Lady Luck (Colorado Mountain #3)(109)

“Ty, you f**k up –”

Walker stopped dead and barked into the phone, “Quit wastin’ my f**kin’ time! You gonna get me those addresses or you gonna f**k me?”

“Let me go after her.”

“No.”

“Ty, I’ll get the addresses, leave tonight.”

“No.”

“Why no?”

“She isn’t your wife, Tate, she’s mine.”

Silence.

“You’re wastin’ my time,” Walker warned.

“You bringin’ her back?” Jackson sounded disbelieving.

“Yeah,” Walker replied instantly.

“Brother –” Tate started.

“Did you not f**kin’ hear me? Martinez has got her.” Walker’s voice was low and tight with anger and impatience.

“I get you. I get what you’re feelin’ but you gotta listen to me a second, Ty. You did not see her. She stayed with Dominic but I saw her, Laurie saw her. The state you left her in, you cannot waltz into Dallas and bring that woman home.”

That thing pierced his chest again but the feeling was different. Savage. Brutal. Inflicting damage.

He powered through it.

“I’ll deal when I get there.”

“Let me go and talk to her. I’ll leave Jonas with Pop, take Laurie with me.”

“This isn’t junior high, Tate.”

“You do not know what you’re dealin’ with, Ty.”

“This is wastin’ my f**kin’ time,” he said low.

Silence then, “I’ll get the addresses, I’ll come over and I’ll go with you.”

“Suit yourself. But be here soon. You got half an hour. You aren’t here, brother, I’ll head to Dallas and find her myself.”

“Fuck, Ty, it takes twenty minutes just to drive to your place.”

“Then you better drive fast.”

Then Ty flipped his phone shut, tossed it on the bed and turned back to the dresser.

Tate Jackson drove fast.

* * * * *

Seventeen hours later…

“Do you get me?” Walker asked and Shift, prone on the floor in front of him spit out a mouthful of blood.

“Yeah,” he grunted.

“Just to be sure,” Walker went on. “You lose her number, you lose her f**kin’ memory, you don’t, your next visit will be from Julius Champion. Now, let’s confirm. Do you get me?”

“Yeah!” Shift snapped, sliding angry eyes up high to Walker.

“Good,” Walker muttered, his eyes moved to Tate who was staring with distaste at the floor.

Tate felt his gaze; he looked to Walker, tipped up his chin and followed Walker out, both of them stepping over one of the two prone enforcers that Walker laid out before he turned to Shift.

* * * * *

An hour later…

The door to the tidy but tiny house opened the minute Walker and Jackson hit the end of the front walk. The screen door opened after it. The house door closed instantly and the screen door banged behind Ella Rodriguez who stood on her front stoop, arms crossed on her chest, eyes glaring down at the advancing men.

“You are not here,” she announced when they were four feet away.

Walker kept moving and stopped at the bottom of the two steps of her stoop.

“She’s in there, Ella, I advise you let me by,” Walker said quietly.

“She’s gone.”

“She was with Shift not twenty-four hours ago,” Walker returned.

“She was, Bessie got her; they’re gone.”

“Where?”

Her eyebrows shot to her hairline and her voice pitched four octaves higher when she asked, “Boy, you think I’m gonna tell you that?”

“I need to talk to her.”

“Yeah,” she nodded her head once. “I see that. But what you really needed to do was take her Momma’s advice those weeks ago when she laid it all out for you.”

“Ella –”

Her eyes narrowed, her face twisted, she leaned forward and the shutters flew up on her eyes, exposing her pain.

“Told you,” she said quietly, her voice trembling, “you had her in your hands and I told you, you weren’t careful, you’d destroy her. I’m not wrong often and again, I… was… not… wrong.”

There it was again. That thing piercing his chest. More pain. More damage.

Ty Walker stood at the bottom of a stoop of a tiny, tidy house in a not great, not bad area of Dallas and engaged in a stare down with a protective, loyal, loving black woman, a stare down he had no hope in f**k of winning.

“Ty, let’s go,” Jackson said quietly from his side.

“You do her no favors, keepin’ me from her,” Walker said softly.

“Way I see it, ain’t no single body on this earth ever did Alexa Berry no favors,” Ella returned.

“Walker,” Walker corrected and Ella’s back shot straight.

“Not anymore,” she aimed and fired her kill shot, it penetrated its target, leaving devastation in its wake then she turned and slammed into her house without looking back.

Walker turned on his boot and prowled down the walk to Tate’s SUV. Tate bleeped the locks before he made it and he didn’t hesitate to swing in.