t want Javi in it either. Hell, I know how much experience the Hottie Squad has, and I’m in active denial that they’re involved in this mess.”

“I am too,” Raye mumbled.

I jerked a thumb at her and asked Harlow, “See? And Raye’s seen them in action.”

“Let’s just stay on target,” Luna said from the front. “If we come up with nothing, we’ll reconsider.”

I pulled out my phone and texted Eric, Anything?

“Park here,” Bambi said.

Luna swung into a spot on a street somewhere deep on the southside of the city when my phone vibrated.

Working on it. Stay cool. We’ll find him .

I took in another deep breath.

“Wait here,” Bambi said, then she popped out of the car.

Jinx and Persia met her on the sidewalk before they walked up to the house.

They went in.

We waited.

Nothing.

“This is torture. They’ve been in there ten minutes,” I griped.

“They’ve been in there two minutes,” Raye said quietly. “Chill, babe.”

Ugh.

Twenty minutes later (or maybe it was four), they came out and Bambi took off toward the two cars behind us. Jinx came to the Sportage and got in the passenger seat.

“They don’t know dick,” she announced.

Fuck!

“But they say Sausage knows all about this shit,” Jinx went on. “And Sausage likes me, which is good for me, and now it’s good for you. Let’s roll.”

Luna pulled out.

I twisted to see that one of the cars followed, the other was doing a three-pointer.

“Gotta get Bambi back to Betsy,” Jinx explained. “Cameo’s gonna take her home. She good, but we don’t wanna push it with flashback shit. We got this now.”

I hoped so.

And I owed Bambi big time for courting flashbacks in order to help.

Jinx gave Luna directions, and we hit up a nondescript neighborhood with neat yards, middle-of-the-line, well-maintained cars and a lot of dead grass, since no one in this ’hood was going to spend money on water for fall seeding.

Luna parked at the curb.

The girls parked behind us.

Jinx twisted to all of us. “Sausage likes company. He also likes to hold court. But just know, he gets a look at you bitches, he’s gonna beat his meat thinkin’ about one, the other, or all of you.”

Gross.

“Thanks for the warning,” Luna muttered.

“Why’s he called Sausage?” Harlow asked.

We all paused and looked at her.

“Oh. Eww,” she said, then scrunched her nose, and the fact Harlow could be cute even in this situation was testimony to the awesome powers of her cuteness.

“Just to say, don’t call him that to his face,” Jinx advised. “We girls got that name for him, and he knows about it and thinks it’s hilarious. But that’s because no one has ever called him that direct. He wouldn’t find that funny.”

With the tone she used to speak it, I made special note of this advice.

None of us got the chance to ask what to call him before Jinx ordered, “Let’s do this.”

She then got out, so we all got out with her.

Persia, Divinity, Skyla, Lotus and Genesis met us in the driveway before we followed Jinx to a garage at the back.

She hit the side door, knocked, when someone bellowed, “I’m receiving!” she pushed through, and we came in after her.

The instant I hit the man cave that was Sausage’s throne room, I made the decision to redecorate my entire apartment.

Black walls. Unfinished ceiling. Fantastic lighting. Glass-fronted beverage fridges filled with beer. A floor to ceiling rack of wine. A fully stocked bar made of padded black leather tufted in diamond shapes.

The space was shared by a pristine, gold-painted Camaro, its year, I wasn’t sure, but my guess would be it was from the seventies. It was parked there, not because this was a garage, but because that car was so hot, it was a piece of art.

In a dope contrast to the black, two tan leather couches faced each other over a glass-topped coffee table that had some telltale leaves and buds on it, and if that wasn’t telltale enough, someone had left behind their rolling papers.

And behind the man lounging in a massive tan leather chair that was set up on a plush, black-carpeted dais, was a portrait of said man, looking like it’d been painted Leroy Neiman.

It was kick… freaking …ass.

I wanted one.

No.

I needed one.

I forced my attention to the man.

He was Black. Even seated I could tell he was tall, and large, but not out of shape. Pure muscle. He was also bald. And he had a Mike Colter look about him that was spectacular .

He was smoking a cigar and had put aside a magazine when we entered, a look at which shared it was Sports Illustrated .

“Jinx,” he said expansively, opening his arms wide. “You always bring me presents.”

“Hey, baby,” she replied, walking right up to him.

She gave his cheek a kiss.

She then stepped off the dais and to his side, saying, “You know the girls.”

“Don’t know all the girls,” he said, eyeing my crew. Then he looked to Jinx’s posse. “No love?” he asked.

They all marched up in a line with various “Hey, baby,” “Hey, honey,” and “Hey, sweetie,” with one, “Hey, daddy,” along with cheek kisses.

“These bitches are Jill, Kelly, Natalie and Dylan,” Jinx introduced us, and we each raised our hand when she said our names like we were indicating we were present to our teacher.

I knew this was a grave errand, and I had the best guy in the world, but I hoped I got to give a cheek kiss to this guy.

His expressive eyebrows shot up, and he boomed, “The Angels!”

We all looked at each other, wondering if he guessed by the names or if our reputation had swung out that far.

“Fuck me, to what do I owe this honor?” he asked.

Whoa.

Our reputation had swung that far.

“Clown and his crew took one of Nat’s boys, Titus,” Jinx answered for us.

I shuffled back a step at the murderous expression that stole over his face.

Though, if his real name was Titus, he just got a whole lot better, because that was a kickass name, and he was already amazing.

“That little motherfucker,” Titus growled. “Who’d he take, baby?” he asked me.

“My friend at the homeless camp. His name is Homer,” I told him.

I was wrong.

The expression he had on his face before was sheer benevolence.

Now , he had a face full of murder.

“Those fuckers,” he groused. “Pieces of shit, every one of ’em. Less than shit. Whatever the fuck that is.”

“We need to find him, sir,” I said.

Another swift mood change when he smiled. “Sir. That’s sweet. But all my girls call me Titus. I make the pissants call me sir.”

I nodded.

“You done good findin’ those women and settin’ that new crew of badasses on those dickweeds who snatched ’em,” Titus declared (yep, our reputation had gone a lot farther than expected). “But you gotta give these boys a wide berth. They’re no good. Until the other crews form an alliance to wipe them out, or a cartel gets wind of their shit, they just gotta do what they do.”

“Homer doesn’t touch anything without having a plastic bag over his hand,” I shared. “I don’t think he can wait while they do what they gotta do.”

Titus stroked his chin in thought.

“We’re not going in to get him,” Raye piped up. “We’re sending the new crew of badasses after Homer.”

“That makes me feel better, baby,” Titus replied. “And I asked around about that band of boys. Word is, they got their shit tight.”

We all nodded to confirm the Hottie Squad had their shit tight.

“Even so, they got no idea what they’re walking into with that den of snakes,” Titus finished.

My heart took a hit with that, and I looked at Raye. I could tell the minute I saw her face her heart sustained the same.

“Javi shoulda known better,” Titus muttered. “That shocked the shit out of me when I heard what went down.”

“He didn’t call the order,” I told him. “Joaquim had a beef.”

One of his brows drew down, the other went way up. “You know Javi?”

“Her brother is a Soldier,” Jinx offered up intel I would rather not have shared.

That blew him away. “You’re Easy’s sister?”

Easy?

“She sure is,” Jinx confirmed.

Wait.

Jeff’s street name was Easy?

Wait again.

My baby brother had a street name?

And it was Easy?

“Man’s solid. Why’s he not here helping?” Titus asked.

Some of this wouldn’t have been something I shared. But we were all in now.

“They needed to lay low because these guys went after them because of what Joaquim did,” I answered.

He nodded. “Joaq, he was a fighter. He was also a hothead.” Titus tapped his bald skull with fingers that were clenching his cigar. “He didn’t think before he acted. Damn waste. Jamal…?” He shook his head. “Gotta give a brother props for loyalty, but… shit .”

“Javi and Jeff are pretty busted up about it,” I told him.

“Thicker than blood,” Titus replied. “Doin’ the good work. Or they were.”

I pressed my lips together.

Titus turned to Jinx. “Been wantin’ to meet this new crew.”

Jinx looked at us in expectation.

“You mean, you want to meet the Nightingale men?” Luna asked.

“Can you arrange that?” Titus asked back.

“Will you tell us what you know about Clown and his people?” I parried.

“Darlin’, I’ll tell those boys anything they wanna know, they got the balls to clean up that shitshow.”

Oh, they had the balls. I just wanted to keep those balls—all of them, but it must be said one set in particular—healthy and functioning. And for that to happen, they needed to know what they were up against.

“One second,” I said quickly, and stepped outside the garage, pulling out my phone.

Raye came with me and huddled close as I made the call to Eric.

I put it on speaker.

He answered on one ring.

“How you hanging in there, sweetheart?” he asked as greeting.

“Hey, you’re on speaker. And, well…okay, I’m here with the girls at the garage of a guy named Titus. I think his street name is?—”

“Wait. Stop. You’re at Titus’s garage?” he asked.

I caught Raye’s gaze. “You know Titus?”

“Everyone knows of Titus. But I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Well, he knows Clown and I think a lot more, and he says he’ll tell you guys because he wants to meet you.”

No hesitation, Eric announced, “We’ll be there in twenty.”

Whoa.

Seemed Titus was the real deal, and I already kinda knew that with the Camaro and portrait.

“Wait!” I cried, thinking he was going to hang up.

“What?” Eric asked.

I took two gigantic steps away from Titus’s door, Raye came with and huddled even closer, before I whispered, “Who is this guy?”

“Ex-dealer in his youth. Ran a big crew. He got tagged, did five years, got out, kitted out his garage with his drug money, and whatever part of the street Javi doesn’t run, Titus runs it.”

“Like, he’s a vigilante?”

“No. Like, he’s a negotiator.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means he wasn’t a big fan of doing time, or wasting years selling narcotics, and he’s less of a fan of brothers killing brothers for stupid shit like turf wars and vendettas. He knows enough to know he can’t stop people from committing illegal acts, but he does his part to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand. In other words, he keeps the peace.”

“He has that much respect?”

“I don’t know the history. I just know that’s how it works. I also know no one gets an audience with this guy unless they know him, or they’ve got an in. We’ve been trying for six months to get in front of him.”

Thank you, Jinx.

“And last, he hasn’t made it a secret he’s pissed as shit this crew that took Homer is operating in his jurisdiction the way they are,” Eric concluded.

“Do you know where his garage is?”

“Everyone does. We’re en route now.”

“Okay, baby. See you soon.”

“Jess?”

This time, he caught me from hanging up. “Yeah?”

“We called Clarice who got us in touch with Javi. He and Jeff are coming down.”

My stomach sank.

“We need to know what they know,” Eric explained. “We tried to get it over the phone, but Javi refused. Demanded face to face.”

Which meant he was also going to demand they be in on the takedown.

This also meant I was right.

Damn you, Javi!

“But they’re at least an hour out,” Eric continued. “So, if Titus can get us the intel, we can deal with this before they get here.”

My stomach sank further.

“No one has anything good to say about these guys,” I told him.

“Because there’s nothing good to say,” he told me.

“What I mean is?—”

“Jessica, did I promise to get Homer for you?”

My breath was shaky again when I drew it in and let it out.

Then I said, “I think this is more than your average dangerous, Turner.”

“And I think we’re in a trust exercise we didn’t expect, Jess. This is not all I do, but it’s part of it.”

Okay, trust.

I could trust him.

It was the bad guys I didn’t trust.

“You with me?” he asked.

“Mostly.”

“Jessie,” he whispered.

“I’ll get the rest of the way while you drive here.”

“There’s my girl. See you soon.”

“’Bye, Eric.”

We hung up.

“So there it is. They’re coming,” I told Raye something she heard herself.

“Great…and fuck.”

My thoughts exactly.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

We went to the door and knocked.

“If I know you’re coming back, you don’t have to knock!” Titus yelled.

We went in, with Raye saying, “Sorry. We didn’t know the protocol.”

Titus grinned, wide and white.

“They’re coming,” I told him.

“And here’s me with my SI, waiting for the Suns game to start, thinking my night would be boring,” he replied.

“We’re not really good at boring,” Harlow, for the first time, chimed in.

“I’m gettin’ that, pretty baby,” Titus cooed to her.

She blushed.

Good Lord, it was like she was collecting gorgeous, gigantic, morally dubious, but still sweet hot guys.

Titus stood, and we all watched, for my part, with my lips parted, as he demonstrated how gigantic he was.

I was understanding some of the respect now.

“I’m feelin’ wine. A good red. Anyone feelin’ wine?” he asked.

He got a chorus of “Me!” from Jinx’s crew.

I stepped forward.

“I’m a mixologist, and I’m sorry to contradict, but if this situation doesn’t say dirty martini, none do.”

Another grin, an extended arm toward the bar, and an invitation of, “ Mi cantina es tú cantina , darlin’.”

Everybody’s cantina was my cantina.

I moved behind the bar, got the lay of the land, and as I was in my happy place, I felt a little bit better.

Though, only a little.

* * *

When the knock came at the door fifteen minutes later, we were all lounged on the couches drinking martinis (except Jinx and Persia were lounged on the arms of Titus’s chair, and Genesis and Skyla were sitting at the bar).

Titus looked to the screen on his watch, which told me he had a camera that showed him who was at the door.

“Enter!” he bellowed.

The men entered.

Not just Eric and Cap with Mace thrown in.

All of them.

Eric, Cap, Mace, Roam, Liam, Knox, Gabe and Brady.

I wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of hotness, so I had to blink rapidly to assist my brain in not shutting down due to overload.

“Well, fuck me, it’s The Expendables , the early years,” Titus remarked.

I wanted to laugh, because it was funny, but I was too busy taking in Eric staring at me, lounging on a killer tan leather couch, drinking a martini.

“I think they do this investigative shit a lot better than we do,” Mace muttered.

I bit my lip.

Harlow let loose a giggle, then swallowed it.

Titus stood again, saying, “The ladies are comfortable. Let’s take this outside.”

I stood too.

Titus instantly stopped moving.

Eric said quietly, “Jessie.”

It messed with my head, but I sat down.

The men moved outside.

Once the door closed, Persia advised, “You gotta give ’em room to swing their dicks.”

“Even if they don’t know you’re givin’ ’em room,” Genesis chimed in.

“They’ll think they claimed the space.” That was Skyla. “They never figure out you cleared it for them.”

“You got Javi, you got Titus, you tapped a direct vein to the street, bitch,” Jinx said. “You get that, you play the game the way they make the rules.”

I didn’t like being left out, but I took in their wisdom.

Then I sipped my martini.

Genesis did too, before she said, “Girl, I don’t know what kinda magic you got.” She lifted her martini glass. “I mean, it’s vodka and olive juice, so how can it go wrong? But you make it so, so right.”

“Thanks, sister,” I said.

“I’m feeling peckish,” Persia announced. “I hope, while those boys go kick ass, Titus lets us order a pizza.”

“Indian,” Genesis put in.

“Shit, now I want both,” Persia complained.

I wondered how our chicken was doing in the Crockpot.

I wondered how Henny was doing all by himself in a new space.

I wondered if Homer was hanging in there.

A vision of the last time I saw Homer outside his tent assaulted my brain, and a sharp stab of pain went through it.

The door opened, and I peered over the back of the couch to see Titus entering, and Eric, hand on the door handle, torso swung in, eyes on me.

“We’re moving out,” Eric said.

I stood again. “I need to go with you.”

Eric did a slow blink along with his brows going up, but he said nothing.

“Homer might need me when you get him out.” I shook my head. “No. He’s going to need me, Turner. I don’t want to go in, but I want to be close.”

“Babe, we’re putting together an approach on the fly, and we’re gonna need every man.”

“Just close. A block away. I’ll be safe. I won’t move a muscle, I swear. You can call me when you’re done.”

“You’re not anywhere near unless we have a man on you, and all we got is Tex and Duke, and it’ll take either of them at least half an hour to get here, and you know, we don’t have that time.”

“I’ll take her,” Titus said.

I whipped around to him, nearly spilling martini, and gave him a happy smile.

“No offense, man, but I just met you,” Eric said.

“None taken. I’d feel the same if she was my baby. So understand, I’ll take care of her like she’s mine,” Titus retorted.

Luna stood. “One goes, we all go.”

Raye stood. “Angels unite.”

Harlow stood. “There’s gonna be a bunch of homeless people who are gonna need a soft touch, so we all have to go.”

“Shit, can’t fit you all in the Camaro, we’ll have to take the Jag,” Titus decreed.

Awesome.

The situation warranted it, and until that moment, I wouldn’t have thought I had it in me.

But I guessed I did.

I channeled Harlow and turned girlie, pretty please begging eyes to Eric.

“Fine,” Eric bit off.

Damn.

That shit worked.

“You go, we’ll follow,” Titus said.

Eric scowled at him, doing some silent badass brainwave communication.

“I got this,” Titus said impatiently. “Go.”

Eric looked at me, he did it hard, and I could tell he was leaning toward changing his mind.

“I’m falling in love with you,” I blurted.

His eyes went dark, his face went soft, he dipped his chin and said, “See you soon, honey.”

Then he was gone.

I jumped when an arm was slung around my shoulders.

I tipped my head back to see Titus smiling down at me.

He smelled like fresh raked leaves and bergamot, with the barest hint of patchouli.

In other words, awesome.

“Well played, baby. Well played,” he said.

I sucked back the rest of my martini.

Titus busted out laughing.

Once he got control of his humor, we headed to his garage behind the garage, got in his amazing, black Jaguar SUV and headed out.