Rough Ride (Chaos #5)(18)

Direct hit.

Damn.

“Are we gonna do this in front of Zip?” I asked.

“Just to say, if I got a choice, I’d rather you not do this in front of me,” Zip put in.

“We’re gonna do it wherever we gotta do it so I can be assured you know where I’m at and I got you there with me.” Snapper ignored Zip to answer.

“I knew I wouldn’t have a choice,” Zip mumbled.

“I think I’d rather focus on the fact that Bounty isn’t done with me,” I shared.

“Bounty is done with you,” he retorted.

I wished that was true.

“You know they’re not, Snap,” I whispered.

“I know one more Chaos woman gets dragged into brother business, Denver is facing Armageddon,” Snap replied.

“To move this along,” Zip said, and we both looked his way, “I can confirm that too. Streets are full of talk about Bounty bein’ pussy and takin’ their shit out on a girl. They’re also full of Chaos bein’ at the end of their tether, and we’ll just say things are feelin’ seriously uneasy.”

“Zip, you wanna butt out?’’ Snap asked.

“Boy, you’re havin’ this out with your woman in my store. I don’t butt outta shit in my store,” Zip returned. “And pay attention, I’m helpin’ you out.”

“I’m going home,” I declared, starting to move past Snapper, but I didn’t get far because he caught me with his fingers wrapped around the crook of my elbow.

I looked up at him.

“Baby, let’s just get some coffee,” he said.

He was right.

I’d needed to regroup.

He was also wrong.

I wasn’t done regrouping.

I needed a lot more time.

And right then I had to set about getting it.

“He had the burner,” I shared.

Snapper’s beautiful lips thinned.

“I wanted to meet,” I told him.

“There was a reason I went that way,” he whispered. “You have coffee with me, I can explain.”

I ignored that offer.

“Did he call you?” I asked.

“No,” he answered.

Really?

“He didn’t call?” I pushed.

Snapper shook his head.

“How did he know?” I asked.

“You had a burner, honey,” he explained.

Just that.

I had a burner and there was no reason for me to have an extra phone.

Unless I was betraying my boyfriend.

Suddenly, this whole thing was worse.

One and one equaled two, of course, but Beck hadn’t even ascertained definitively that two was the two they were seeking vengeance for.

He suspected me, located the phone and found me guilty without asking me a question or conclusively establishing my culpability.

It honestly didn’t matter that he was right.

What mattered was that he didn’t even ask before he came to a verdict and sentenced me.

Especially the sentence he’d given me.

“How did you know where to find me?” I asked Snapper.

“Bounty’s place to do their wet work is known.”

Wet work.

My ex-man and his brothers had a place they did wet work that was known.

Did Chaos have a place they did wet work?

Probably.

I nodded to Snap. “I need to go home.”

“They’re not gonna get near you or your mom.”

I nodded again.

“Let you go now,” he gave in, probably reading me, and being Snap, giving that to me because he knew how much I needed it. “But we need to talk, Rosie.”

I shook my head.

“Honey—” he began.

I searched for another excuse and fortunately found one.

“I need to grieve my father.”

At that, he blinked, ending his blink with his brows aimed high.

“Sorry?” he asked.

“I need to grieve my father,” I repeated.

“He died three years ago, Rosie.”

“Yes, and it’s come clear to me of late that I haven’t been dealing with that in a healthy way.”

His fingers at my arm curled deeper at the same time he pulled me closer.

“Everett,” I said softly, a warning.

“Throttle was not your dad,” he told me, demonstrating he knew exactly what I was talking about.

“I know.”

“I’m not either.”

Yes you are.

And weirdly, that scared me more than anything.

“Please, I need to go,” I begged.

“You gotta know you’d never get that shit from me, from Chaos, no matter what you did,” he said. “But you wouldn’t have to do it ’cause that’s not our path.”

“What is your path?”

“It’s not that,” he stated.

We’d finally made it.

We’d made it right at the place I needed to be to get him to leave me be.

And I jumped on it.

I looked him direct in his snow-blue eyes.

“Armageddon takes everyone out, Snapper.”

His fingers convulsed on my arm right before I gently pulled it free.