Page 45 of At Last

13.

Duke

My fucking phone rings, or at least I think it rings. I sit bolt-upright forsomereason. My woman hasn’t moved in her sleep, still turned toward me, half on her pillow and half on mine. I blink my eyes and look at the clock. Three-thirty in the morning. Her vanilla smell fills my nose, and rub my hands over my face, using my fingers to swipe my hair back.

Then I hear it, my cell. It rings and lights up.

I get up, tuck the covers around Doc, and answer it.

“Better be good,” I say into the line.

Tommy answers. “Sorry, Duke. I just got a call on Caity’s break in. They found some photo albums, things she wouldn’t have thought to look through. One of them is a baby book. Says ‘My First Five Years’ on the cover. It’s Jade’s book, and several pictures from the back of the book are missing.”

“Missing?”

“Missing,” he repeats.

“What the fuck does that mean?” I whisper, so not to disturb Caitlin.

“It means he has more than just one photo, and we don’t know what he wants them for. So keep diligent.”

Christ, gotta fight Houdini on two separate fronts now. Can’t call and let my VP, Elise’s fucking husband, in on any ’a it until we locate Liv because he’s gotta keep Chaos from going off the rails worrying over her. Add to that, the Horde have kept low these past several months, and I don’t trust it one bit. The fuse is lit—explosion is imminent. I just wish I knew how long the damn thing ran.

I sigh into the line. “I’ll keep diligent.”

“You gonna tell her?” he asks.

“Don’t know. Keep this between us for now.”

“Will do. ’Night Duke.”

“Same,” I say, and end the call.

I set the phone down on the nightstand, walk to the closet where I pull a pair of sweats off the shelf to shrug on, then I leave the bedroom, stopping to check on Peaches before I make my way back over to the coffee table where I’d left my cigarettes earlier today. I grab up the pack and my lighter then walk out back.

It’s a warm night, black sky full of stars. Don’t see that too often. I lean against the porch railing, pull a smoke from the pack and light it.

The clubhouse is lit up and the dregs of loud music reach me. Soft enough not to wake up my girls. Poor Elise and Trish. The boys must be partying tonight. I’ll talk to ’em tomorrow. With each drag on my cigarette, I feel myself get a little calmer.

Why the fuck does Houdini need photos of my Peaches? What’s he got up his sleeve?

A burst of laughter disturbs the quiet when a piece and one of the brothers stumble outside. I can’t see ’em, but after a couple minutes, I begin to hear the grunts and moans of early sex noise.

Even though I’d love to have Caitlin let loose with me at a club party, what I had tonight, one on one time with Peaches and then a different kind of one on one, fantastic one on one, with her mama, was one of the best nights of my life. Higher on the list than the night we spent together in Nashville.

As the sex noises get louder from outside the clubhouse, I take the final drags from my smoke, snuff the still bright butt in the sand of my outside ashtray and walk back inside. I lock the door, check on Peaches once more, then head back to the bed and my woman.

When I slide in, she readjusts and groggily asks, “Everything okay? Phone call, then you left.”

“Sorry I woke you. Call was club business. And I left for a smoke.”

She yawns. “Okay, Chief. You’d tell me is something was wrong, right?”

My body gets tight, even though I don’t mean it to. “What do you mean?”

“Just that you listen to me, but I’m a good listener, too. You can trust me. I want you to know that, that you can trust me with anything.”

“Know that, honey. Nothing to trust you with right now, though.”

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