“What are you doing here?” Matteo asked. “You guys need a doctor too?”
“I told you. I’mnota doctor,” Amy replied.
Matteo rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I don’t give a fuck about you, but you’ve got a serious problem. You’ve pissed off Don Mancini.” His eyes lingered on Brogan for a moment and he smirked. “But I guess you’re making powerful friends too. I don’t have to guess how you got yourself a bodyguard.”
Matteo’s eyes scanned her body, lingering at her chest. Her skin crawled and she took a step backward.
“Get out,” Brogan demanded, and she was pretty sure that things were seconds away from escalating into violence.
But Matteo was nowhere near as big as Brogan, and he seemed to realize that his chances of getting the better of her bodyguard were slim to none. He raised his hands up in a gesture of surrender and started to walk backwards toward the exit.
“I’m going.” He turned his gaze on her. “I just wanted to tell you that I know you’re responsible for Wendy getting fired and you’ll be sorry, but now that I see you’ve aligned yourself with the fucking Irish, I don’t need to worry about it.”
“What does that mean?” Brogan asked, sounding more angry by the moment.
Matteo gave him a cocky smirk. “The don is going to wipe you fuckers out. You’ll be sorry for what happened in that warehouse.”
He was out the door before Brogan could respond.
“Warehouse?” Amy repeated. “What’s he talking about?”
Brogan sighed and took a seat on a stool at the counter. “You know how Ruby was taken? We found her at a warehouse and let’s just say that not many Italians walked away from the scene.”
“And they act like you guys are to blame? They abducted a woman!”
She couldn’t help feeling personally offended by it, considering that they took her as well. These assholes were so entitled.
Despite how angry it all made her, Amy could see that Brogan was even more worked up. He was grinding his teeth together so harshly that she wouldn’t have been surprised if he cracked a tooth. He was texting on his phone, probably telling Owen what happened.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, making an impulsive decision. Brogan’s eyes stayed on her as she walked to her co-worker, a man named Gerry that was leaning against the counter and completely ignored her encounter with Matteo while he scrolled through social media on his phone. “Do you mind if I take off early today?”
Gerry shrugged. “Might as well. It’s pretty dead in here.”
She headed to the back to clock out and returned to Brogan.
“Let’s leave,” she said. “I have an idea of somewhere we can go to take your mind off things.”
He shook his head. “That’s not necessary.”
“I think it is. You’re obviously pissed off, and that makes you bad company. Since I’m stuck with you no matter what mood you’re in, I’m going to do my best to turn that frown upside down.”
Brogan chuckled, the low sound seeming to go straight between her legs. She was already aching there from the early morning shower they’d taken together, when he held her up against the tiled wall and took her with a roughness that made her see stars.
“Amy?” Brogan’s voice brought her mind back to the present and the amusement in his eyes told her that he had a pretty good idea of what she’d been thinking about. “Where do you want to go?”
Amy grinned. “You’ll see.”
He was still driving them everywhere, so she pulled up directions using the GPS on her phone and directed him. When they pulled into the parking lot of the tall black building, he turned to her with surprise on his face.
“Ax throwing? This is what you want to do?”
“I’ve always wanted to try it, and it seemed like the kind of thing you’d like to do.”
“You’re right about that.”
Inside, there was loud rock music playing over a sound system and industrial-style decor. There were exposed HVAC pipes on the ceiling and gunmetal gray walls. There were chrome accents everywhere and the ax throwing areas were separated by chain link fencing.
Amy had no idea what she was doing as she held a surprisingly heavy ax in her hand that was slightly larger than a hammer. But it didn’t surprise her at all when Brogan stepped up to the red line that marked where they should stand and expertly threw his ax right into the center of the wooden target board fifteen feet away.
