Terrific.

It was about Hattie.

The topic he least wanted to talk about.

Mostly because he’d been a dick, and he’d been that standing next to that statue she’d made that shared just about everything there was to Hattie Yates, and none of it was good, but none of that was on her.

And then …

Yeah.

Even standing by that piece, he’d dug right in and acted like a dick.

“And?” he prompted when Boone didn’t continue.

“She got in the back of a Lincoln town car. With Cisco.”

Axl felt his eyes do a slow blink.

Then, quietly, “What?”

“Don’t know what that’s about,” Boone said. “The women are pretty pissed at Hattie for dissin’ Lottie on her party so they’re all about the cold shoulder. But Ryn called Cisco and demanded to know what was going on, and Cisco told her it wasn’t his to share. She should ask Hattie. My woman can be stubborn so that was the end of that.”

“Wasn’t his to share?” Axl asked.

Boone shrugged. “No idea, man.”

Axl took in a big breath.

Right.

He wanted to know what was Hattie’s that wasn’t Cisco’s to share, but Cisco knew it and the girls did not.

No, he needed to know.

But bottom line, it wasn’t his business.

It really wasn’t.

That said, Hattie fucks with his head dancing to that song for him, afterward running away, and then, a week later, she’s with fucking Cisco?

Denver’s top crime lord and the man whose actions landed all of them in a load of shit?

What the fuck?

“Okay, I’m getting a bead on where you’re at with this now,” Boone muttered, watching him closely.

“Not my business,” Axl forced through his teeth.

“Axe, bud—” Mo started.

“I can’t kidnap the woman and make her go out with me,” Axl pointed out.

The reactions to that would have been hilarious if he was in the mood to laugh.

Mo, agreement.

Mag and Auggie, intent contemplation.

Boone, open disagreement.

“Not endorsing kidnapping, but maybe the cautious, restrained approach isn’t working,” Auggie noted the obvious.

“I wasn’t cautious or restrained when I got up in her shit yesterday morning about her missing Lottie’s thing,” Axl informed them, getting some widened eyes, brows raising, and Boone’s head jerked. “I was an asshole. And when I stormed out, she didn’t race after me in order to offer an explanation it bottom line isn’t my right to have. Though, I acted like it was. And I haven’t heard from her since. I’ve tried the direct approach. I’ve tried the let’s-be-friends in order to lull her into the we’re-not-just-friends-anymore approach. I’ve tried the dickish, get-your-head-out-of-your-ass approach. I’m battin’ zero across the board. I’m not sure where to go from here. But what I’m thinkin’ is, after I lost it with her yesterday, she’ll be even less inclined to give me a shot.”

“You were a dick to her?”

That was Mo’s rumble.

“You saw that dance,” Axl returned.

It was weak, but it also was an excuse.

Mo’s lips thinned.

He saw that dance.

He also knew what that dance was about.

So he knew it was an excuse.

“She ran away from me after that dance,” Axl continued. “She’s no longer replying to texts, even when she never really did, she just did it enough to blow me off without seeming to blow me off. And she wasn’t replying even before I was a dick to her. I don’t know what the woman wants. I think she wants me, she knows I want her, and I’m all in to put in the work, but for her sake, as well as mine, I gotta know when to stop banging my head against the wall. Because there’s a line where it stops bein’ about a man who thinks you’re worth the effort and a man who doesn’t get the hint and he becomes a creeper. And it feels like I’m edging over that line.”

“We gotta get one of the girls to talk to her,” Mag noted.

“That’d be Evie since Ryn is pissed as shit,” Boone declared. “Missing Elvira’s boards with a lame excuse was the last straw. She ranted for a whole half an hour when she got home after that.”

“I shouldn’t have told you Lottie got her feelings hurt,” Mo remarked to Axl.

“Mac is like a sister, buddy, and I was angry Hattie hurt her. But it isn’t on you I got pissed on Mac’s behalf and did something about it. That’s on me,” Axl replied.

“How deep does this shit go with her father?” Mag asked cautiously.

Axl shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t dig. I felt it was something, when we got together, that she’d want to find her time and her way to lay on me, not me invading her life like that.”

“What?” Boone asked, but he didn’t ask Axl.

He was looking at Auggie.

So Axl looked to Aug.

And when he saw the expression on Auggie’s face, he demanded, “You looked into her?”

“Only to be prepared for this very conversation,” Auggie replied.

Mo crossed his arms on his substantial chest.

Mag blew out an audible breath.

Boone chuckled low.

Axl just stared at his brother.

“So? What’d you find?” Boone pushed.

“I don’t wanna know,” Axl said quickly.

“It was ugly and then it was uglier,” Auggie stated.

Fuck.

“Divorce proceedings are on record,” Auggie kept on. “The custody stuff, the mom testified and Hattie was of an age, she could too. Massive control issues for the dad, and he had them with both the mom and Hattie, which was why the mom left. Mental abuse, both, until the mom left. Physical stuff was only Hattie, and it was minor, even if it wasn’t, but in a way a kid might not think anything of it, except that it seriously sucked, and for Hattie, it was constant. Pinching. Shaking. Shoving. Holding her arm or hand too hard. Pulling her hair. The mom never knew about it, because Hattie didn’t report it. But that escalated to what caused the mom to go balls to the wall to get sole custody of Hattie with only every-other-weekend-Saturday-afternoon visits with the dad. He caught her with a vicious backhand when she fucked up some audition for some high school in Chicago. The mom saw it and Hattie never again stayed for any length of time with her father while she was still a minor.”