I opened my eyes and looked around the table. I didn't want to betray her confidence, but I could trust these men. So could she.
"There were people in her past," I said finally.
"You think they mightnotbe in her past," Boner said, looking ready to rip off some heads and use them as bowling balls.
He might start collecting skulls. Or breaking them.
"I don't know," I said as I shook my head. "It's certainly possible they found her and either she doesn't know, or she doesn't feel comfortable telling me."
Which I understood. Fuck knew I was keeping plenty of secrets from her. I thought it was for her safety. Now I wasn't so sure.
I rubbed my temples. Thought back to Jules' accusations about Augustus’ death.
He'd blamed me for what happened to his and Cass' brother. Told me I should have gone after Fairfield sooner. Instead of taking the time to build my restaurant and live my life. If anything happened to Erin because I hadn't acted sooner, Jules wouldn't be the only one who didn't forgive me. I wouldn't forgive myself.
"We'll keep an eye on her," Boner assured me. "We won't let anything happen to her. If they're after her, they'll have to come through us. And by come through, I don't mean with cum, because that would be?—"
I leaned over and put a hand on his bicep. "We get it. Let's not talk about their cum."
"Let's really not." Cass' mouth twisted in disgust. "Boner is right though, we'll keep an eye on her. Whether they're after her or not. If it's not her, we need to figure out who it is."
He didn't need to add 'before they try anything.' We all knew it.
"Approximately six-point-two million pairs of shoes are sold in the country each year," Archer said. "That's about seven-point-four pairs of shoes each. Finding exactly who belongs to that pair is going to be almost impossible."
"I don't even own seven pairs of shoes," I said.
"I own enough for both of us," Boner said. "What? I like me a good pair of shoes. I have a whole section of my closet dedicated to them. I update them regularly. Usually after they get someoneelse's blood on them. They tend to feel icky after that." He shrugged.
"That's actually a good reason to get rid of a pair of shoes," I admitted. "Evidence. Archer is right, it could be impossible to find whoever owns those particular ones. I'll talk to Erin about it. Warn her that people's phones are being hacked. She's cautious after the things that happened to her. She won't want anything private to be compromised."
If they were doing anything like that to her, I'd stab them in the eyeball with a fork.
Maybe that could be my thing. The signature that would lead to a cool nickname?
On the other hand, The Forker didn't sound that great. Not even The New Forker. Since I rarely had much cause to go after women, I couldn't be The Mother Forker.
No, I needed to try another angle. I had plenty of other utensils in my possession. Knives, skewers. More knives.
Wait a minute.
ChefStabbyhad a ring to it. They'd have to know my profession and that was more than I wanted the police to know about me. Unless I used a strategically placed carving knife, or got myself a business card and left that behind.
I was overthinking this, but I was starting to warm up to Chef Stabby. It was cute, badass and accurate.
"Are we going to make that phone call?" Archer asked.
"Yes." Cass started to tap at his keyboard again.
CHAPTER 7
HARLOW
"Let's start with this Eros joker," Boner said. "What sort of nickname is that anyway?"
He raised his hands when we all arched our eyebrows at him. "You're right. You're right. Not one as cool as Boner. Carry on then, Mr. Titmus." He lowered his hands and nodded at Cass.
Cass nodded and placed Fairfield's phone beside his laptop keyboard. As if the device was suddenly hot as lava, he tentatively pressed the screen, scrolled down to the contact and pressed on Eros' name.
