Rock Chick Revolution (Rock Chick #8)(67)

I shrugged.

“Them’s the breaks,” I stated blithely. “Anyway, added deterrent to the others not to f**k up. It should all be good.”

Ren got closer and his arm got tighter when Deck’s face went way scary.

“You don’t understand me,” he said on a growl. “Nothing is good. My boy’s woman got buried alive. I’m cleanup in that situation in Carnal.”

I finally got it.

Those dudes were not going to get away with burying Faye alive.

I was down with that. Those shitheads deserved whatever this mountain of man had in store.

And anyway, that meant I could tick one thing off my watch list.

I didn’t speak macho alpha, therefore could not communicate telepathically, via chin lifts or through actions to other macho alphas, so I felt it prudent to agree verbally. I did this by mumbling, “Okeydokey.”

“You got anything that will help me do that in a timely manner,” he stated, “It’d be appreciated you turn that over to me.”

“What we have, you’ll have by tomorrow,” I told him, adding a call to Brody on my to-do list for the next day.

He nodded, reached in his back pocket, pulled out a wallet and then a card that he handed to me.

“Email,” he said.

It was my turn to nod as I shoved his card in my back pocket.

Deck looked at Ren. “No blowback.”

Why he told this to Ren, I did not know, but I suspected it was because I had a vagina.

I decided not to throw a hissy fit and I did this for two reasons. One, a hissy fit took time and I wanted to finish dinner, drink more champagne, eat my chocolate candle then do three, one, two (and maybe four) with Ren. Two, Jacob Decker could break me in half and he seemed to be fired up to accomplish his mission, so I didn’t feel it was wise to waste his time which might make him testy.

“Grateful,” Ren murmured.

I fought an eye roll.

“I’ll leave you to dinner,” Deck said.

He nodded to me, gave a macho badass chin jerk to Ren then disappeared through the door.

Ren let me go to walk to it and turn the locks.

He claimed me again and guided us back to the table.

Once there, after refreshing our champagne, he shared, “Jacob Decker. Qualifies for Mensa. Occupation, hazy. Reputation, not a guy you f**k with.”

I stared at Ren. “You checked him out?”

“I checked out everyone close to Faye Goodknight and Chace Keaton.”

I kept staring at Ren. “When did you have a chance to do this?”

“When I texted Dom to get his ass on it about five minutes after Keaton shook my hand and said, ‘Nice to meet you, I’m Chace Keaton,’ which was about two seconds before I laid into you.”

I continued staring at Ren. “Okay, why’d you do this?”

“Because you got your ass on radar for that guy and his woman, and since your ass is my ass, I protect that ass, both proactively and retrospectively. I do that by gathering any and all information on anyone who might be involved, even unintentionally, in threatening that ass.” He looked back to his plate, muttering, “Though I prefer proactively or not having to do it at all.”

I didn’t know what to do with this. It wasn’t a surprise, really. It also wasn’t an invasion, exactly.

Before I could make a decision about what to do with it, Ren swallowed a bite and kept talking.

“One good thing, you with me, all that shit is over.”

Uh-oh.

He reached for his glass, but before he took a sip, he looked at me and stated, “And Decker’s visit means that shit’ll be shut down. His occupation may be hazy, but his reputation also says he gets a job done.” He took a sip, put his glass back and finished, “Finally something good happened today. A line drawn under that mess. And if you got any other shit goin’ on, you work with Tucker and Dunne to finish it, then you’re free to find a real job and settle in with me.”

Oh man.

He picked up his fork.

“Uh… Zano,” I called.

“Yeah, honey?” he answered his chicken.

Shit.

I stared at his profile, his square jaw, the line of his full lips, the spikes of his thick eyelashes. Then my eyes slid through the food, the champagne bucket, the flowers, the candles.

I took this all in, but my head was filled with promises of three, one, two (with the possible inclusion of four) and the way it felt when he drew my pendant in his mouth that morning.

Then I decided we’d both had enough for the day and tomorrow would be a better time to explain to Ren about the “real job” I was finding.

So, I scooped up some peanuts and mumbled, “Nothing.”

Crap!

Chapter Fourteen

Hit Play

Darius stared at me.

“Well?” I prompted.

We were sitting in his truck outside Fortnum’s the morning after Chinese with Ren (and, by the way, after chocolate candles, we did four along with one, as well as three and two; it was righteous).

I’d just told Darius my future career path.

“You got instincts I haven’t seen except in men trained and experienced or earned on the streets,” Darius stated.

Well that was good.

“I still don’t like it,” he finished.