Talon (Uncompromising #1)(87)
“How the fuck should I know? Our chapters are in Florida and Georgia.”
“I’m losin’ patience,” I warned.
“That makes two of us.”
“Goddamn it, Candle.”
“You gonna pull a disappearing act again?”
“Kendall was never in danger.”
He didn’t say shit.
Fuck. “Fine. No.”
“I don’t know who the fuck is in Kentucky.”
“Find out.”
Candle sighed. “If I start asking questions, it’s gonna raise a flag. Shit is heavy over here.”
“Whoever it is, they may have Nic’s daughter.”
“Fuck. All right, I’ll ask around but I don’t need to tell you what Stone’s like. There’s no saying you’ll find the kid.”
My jaw clenched. “Just find out who’s in Kentucky.”
“Gimme a few hours.”
“You got one.” I hung up.
André tossed Carter’s phone in the center console. “Only two numbers in the log. One is the shop he worked at but the other has a Kentucky area code.”
“Fucking call it.”
“Already did. Disconnected cell number. What’d Candle say?”
Shit. “He doesn’t know dick but he’s gonna ask around.”
“If Stone finds out he’s asking…”
Candle was dead. “I know.”
We drove in silence for a few miles and I needed to talk about something else. “You okay with Neil?”
“We’re good,” he said instantly.
“You lyin’?”
“What does it matter if I am? Ariel’s a grown woman and Neil’s the size of a Viking.”
I smirked. “You goin’ soft? You afraid of a little muscle?”
“Fucker is six-six, two-fifty. That’s six inches and fifty pounds of muscle on me. What do you want me to do, arm wrestle him?”
“If you’re sweet on her, yeah.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Bull-fuckin’-shit.”
“Truth.” He shrugged and for the first time, I saw André look unsure of himself.
“What gives?”
André inhaled. “I can’t explain it, bro.”
“Try.”
“She’s Cuban,” he said, like it was obvious.
“So?”
“She’s like blood, man. I feel responsible for her. I don’t want to fuck her. I just… Shit. She has a kid.”
“Let me get this straight. If Neil was Cuban, we wouldn’t be havin’ this conversation? That’s fucked-up, dude.”
“I’m saying if Neil was from the neighborhood, I’d be making damn sure his intentions were to make her an honest woman before he got his dick wet. And no, I’m not saying this is because he isn’t Cuban or any other nationality. Any fucking dick that went after her that wasn’t him I would do the same thing to. But it is him and he’s Neil. He’s not going to marry her. He’s going to play his games with her.” The lines in his forehead creased and his dark eyes drew tight with a concern I rarely saw.
“I don’t see you settlin’ down.”
“It’s not even close to the same thing. I don’t fuck with single mothers.”
The single mother comment hit a little too close to home. I didn’t say shit but André wasn’t going to let it slide.
“What are you going to do about Nicole?”
“This the part where you give me a come-to-Jesus lecture?”
“Do you need one?”
“I made my peace with that shit long ago.” Growing up, my mother put the fear of God in me. It lasted until my first deployment.
“Then what’s up with you two?”
“I killed the father of her kid. What the fuck do you think is up?”
“Neil said he pulled the trigger.”
“May as well have been me.”
“If you want to hide behind that excuse, that’s all on you.”
Fuck. I wasn’t having this conversation. “What do the cops have on us from two nights ago?”
André sighed and switched gears. “They think it was Maldonado’s men. They don’t know about you or Nicole being there. Neil said he had your bike all night. And even if the cops do catch up to any of the LCs, they’re not going to admit to their involvement.”
“How’d you explain that you were on the scene?”
André shrugged. “I said I was driving home and saw him on the side of the road.”
“And they believed that shit?”
“I’ve got a buddy on the Daytona PD force. We have an understanding. It helped that your bike wasn’t shot to shit like Neil said his truck was. That would’ve been harder to explain.”