Rock Chick 08 Revolution (22 page)

But I was thinking of it now.

My gut clenched further as I
remembered something.

During Indy’s Drama, Lee had put
bugs and cameras in Fortnum’s. These fed to Lee’s surveillance room at his
office in LoDo. After Indy’s drama, he didn’t take them out. This was because
Lee’s surveillance room was manned 24/7, and those feeds provided comic relief
for the boys.

And Brody Dunne was not the only
computer whiz who could hack into anything.

Someone could have hacked into
those feeds.

Someone could be watching us now.

I jumped out of my chair, digging
in my back pocket for my phone and heading to the door.

“Where’re you goin’?” Tex boomed.

“Gotta make a call,” I shouted
back.

“Sidewalk, woman. I have eyes on
you all the time!” Tex kept booming.

I lifted a hand and waved my
assent, head down, phone up. I pushed open the door and stopped on the
sidewalk, but before I could call Brody to tell him to check to see if he’d
been hacked, it rang and the display told me Ren was calling.

I put it to my ear but didn’t say
“hey” because Ren was speaking when I got it there.

He was not speaking to me but he
was
pissed.

“I don’t give a fuck. Do it.
Now.
”

Uh-oh.

“Ren, what’s up?” I asked
cautiously.

His attention came to me. “Ally?”

“Yeah, honey. Is something wrong?”

“Santo was tailing you,” he stated
strangely.

“Okay,” I replied.

“He called Lucky, did a hand off,
and now I got this pink fuckin’ book on my desk.”

Hmm. He seemed as angry as Indy.
The thing about that was, her having sex with Lee on his kitchen counter and
everyone reading about it was (maybe) something to be angry about.

But why was Ren angry?

In order to give him the
opportunity to explain his emotion, I repeated, “Okay.”

“And this bitch has a website,” he
told me.

“What bitch?” I asked.

“Kristen Ashley.”

My head shot up and I blinked at
Broadway.

“What?” I whispered.

He didn’t repeat himself. Instead
he said something a whole lot scarier.

“Coming soon,” he spoke like he was
reading. “
Rock Chick Rescue,
the
story of Eddie and Jet.”

Oh shit.

Unfortunately he kept going.

“
Rock Chick Redemption,
the story of Hank and Roxie.”

Oh shit!

He went on, “I’ll cut to the chase,
babe. The last on this list is
Rock Chick
Revolution,
the story of Ally and Ren.”

Fuck!

Chills slid down my spine and I
whispered, “Our story hasn’t been written.”

“Babe, our story isn’t
a story,
” Ren clipped.

This was true.

“They have them all?” I asked.

“Every last one,” he answered.

“This isn’t good, Ren,” I said
quietly.

“No, babe. It is not fuckin’ good.
It’s
really
not fuckin’ good. You and
your girls got eyes on you from somewhere and I don’t need my woman to have
eyes on her. I also don’t need eyes
on
me.
Especially not now.”

Especially
not now.
What did he mean by that?

I opened my mouth to ask, but he
got there before me.

“Your brother on this?” he asked.

“Which one?” I asked back.

“I don’t give a fuck. One, the
other, but both would be better,” he answered.

“Well, we were kind of busy
freaking so I’m uncertain that information has filtered down. Though, Fortnum’s
is wired to Lee’s offices so I expect incoming Hot Bunch imminently.”

Ren was silent.

“Zano?” I called.

“That place is wired?” he asked in
a scary soft voice.

Oh man.

“Well…” I paused. “Yeah.”

“How long has it been wired?”

Oh man!

“Uh… since Indy’s thing.”

The receiver was not at his mouth
when he bit out, “
Fuckin’ fuck me,
”
but I still heard it.

He came back to me and asked
caustically. “You think you might have wanted to mention that?”

“Zano, you’ve hardly ever been
here,” I pointed out.

“You think your girls haven’t
discussed my shit, your shit, our shit, my shit with Ava and anything in
between?” he returned.

Hmm.

He had a point.

I heard the roar of a bike, looked
that way and saw Vance approaching on his Harley.

I watched Vance (Vance was very
watchable), but into the phone, I said, “I need to call Brody, get him on it,
see if the feeds were hacked.” My eyes on Vance, and particularly the unhappy
expression he was wearing, I told Ren, “Vance just got here, and I’m getting
the sense this is not a random drop in. I’ll phone Lee and Hank after Brody,
but I suspect they’re already on it and likely both heading this way.”

“I’m also on it,” Ren told me.
“This shit needs to get shut down. You see your brother, Ally, you tell him he
needs to find the source before me. Are you with me, babe?”

I had a feeling I was, though I
thought it might be prudent to get particulars.

“Maybe we can discuss this tonight
over dinner,” I suggested.

Vance was in the store and my eyes
were aimed down Broadway, where I spotted a black Porsche approaching.

Luke.

“I’m not in the mood to cook,” Ren
replied. “I’ll pick up Chinese.”

“That works for me. But I can also
pick it up,” I offered.

“That works for me,” Ren agreed.
“You know what I like.”

I was feeling weird, freaked, something
was gnawing at my gut, but still, Ren pointing out I knew his Chinese
preference still made my insides warm.

“Yeah, I know what you like,
honey,” I murmured.

“Gotta go. Shit to do,” Ren stated.

“Okay, but just an FYI, I got fired
today so we have time to talk tonight.”

This got me nothing.

So I called, “Zano?”

“You were fired?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“From Brother’s?” he requested
further details.

“Well, Indy’s not going to fire
me,” I noted.

“Babe, your apartment just blew
up,” he reminded me.

“Zano, that isn’t something I’ll
forget.”

“There’s eyes on you. New Mexican
lunatics after you. We don’t know the fallout from your activities in the
mountains. Your apartment is rubble. And you tellin’ me you just lost your job
is an
FYI?
”

“It isn’t like I don’t have another
one,” I told him.

Or two.

“Fuck, does anything shake you?” he
asked.

“Not really,” I answered.

A beat of silence before he shared,
“Right now, I don’t know what to do with that.”

“Admire it?” I suggested.

It was then his voice went sweet.

“Baby, I do admire it. And that is
no lie. It’s one of the many things I love about you. But that doesn’t mean you
don’t need to keep sharp, and nothing keeps you sharper than you bein’ smart
enough to be freaked.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t freaked,” I
told him. “I just said nothing shakes me.”

“We’ll get into the nuances of what
the fuck is the difference between those two things over Chinese,” Ren said,
and although a long sentence, the whole of it sounded like it was uttered on a
sigh. “Now, I gotta go.”

“Okay, but I want your promise that
you’ll enumerate the other many things you love about me over Chinese,” I said.

“Only if you return the favor,” he
replied.

Instantly, don’t ask me why, I
launched in.

“Your hair. Your eyes. Your body on
the whole, incidentally. Though, if pressed, I could pinpoint a top ten of your
anatomy. The way you wear a suit. Actually, the way you dress in its entirety.
The way you cook. The way you make sure to cook enough for me. You having tater
tots for breakfast. Your voice normally, but more when it gets sweet. The
things you do to me in bed. The fact my nighties are appreciated. The fact
you’re a maximum contact sleeper. Your ability to give perfect presents. You’ve
only given me one, but it was the most perfect present I ever received. You’re
taller than me. You think I’m funny. You admire me being unshakable. You love
your family. You say I love tough and stubborn, and I like that you think that
of me. You pay attention. And you never gave up on me.” I took in a deep breath
and asked, “Did I mention the suits?”

Ren said nothing.

“Zano?”

More nothing.

Just in case I hadn’t given him
enough, I informed him, “That wasn’t exhaustive list. You said you had to go.
Those were just the highlights.”

“Shut up, baby.”

My entire body went still at his
tone. It was one I’d never heard. One that slid through me, and if I thought
he’d made me feel warm with his sweet, that tone, even using it to say those
words, gave me a new kind of warm. The kind of warm that settled in and made
you feel found and safe and loved in a way you knew you would never lose any of
those things.

Not ever.

For the rest of your life.

“Ren,” I whispered.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve
a whispered Ren, honey, but you can explain that to me later, too. Call me when
you’re headin’ home and I’ll do what I can to wrap shit up and get there when
you do.”

“’Kay,” I replied just as a shadow
blocked out the sun, and I looked up to see Hank standing there, scowling at
me.

Another unhappy member of the Hot
Bunch, but one that was in my space.

Shit.

“I have to go,” I said to Ren.

“Later, babe.’

“’Bye, Zano.”

I did not take it as a good sign
that Hank’s jaw got tight when I said Ren’s name.

I shoved my phone in my pocket and
held my brother’s eyes.

“What?” I asked when he said
nothing.

“You think it’s a good idea, you
standin’ out here on the sidewalk?”

I pointed across the street where
Santo had eyes on me and a hand to his mouth, working his teeth with a
toothpick.

“Fuck, Zano put his goon squad on
you?” Hank asked, studying Santo with a look on his face that stated what I’d
previously thought of Santo and Lucky, and that was that he wasn’t quite
certain if they were idiots or brilliant at playing them.

“Apparently,” I answered.

Hank’s eyes tipped down to me. “How
‘bout you do your brother a favor and get your ass inside?”

“I’ll do you that favor, but only
because you asked,” I answered magnanimously.

Hank looked to the sky.

I sashayed to the door.

I was caught just inside when
Hank’s fingers curled around my bicep to stop me. But before I stopped, I saw
that not only had Vance and Luke joined the party, Hector and Marcus were there
as well.

No one looked happy.

Except Tod and
Shirleen.
And it appeared Roxie was fighting a smile. And I couldn’t tell
because I had her profile, but it looked like Ava was giggling behind her hand.

I wondered what they’d think if
they knew they were “coming soon.”

This thought exited my head when my
brother said into my ear. “Dad wants a family meeting.”

This was not a surprise. When Ren
and I made it official, I didn’t figure Dad would delay.

I pulled away, but not too far, and
told Hank, “I’ll call him. Set it up.”

“He won’t want Zano there,” Hank
told me.

“That might not be his choice,” I
stated.

“Ally, you want this, you gotta
play it smart,” he warned.

“Hank,” I leaned in and said
quietly, “I want this and I don’t have to play at anything. You would no sooner
ask for approval of the woman you chose to be in your bed than Lee would. Or
Dad would. And I will not be happy if that’s expected of me. I get your
concerns. Totally. What I will not get is if you make a decision before you
give Ren a chance.”

“We know this guy, Ally, we know
his family,” Hank replied.

“You don’t know how he is with me,”
I returned. “And you all knew Darius and Shirleen. And when they turned to the
dark side, not one of you turned your back on them. Deep down, you got exactly
who they were and you accepted how they had to be. You didn’t like it. I know
it, Hank. Especially you. But you didn’t wash your hands of people who mattered
because you cast judgment on them. You may know Ren, but you don’t
know
him, and all I’ll ask of you and
everyone is to give him the chance to get to know him. If that doesn’t swing my
way, so be it. It’ll be then I’ll ask you to trust in the fact that I know him
better than you and
I
know he
matters.”

Hank held my gaze before he gave in
(in a macho alpha way) by jerking up his chin.

Then he declared, “There’s more to
talk about.”

“There is,” I agreed.

“We’re worried,” he stated.

He was talking about my soon-to-be
legit business.

“You’ve no need to be,” I assured
him.

“Ally—”

I leaned in further and got up on
my toes to get (kind of) eye to eye (my brother was seriously tall; then again,
so was everyone in our family). “Hank, babe, love you, you know it. And I love
it that you’re worried. Says a lot. But we’ll talk about it later. Okay?”

Another macho alpha chin jerk,
which meant
okay.

Jeez. These guys.

“Now,” I continued, deciding to let
that go and rocking back to my heels. “Tell me what’s happening with Rosie.”

This got me a clenched jaw,
complete with muscle jumping in his cheek.

Not good.

“Hank?” I prompted.

“By the time Mace got to Kevin’s,
Rosie had bailed,” Hank shared.

I felt my gut get tight.

Not again.

“You’re shitting me,” I snapped.

“We got a BOLO on him, and Ally,”
he got close, “you lay low. We also called down to New Mexico. These guys who
want his action, they’re not good guys.”

“I kinda put that together, bro,” I
replied.