Rock Chick Revolution (Rock Chick #8)(18)

Zip’s place also had a firing range.

I wasn’t sure about carrying a weapon, though. I could stun gun with the best of them, but a real gun?

“Darius, I—”

He lifted a hand. “No, woman. No f**kin’ way. You’re in a bar like this, you come in carryin’. But you come in carryin’ and knowin’ what you’re doin’. I know your dad taught you how to handle guns. But before you go out packin’, you’re gonna shoot at Zip’s and you’re gonna do it a lot. We’ll talk him into openin’ the range after hours so you don’t get seen there. And you work with your weapon so you’re so comfortable enough with it that it feels like an extension of your arm. You understand it. You respect it. You know what it can do. And you know how to use it.”

That sounded kind of exciting, but I didn’t get to tell him that because Darius was not done.

And it got better.

“Lee uses this dude’s place down in Colorado Springs. The guy’s got three set ups. One’s a warehouse you gotta clear, good and bad guys. One’s a house you gotta clear. You walk through with your weapon shooting pop-ups. You fail if you take down one innocent, and that means you do it again. And again. And again. Until you pass. You don’t go through it memorizing the scheme. He switches the pop-ups and you never know what you’re going to get. You don’t pass until you can get through it completely clean.”

I so wanted to do that.

In fact, I couldn’t f**king wait.

“He’s also got a driving course,” Darius informed me. “Learn to drive defensive, learn to drive a chase. You’re doin’ that, too.”

I so f**king was!

“You’re tall but you’re slight,” he continued. “That means you don’t learn how to fight. You learn some defensive moves and you learn how to get away. I’ll teach you that. But, starting tomorrow, and every day after that, you run. You got trouble, there’s a high probability you’re not gonna be able to beat it down. You do not shoot at it unless you absolutely have to. Stun guns and pepper spray can get commandeered if you don’t got the moves to stop it, and then be turned on you. So you get your ass in trouble, you run away. But you’re not in shape, that trouble’ll catch you.”

This did not sound all that fun. I wasn’t an exercise sort of person, unless you counted walking in a mall. However, I didn’t share that with Darius, in case me poo-pooing any part of the righteous deal he was offering would mean he’d take the deal off the table.

And anyway, if I ran regularly, that meant I could drink more Fat Tire and eat more LaMar’s donuts.

So I decided to focus on that.

“You got it,” I agreed.

He nodded once and kept going.

“From here on out, you start anything, you gotta be invisible.”

“I already do that,” I told him, but he shook his head.

“Not what you’re thinkin’. I mean you go to Brody. He makes a mint off that game he programmed, but he gets off on this sleuth stuff. Lee pays him a whack, but that guy would come to work every day for free, he’s so into this shit. You give him more, he’ll be all over it. You can solve your problem with an electronic investigation that doesn’t put your ass on the line, you do that.” He paused. “First.”

This made sense and would likely only cost me energy drinks, Costco boxes of king-size candy bars and Apple app gift cards all of which I could make my “clients” procure for Brody. Since all that was doable, I nodded my agreement.

Darius kept talking.

“And from here on in, I’m briefed in full about everything you do. I know all your cases. I know what you uncover. And you do not,” he leaned in, “ever walk your ass into a place like this without me as your wingman. This last is the most important, Ally, and if you’re not down with that, you lose all the rest. You also buy me goin’ to Lee and lighting a fire under his ass to take you off Denver’s game board in a way no one will ever contact you again for this shit.”

Lee could do that.

And Darius would do that. He cared a lot about me.

And if either of them did that, it would piss me off.

But I didn’t need to expend that energy, seeing as I had absolutely no problem with him being my wingman.

In fact, I had absolutely no problem with any of it (save the running, but I figured I could rock a track suit and I could get some of those kickass double hair band thingies to pull my hair away from my face while I ran and be totally stylin’).

In order to communicate this to Darius, it was my turn to lean into him.

And when I did, I whispered, “You know, I totally love you.”

Something moved over his face. Something I’d seen before when he didn’t know I was watching.

Uncertainty mixed with melancholy. I didn’t totally get it. What I did get was that Darius Tucker had had a beautiful life a long time ago. A big loving family, good friends, a bright future. And all that went to shit. He made desperate—and it had to be said, angry—decisions, and his life spiraled down the toilet. In that time, I suspected he did a lot of things that seared marks onto his soul.

I just didn’t know if he was on a path to redemption or thought his future only held damnation.

That was his to know and share if he felt like it.