“Fuck,” Boone clipped.

Yup.

He agreed.

“They went after Hattie to drag me in, pull you in through that and Ryn’s history with him, and through you and me, get up in Hawk’s face, all to manipulate us into doing what we were going to do if we found him today. We rolled Eddie and Hank into it, something they could guess we’d do. So it’s a stretch, but not too much of one to tag them in. They knew we were investigating it. Even though Eddie and Hank now are also investigating it, they didn’t put a stop to us doing the same. You laid him out, statute of limitations is not expired on that first assault. Add another one, we’re vulnerable. If they’re pissed enough at us, and they’re pissed at us, if they got hooks in the DA, and they seem to have hooks in everybody, we’re fucked. Assault charges for you and me, and Hawk, Eddie, Hank, even other members of the crew who knew about this could get done for conspiracy or aiding and abetting.”

I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

Though I knew none of it was good.

“Christ, makes sense,” Boone said.

“B lied to Aug and me, brother. She mentioned the women. She said it was just about us being off the market. It wasn’t. They’re on the offense. They intended to use the women to get to us, and this is how they’re doing it. They’re trying to force our play to take us out.”

I didn’t know who “they” were, but I knew I didn’t like them.

Axl kept going.

“If they did a direct assault, we’d keep our shit and plan accordingly. Hit one of our women, straight thinking goes out the window. Even Hawk was off his game today, he was so pissed.”

“Motherfucker,” Boone bit.

“Hunt is off for Kovack tonight, and maybe permanently,” Axl said. “I’ll call this in to Hawk in the morning and we’ll meet.”

“Yeah,” Boone agreed. “Good grab, Axe.”

“Yeah,” Axl said curtly. “Later.”

“Later, bud.”

The call disconnected and I handed Axl his phone.

“Was I supposed to hear any of that?” I asked.

“Some of it, no, but since it pertains to you and you’re not gonna say anything to anybody, it doesn’t matter.”

Point taken to keep my mouth shut.

Next up.

“Assault?” I asked quietly.

“With their gig, in BDSM, trust is paramount. This guy put Ryn in a position where he could do absolutely anything he wanted to do to her and she was helpless to stop him. In that world and any other, that amounts to rape. Ryn’s tough, but it understandably fucked with her. But even if she shrugged it off, that’s enough to send Boone over the edge. The fact this guy could be doing it to others, he had a statement to make. He made it.”

“Were you two going to find him in order to—?”

“Definitely.”

I said nothing to that.

“Tease that out, honey,” he said in a gentler tone. “Ryn takes that to the cops, how do you think that’d go? She decided to have sex with that guy, in their scene, and from the cops’ perspective, they could think it’s just that she didn’t like the way he did it. Even if they found some charge to lay on him, she put that in front of a jury, a defense lawyer would chew her up. She consented but didn’t like the way it went. The fact he rendered her defenseless in a way she did not consent to, and doing it, probably scared the shit out of her, wouldn’t matter. A case could be made that was what she wanted. And maybe it was on the bones of it, but the way he did it, it absolutely wasn’t. And he’s free to keep doing this to women? No.”

He was right.

No.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” he replied.

I took in a deep breath.

And got to something else that was now very heavily weighing on my mind.

“It isn’t lost on me there’s an element of danger to your job,” I began, and stopped.

“Mm-hmm,” Axl hummed in an encouraging way for me to go on.

“And it’s very much you. We haven’t talked about it, but I think it feeds something in you.”

“It does,” he confirmed.

“Okay, that may be for a deeper discussion later. But for now, with whatever you were just talking about, are you in more danger than normal?”

He reached his hand out to me.

Like always when he did that, I took it.

When he had it, he said, “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to be okay. The guys are going to be okay. We got our teeth into something that’s tough and we aren’t finding it easy to tear it free. But we’ll get there, and we’ll be good when it’s done. Promise.”

“Can you make that promise?” I asked.

He didn’t hesitate.

“Yes.”

It was because this was Axl.

And the zero hesitation helped.

But I believed him.

“Okay,” I repeated.

“Okay,” he replied.

We were quiet the rest of the way home.

Only Axl was quiet on the way into the house. I baby-talked Cleo when I saw her and Axl learned I not only called her shmoochmagooch, but also Supreme Queen Grayfur and Sleekmeister General.

So he wasn’t entirely quiet.

He chuckled.

We did the couple’s bathroom dance when we brushed our teeth and I moisturized.

We both changed into sleepwear in the bedroom, and we both tossed our clothes on the chair as we undressed.

But when we got in bed, on his back, Axl tucked me to his side and that was it.

I had my head resting on his shoulder, my hand on his ridged stomach, and I didn’t know what to do about this situation.

Because I wanted to have sex.

And if he wanted it, he went for it.

I always wanted it from him, so I gave it.

Now, I wanted it and I thought maybe he needed it.

He’d had a frustrating day. He needed sleep.

And maybe connection with me.

But I didn’t know how to initiate intimacy because I’d never done it.

And if he wasn’t doing anything, did that mean he didn’t want it?

I licked my lips, rubbed them together, then decided to go for it.

If he said he wasn’t in the mood, he just wasn’t.

Things were heavy.

It didn’t mean anything more and I knew one thing for certain.