I knew one thing in that moment.

I really liked this woman.

So that could not happen.

“Cross my heart, never again,” I promised.

“Best stick to that,” she warned.

We hit her office.

She opened a cabinet, and this was not clandestine.

There was a fancy shaker, stylish martini glasses and everything.

Even a mini ice maker!

I’d heard a lot of talk about Elvira.

I was now seeing why.

Because straight up.

She was the shit.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Setup

HATTIE

After work that night, I opened the door to the dancers’ dressing room and saw Axl out in the hallway.

He was shoulders to the wall, ankles crossed, arms crossed, and his head was bent in contemplation of his shoes before I walked out, and it came up when I did.

It was not a pose of patient waiting.

It was a pose of annoyed reflection.

I knew two things about seeing him there in that stance.

One, Sly was off duty.

Two, they hadn’t found Laszlo Kovack.

“Hey,” I greeted cautiously. “Hey, baby,” he replied, pushing from the wall, uncrossing his arms but staying put as I made it to him and laid my hand on his chest.

He dipped his head to get my touch on the lips then took my hand and started us to the door as he said, “Caught your last dance. Usual awesome.”

“Thanks,” I murmured.

He pushed through the door and we nearly ran into Ian, who was coming in from escorting Pepper out.

He gave us both a look, a nod, and I said, “’Night, Ian.”

“’Night, Hatz. Pantera.”

“Walker.”

They added chin lifts to their macho, last-name farewells, and I wondered why men used last names instead of first.

I didn’t wonder long because in the end, it was just masculine, and in the case of Axl and Ian, hot.

Axl put me in his Jeep, rounded the hood and angled in beside me.

We belted up and were on our way.

As this happened, I thought that it sucked, this guy was screwing with him and me, Boone and Ryn.

It sucked my alone time and studio time was gone again.

And it sucked that, because of this, I wasn’t able to cook for Axl that night.

I hadn’t cooked for him yet, and truth be told, my cooking wasn’t all that much to write home about, but it wasn’t the worst.

And I wanted to do it for him.

I forged into the glum silence.

“Let me guess, you didn’t find him.”

“Nope.”

“You will. It’s just been a day,” I reassured.

“This guy is a shit Dom for fun, and he’s an insurance adjuster for work. He’s not a master criminal. We should have had him in an hour. He’s nowhere to be found.”

Oh boy.

“Well, maybe he knows who he’s dealing with and taking precautions,” I suggested.

“Yeah,” he muttered, making it clear he was unconvinced.

Back to the reassurance. “Tomorrow is another day.”

“Yeah, and we were gonna kick back and grill some burgers with Mo while you women did your thing with the shower. That’s off because we gotta find this guy.”

Another reason to be angry with Laszlo Kovack.

And since he’d racked up quite a list, I fell out of Reassurance Zone and slid into Annoyed Zone.

“This guy is such a jerk,” I snapped.

“Agreed.”

“And I don’t get him,” I kept bitching. “I mean, none of this makes sense, the latest of which is you guys can’t find him. But I’ve been thinking on it all day, and I cannot buy the leap from him being pissed at Boone for sharing justifiably how he felt about what this guy did to Ryn, to him bothering you and me. If he’s mad at Boone and Ryn, not that I want him to take that out on Boone and Ryn, still, why wouldn’t he take it out on Boone and Ryn? How do I factor into all of this? And you?”

Axl said nothing, but the air in the car had shifted.

It felt tingly.

“Axl?” I called.

“Shit,” he whispered.

“What?” I asked.

“So caught up in what he was doin’ to you, didn’t see it,” he said.

“What?” I repeated.

“It’s a setup.”

“Pardon?”

“You were right, my dad was baiting me.”

I was perplexed.

How did we get from talking about Kovack to something about a setup to him mentioning his dad?

“Okay,” I said slowly.

“He doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks about him. He has no problem being an asshole. But he knows I do. It’s a game. He wants me on my back foot. He wants to manipulate me into being an asshole. And if I take the bait, he wins. And I end up not only feeling like an asshole but feeling like a chump because I got played.”

“Yes,” I agreed, still confused.

Axl didn’t enlighten me.

He was digging in his side-leg cargo pocket for his phone.

He handed it to me and said, “Code seven, three, three, nine, two, eight. Call Boone.”

I couldn’t be ecstatic that not only did I have the key to his house, he had mine, we had drawers (as yet to be filled, still), but he also just gave me the code to his phone.

The vibe of his voice made me engage his cell and do as he said.

It was connected to his Jeep, thus rang in the car, but it only did this once before Boone answered, “All cool, brother?”

“It’s a setup,” Axl repeated.

“Sorry?” Boone asked.

“They got eyes on us. They know about this guy. And I’m not sure it’s this guy doing it. They’re leading us to this guy. Makes no fucking sense he’s stalking Hattie, tagging me in on that, maybe trying to tweak me, thinkin’ I’d have an issue with the bent of his threats to me, instead of targeting Ryn ’cause he’s got a history with her, or you, because you got up in his shit. Hattie should have nothing to do with this. Me either.”

“Fuck,” Boone said.

In other words, whatever Axl was talking about, Boone agreed.

But Axl wasn’t done laying it out.

“This guy can see her at work, follow her home. But getting her cell number and email takes resources. Hacking a computer takes resources. Becoming a ghost takes resources. Resources this guy does not have.”