Lady Luck (Colorado Mountain #3)(93)

Another brother down. Fuck.

He forcibly released his muscles and looked back.

“Been busy, Peña,” he noted.

“Told you, got an interest in Alexa Berry.” When Walker’s eyes narrowed he corrected swiftly, “Walker.”

Walker made no comment.

Peña still wasn’t done. “You copped a plea. Gave you a lotta time to think, I reckon. About what, I don’t know. I could guess, five years of my life rotted away, I know what I would be thinkin’. And, gotta say, Tyrell, wouldn’t normally give a f**k what you do. Problem is, what you do won’t be what you do. What you do will affect others and not just those who it needs to affect. And that’s where I got a problem.”

“This is not your business,” Walker informed him.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Peña shot back and Walker misread him, partially.

“My garage where she parks her Charger, Peña. My bed she’s sleepin’ in. The bouquet of flowers I bought her before I put my ring on her finger that she tore up and pressed the petals between two squares of glass and she hung that shit in my window in the kitchen so she can see them when she does the dishes. This means I am not wrong.”

He’d scored again, this hurt worse and Peña didn’t hide it.

But he denied it. “You don’t get where I’m comin’ from.”

“I get you want a piece of my wife. What you need to get is every inch of her is mine,” he leaned in, “Every inch. You don’t get a piece of her.” He leaned back. “No one does. No one but me.”

“Like I said, you don’t get where I’m comin’ from.”

Fuck, but he wanted to be home with his f**king wife.

Therefore, to get this done, he invited, “Educate me.”

“I got an interest in Alexa Berry Walker, Tyrell, but I’m also a cop. You are not my brother. I do not know you. I do not give a f**k about you. What I do give a f**k about is what’s goin’ on in your head. And I also give a f**k about brothers goin’ down in two states in two ways neither of them f**kin’ good for shit they did… not… do.”

Now that, that surprised the f**k out of him.

He didn’t give it away. He did nothing but stare.

Peña put his cards on the table. “So, the reason I’m here is for Lexie. The reason I’m here is because, I heard she was hitchin’ herself to you, I got interested and what I found got me more interested and that more interested got me more but in the end led to nothin’ but questions, questions without answers. So now another reason why I’m here is because I’m lookin’ for answers. And last, the reason I’m here, right now in this parking lot with you, is to warn you to remember what you got in your garage and hangin’ in your kitchen window and mostly in your bed. And it’s also to give you a head’s up that I’m in town, why I’m in town and whatever the f**k you’re plannin’, so I don’t screw you, you gotta know I am.”

And again, that surprised the f**k out of him.

“You’re doin’ Lexie a favor,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, it was just for Lexie until you opened, Tyrell. I still don’t give a f**k about you but you made it pretty f**kin’ clear you give a f**k about her and I spent years watchin’ her be with a man who didn’t so, in a roundabout way, I’m also doin’ it for you.”

Jesus.

“Peña,” he felt it necessary to warn, “you do not know what you’re up against.”

“Tyrell,” Peña fired back, “I know exactly the filth I’m up against. You got your color, I got my own so I know. And I figure, with Jackson’s nosin’ around, he’s given you the head’s up so you know I ain’t stupid and, I’ll confirm, I ain’t. I figure you aren’t either but I’ll still remind you not to be and I’ll do it because of where her Charger is, what bed she sleeps in and those petals she stares at doin’ the dishes. I like my life so I don’t waste it so I won’t waste it tryin’ to talk you out of whatever you’re gonna do. But I’ll remind you to think of those three things you got that other men would kill to have and I’ll advise you that someone like me can get a f**kuva lot further in this mission than someone like you.”

“You’re from Texas,” Walker reminded him.

“A cop’s a cop, Tyrell, in Texas, in California, in Colorado or on the moon,” Peña returned.

Walker stared at him. This wasn’t true. Those boys pissed all over their patches, did it regularly so no one could mistake the smell and, no matter you carried a badge or not, they let in only who they wanted to let in.

Then again, what Tate said about this guy’s tactics, he had balls, who knew what he could do?

Finally, he said, “No one calls me Tyrell.”

Peña stared at him. Then he grinned.

Then his grin died and he asked quietly, “How’s she doin’?”

“Ella, Bess and Honey just left after spendin’ two weeks with us,” Walker answered.

“Jesus,” Peña muttered, “So she’s happy as f**k but you’ve been in hell.”

Yeah, he made it his business to know Lexie.