Asa (Marked Men #6)(31)

“How’s your partner in crime doing with the new baby?” I hadn’t seen Rule or Shaw since their newest family member had come along.

A grin split Nash’s face and he shoved his hands in the pockets of the peacoat he was wearing.

“He’s adjusting. More to the fact that he now has two people in the world he has to take care of and love forever than anything else, I think. Rule was always sort of a lone wolf, and now his life just has so many important things in it he’s trying to figure out how to balance it all.”

“He’ll figure it out.” I didn’t know Rule before he was with his wife, but I had heard the stories, and none of them were exactly flattering. If he could turn it around for the girl, I had no doubt he would quickly find his footing in fatherhood.

“Yeah, in the meantime he’s just crankier than usual, which of course means that we give him as much shit as possible.”

I shared a grin with him and was thinking I was going to be lucky enough to escape without getting a lecture when he inclined his chin at me and narrowed his eyes. “So you and Royal?”

I sighed and rocked back on my heels a little. Of course I wouldn’t be that lucky. “Anything you think you’re going to say to me about her I’ve already told myself and told her. She chose not to listen and I’m sick and tired of turning her down.”

He chuckled which surprised me. “Asa, I know Royal well enough to know she’s going to do whatever the hell she wants, no matter what anyone has to say to her about it. All I was going to tell you is that you need to be careful because she’s been off and not acting like herself since her partner got hurt. I don’t know what’s up with her, but she’s being reckless and anything she’s doing right now might just be a reaction to Dom getting injured. I don’t want you to be a casualty of her overreaction.” He lifted a black eyebrow at me and muttered, “Plus Dom is a big-ass dude that gets to legally carry a weapon and he loves that girl like crazy. He won’t care why it ends or who ends it if Royal goes crying to him with a broken heart.”

I rolled my shoulders and lifted a hand to rub the back of my neck. I knew how big Royal’s partner was. He had been there the night she arrested me. He was scary as hell and not just because he had a badge of authority. He exuded a seriousness and determination that left no doubt he would take more than bullets for Royal and in order to get his job done.

“She and Dom … have they ever …?” I hoped the question was obvious without having to actually ask it. Nash shrugged at me and pulled out his phone as it dinged in his pocket.

“I don’t know. They’re close, really close, and I know that he would gladly rip the face off of anyone that hurts her. They grew up together and went into the Police Academy together, but I don’t know if they ever had a romantic relationship. Royal never mentioned it and Saint has never said anything about it, but who knows? I don’t know how a guy could be that tight with a chick that looks like Royal and not at least try to get some.” He tapped in a message on the keypad and then looked up at me with a smirk. “Saint wants me to ask you how far along Cora is.”

I let out a startled laugh. “What?”

He held out his phone and showed me the text that his lady had just fired off. Indeed it said:

Ask Asa how far along Cora is. I know she’s knocked up and I bet Rome told him!

“I’m not supposed to say. Rome didn’t want to take any attention off of baby Ry just yet. Tell Saint she’ll have to bug Cora about it.” If Rome didn’t want the info out in the world yet, there was no way I was going to be the one to leak it.

His phone pinged again and apparently this message wasn’t one for sharing because his gaze sharpened and I saw him suck in a quick breath.

“All right, I gotta go. Saint doesn’t have to work until tonight, and I don’t have to be at the shop until noon.” Apparently whatever she had sent him had him eager to get back home to her. I couldn’t blame him. The redheaded nurse was a stunner and as sweet as could be. Nash was another lucky man as far as finding his perfect match was concerned. “Just remember that no one wants to see either you or Royal end up hurt, so try and tread carefully. Something I know you aren’t used to.”

I grunted and turned without saying good-bye so that I could stick my head inside the Bar and say hello to Rome and see if I could charm Darcy into cooking up some breakfast. I had been treading carefully for months. There was no going back now that I knew how beautiful everything was on the other side of the line Royal had willfully crossed. Now all I could do was hold on to it until it fell apart.

CHAPTER 8

Royal

“Do you think if the situation had been reversed and Officer Voss had been the one in the alley while you went up the fire escape, he would be beating himself up as violently as you’ve been doing?”

I looked at the department shrink and tried not to roll my eyes. She had been asking me variations of this same question every week when I went in for my appointment with her. I think she was tired of me giving her the same answer, but it wasn’t going to change.

“Dom wouldn’t have been distracted. A herd of elephants could’ve run through that alleyway and Dom wouldn’t have blinked.”

The doctor looked at me over the rim of her stylish glasses and sighed. She was frustrated with me. It was obvious. I wanted to tell her to join the club. Dom was also over my pity party and mountains of regret about what had happened to him. He flat-out told me to get lost and not come back until my head was screwed on right. He was sick of me moping around, and done with the constant apologies racing off my tongue. He kept telling me shit happened and I just needed to deal with it. Then he lectured me for an hour on how stupid it was to purposely place myself in bed with a known criminal. He didn’t want to hear at all that being with Asa was the only thing that made all the bad things churning in my gut settle down.