“Shit!” I could breathe easier now.

She stared at me. “They never gave me a key.”

“I know.” I reached over, taking her hand.

She slid her fingers alongside mine. “You think they’ll look at the security cameras?”

I shook my head. A big fat fucking boulder was sitting in my gut, but I didn’t have anything to make it all go away. “Let’s hope not.”

“What about Justin’s key card?”

“I dropped it on the ground. It’ll look like it came off his shirt, or out of his pocket or something.”

She exhaled a deep breath, moving to face the front again, but her hand never let go of mine.

She held me tight the whole way back.

BREN

Cross dropped me off, and I was showering as he went to pick up Zellman and Jordan.

I knew he had a bombshell to drop on me. It was late, and I’d been happily buzzed. I wasn’t anymore.

The other rooms didn’t have much. Anything important must have been put away in a filing cabinet, but there was obviously a reason they didn’t want me in that second room. Had to be.

Why keep me on?

Why bring me on in the first place?

Was I being used?

After Brock brought up my dad the first day, no one had said anything again. I was the office intern, helping where they told me.

I hadn’t called Channing or my dad again. A part of me wasn’t ready, and I was glad neither had called me back. To an extent, I enjoyed sticking my head in the sand when it came to my dad. I wasn’t surprised about Channing not reaching out. He didn’t want me involved with anything concerning our dad, but a part of me had been waiting for his call telling me to stop working with Coug r Lanes, too.

On a whole, everything had been quiet regarding Tabatha and Harper, too.

It was a feeling, though. It was low, deep, and it was spreading.

Something was going to get blown up. I was figuring my job since we just broke into it.

I was finishing up in the shower when Cross pulled up. The headlights swept over the inside of our bathroom. I was toweling off and starting to dress when they came inside. A second later, Cross was coming into our bedroom.

He had pulled off the black sweatshirt, but he was still in the dark pants.

Seeing me, he tore his clothes off. He rasped out, “Where’s your clothes?”

I pointed to the floor.

He grunted before disappearing into the closet. He came back out in sweats that were low on his hips, deliciously low, and he was pulling a gray Henley over his head, tugging the bottom down. I slept with him, had explored his body on many occasions, but seeing that V leading down to his groin, the one that disappeared under his sweatpants, and I was feeling all sorts of other sensations.

Warmth. Maybe that buzz was coming back? A throb was starting deep inside of me.

He ignored me, bent and grabbed my clothes. He carried them to the other side of the bed, stuffing my clothes and his clothes into a bag.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to burn these.”

“What?” Alarm spiked me. “I think that’s a little much, don’t you think?”

He stopped just in front of the door and pinned me with a dark look. “We broke into a bounty hunting company. They work with law enforcement. They have confidential information on some big people. There’s probably cameras with us on them. We need to get rid of evidence. I’m not messing around with this.” He looked through the bag. “Where’s the ski mask?”

“I took it off just inside the garage door.”

He nodded.

It was then I saw the tiredness clinging to him.

“Hey.” I moved to him.

He paused.

I touched his arm, pulling him to me. Lifting a hand, I wiped my thumb over some tension lines around his mouth. “They won’t do anything.”

“You don’t know what they’re capable of.”

“True, but—”

“You didn’t see that second room. I did.”

He had me there.

He grabbed the doorknob, but looked back. “We’re crew. We don’t lie to each other, but what I saw in that room—I want to call your brother about it before I talk to you. Can I do that? I need your permission to do that.”

I opened my mouth, unsure what to say. The alarm spiking within me was about Cross and how he was acting, not even about what he saw. He was worried, and whatever they had in there, I’d deal. My dad would deal. This wasn’t the first time we were dealing with law enforcement agencies, and I knew that I hadn’t done anything wrong. Well, except for beating up Harper and breaking and entering my own place of employment, but besides those things, I was pretty clean.

When I didn’t answer, Cross rested his forehead to mine. “I need to talk to your brother. Trust me?”

He asked me to trust him.

“Okay.”

I was trusting him.

He reached up, cupping the side of my face for a moment, before he pulled himself away. The bag of clothes went with him. A few minutes later, now dressed, I headed out for the kitchen. The upstairs light was on, so I was guessing Zellman was up there. Jordan was staring through the back window, looking out over the yard with a bottle of water in hand.

He took a sip, asking a question as I passed him by for my own water, “Why’s Cross burning clothes?”

I grabbed a bottle and went to stand next to him.

The silhouette of Cross was clearly visible. He was feeding one piece of clothing into the bonfire after another. He looked calm and patient. There was also an air rippling off of him. An air that I felt inside of me, spreading through every inch of my body, setting my hairs upright, but not in fear. In awareness. That was our leader, the same guy who had stepped forward when we were about to face off against Alex Ryerson in the Roussou school’s parking lot and who needed an entire group of guys to wrestle him down at the police station when I was arrested. Seeing him incinerating those clothes was a sober enough moment that Jordan was picking up on it.

I didn’t answer.

Jordan slid his eyes sideways to me, tipping his bottle back for another drag. “That have something to do with where you and he went after you dropped us off? Why Cross had a ski mask in the seat next to him?”

Again. There was no answer.

But Jordan was my crew. I patted his shoulder and said what I could, “Let’s wait until he comes in. He has to make a call.”

Jordan watched me, and I was picking up the same vibes that Cross was giving out. Patience and calm. He nodded, going back to taking a drink from his water. “Okay, then.”

CROSS

Channing picked up after the first ring. “Is Bren okay?”

All the clothes were burned. Maybe Bren was right and I was overreacting. I’d rather be safe than sorry, but I still needed to get this call over with. And I was tired. I was so tired. I turned for the house, going to the patio table and sat down. “Yes.”

He sighed on his end. I heard rustling sounds, something creaking. Channing yawned as he said, “I’m assuming I don’t want to hear what’s going to be said over this call. It’s almost four in the morning.”

“Probably not.”

“Fuck.”

I wasn’t one to waste time. “You haven’t called Bren this week. Why is that?”

“Say what?”

“You haven’t called all week, about the raid. Why haven’t you?”

Channing was quiet a second. “How’s that your business?”

Because Bren was my business. But I answered, “Bren wasn’t satisfied with your non-answers when you called her last week. So she called your father, instead.” He swore from his end. “Dammit.”

“He told her about the raid.”

“What else did he say?”

“Just that there was a raid and that law enforcement only got four out of the thirty arrest warrants. Bren said they were keeping her out of the office all week, but I have to tell you that we went bowling there tonight.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, and her boss was there. The Brock guy. He watched her the whole night.”

“What?” Channing’s tone was low, and tight.

“He was watching all of us, like we weren’t a surprise to him. He was studying us.”

“Studying you?”

“Yeah.”

Channing was quiet again. “They kept her out of the office all week?”

“They get money if they bring in any of those arrests, right?”

“Yeah. Fuck.” It was low and quiet again. It was getting tighter too. “You wouldn’t be the one calling me unless there’s more. Just tell me.”

I leaned forward in my chair. “Let’s say there’s a situation where we hypothetically stole one of the employee’s key card.”

“What? Wait. Bren didn’t have one?”

“They never gave her a card.”

“Shit. That’s weird.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter because hypothetically maybe a few things aligned where I was able to find a room that had—”

“What did you do?” He bit out, “Was my sister there?”

I was silent.

He groaned. “Fuuuuck, Cross!”

More silence from me.

He growled. “Just tell me what you found. Hypothetically–”