Ride Steady (Chaos #3)(163)

“Hang tight, this’ll be done soon,” he promised.

“Okay.”

“Love you.”

I closed my eyes.

Aaron had made me not good.

Then Joker was there to make me that way again.

When I opened my eyes, I was smiling. “Love you too.”

I could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “Let you go. Later, Butterfly.”

“Later, sweetie.”

We disconnected.

Before I left for work a few hours later, Leanne called.

Aaron wasn’t messing around.

The meeting was set for Thursday afternoon, the specter of which made me not good again.

So I called Joker.

And he made it all better.

Joker

Disconnecting with Carissa, Joker texted Tack.

It’s happening.

Five minutes later, he got back, Meet me at the table.

Joker didn’t waste time leaving the garage and walking across the forecourt to the Compound. He went directly to Chaos’s table in the meeting room.

Tack was the only one there. He was standing by his seat at the head of the table, two piles of folders resting on the table in front of him.

One was very high. The other one wasn’t near as high, but it was still tall.

Joker closed the door behind him, walked into the room, and stopped, his eyes on Tack.

“This,” Tack said, his fingertips pressing into the high stack of folders, “is Chaos. Angie has it. She won’t be blindsided.”

Joker nodded. He didn’t need to give gratitude. Tack knew what he was giving was huge, and he knew Joker knew it.

They also both knew they had attorney/client confidentiality.

“This,” Tack went on, touching his fingertips to the other stack, “Angie’s also got. You need to study it, brother, then decide by how ugly it gets when or if you need to give the nod to Angie. Her ex isn’t dirty. But he’s a cheat, and I know Carrie knows it. I just don’t think she knows he’s had his dick in so much *, he makes Shy in his glory days look like a choirboy.”

Fuck.

This meant he might have to have the conversation with her that she, too, should get tested.

Fuck.

“It’s the father that’s deep in dirt,” Tack continued. “Shit in here gets loose, she’s got destructive powers that if she gets queasy at markin’ your old man, who she f*ckin’ hates, I’m not thinkin’ our girl’s got in her to use. But it’s yours. It’s hers. They force it, be smart how you use it. It gets to that point and you need a strategy session, you know where to find me.”

Joker nodded again.

Tack held his eyes, and Joker saw in his what he saw after their meeting with Sebring and Valenzuela. It wasn’t exactly the same, but only because it wasn’t for the same reason.

Now, Joker knew the reason because he knew that he’d shared with Tack the trash talk Aaron Neiland had tried to shove down Carrie’s throat.

And Tack had not liked that.

Therefore Tack’s voice was granite when he stated, “They will not take her boy, and the time to f*ck with Carissa Teodoro is now over.”

Joker’s voice was a quiet growl when he stated, “You know you got my love, brother.”

“I do,” Tack returned. “And it’s a privilege, Carson.”

Joker felt that in his throat but only nodded again.

Tack tipped his head toward the end of the room, where there was a closet that held their massive safe. “Read. Lock it up when you’re done.”

“Yeah.”

Tack moved, clapping Joker on the shoulder as he walked out.

Joker went to the folders.

He didn’t touch the high stack.

But he read every page of the shorter one.

When he was done, he locked them away, and he didn’t do it smiling.

But he did it relieved.

Chaos had them by the balls.

But Carrie would never know.

Not unless she needed to.

And all Joker could do was hope like f*ck she never needed to.

Carissa

“Okay, this is not good,” I whispered.

I was sitting in Angie’s conference room. I was not in my tube top. I’d chickened out on the tube top.

Instead I was wearing my butterfly dress and shoes. It wasn’t casual, exactly.

What it was, was me.

But also, it was my lucky dress. I deemed it so because I thought of it as Joker’s.

A Joker who had been completely calm since all this went down, thankfully, since (until that moment) his calm had been calming me.

He was there, but he was in Angie’s office with Travis because Angie said we shouldn’t goad Aaron with his presence or make the statement that I needed backup.

Both Joker and I agreed.

So he was close but too far.

But he was close, and that was all I needed.

“No, you’re right. This is not good,” Angie muttered.

I didn’t need to look at her to know she was doing the same as me, looking through the windows of her conference room at Aaron approaching with his attorney.

And his father.

“Intimidation,” Angie said quickly, and I tore my gaze from the approaching men to look at her just as she curled her hand around my forearm resting on the table. “To you, not me,” she went on and squeezed my arm. “I got this, Carissa.”