He sat back, abandoning his fork, so I knew this had to be serious. “Whoa.” The play of emotions across his face had my stomach dropping into the center of the earth.
“What?”
“I’d stay away.”
My heart took off at a gallop. Rowdy wasn’t someone who was scared easily or often. “What? I can’t do that.” I scowled at him.
“What did you do?”
My face heated, and I shook my head.
Rowdy hung his head as he groaned, then stuck his fork in the center of his second piece of pie, letting it stand there on end while he kicked at my shin under the table. “Gaffin was attached at the hip to Black for a while. He was around a lot for several months, and he was definitely not someone to fuck with. Dangerous. I remember him from the underground fight circuit in New Gothenburg. He was fucking brutal. We were swinging our fists at around the same time.”
“What did you see him do?”
Rowdy frowned. “I don’t remember anything specific. He was just always with Black. If something bad was happening, he was on the margins. Black had him in his office almost every day… and then…. Hmm. I haven’t thought about this in a while.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his palms over them, and the longer he took to speak, the faster my heart pounded, until sweat stuck my shirt to my chest. “I thought maybe he went the way of shoddy recruits.” Rowdy finally opened his eyes and traced an imaginary line across his neck with his thumb that had my stomach flip-flopping after what Zihan had done—and maybe Rowdy realized he’d made a poor choice, too, because he winced. “Sorry.”
I waved off his apology. “Peter is alive and… shit. He’s alive, anyway. Black tried to fuck him dry on the floor of his cell. No one deserves that.”
Rowdy had his thinking face on, and for a while we were quiet as the diner filled with laughing early morning people. My pancakes were delivered, and I couldn’t stomach the thought, so I slid them to Rowdy.
He downed half my breakfast, then finally sat back and shook his head. “I always thought Gaffin was a hitman or something for Black because he was a hellion in the ring. Strong as fuck for his size, and nastier than a rattlesnake in a shaken-up shoebox. Maybe… he wasn’t being sent out on missions alone, the way I’d always sorta figured.”
We both rolled our eyes. “Mission” was code for vandalism or taking out someone who had pissed off Black… or any other number of illegal activities.
“He was always in Black’s office? Behind closed doors. Doing what?” I asked, gut churning. I had a few ideas of what might have been happening. He’d have been young at the time, probably barely eighteen, and not even as old as Zihan. Rowdy frowned at me. All at once, he stuck out his tongue.
“Oh God. You think he was…. What? A piece of tail?”
I hummed in acknowledgement, though I hated the idea. It fit with the way Black had gone after Peter, too, like he thought he had a right. Not that he didn’t think he could do whatever the fuck he wanted normally, but there had been an unpleasant casualness to his attitude.
“I never saw Black with a woman,” Rowdy murmured. “I wondered at the time.”
I hung my head, anger on Peter’s behalf gathering in me. I’d scraped him off the fucking floor. It wouldn’t take much to go in there and shoot Black in his cell, but then I’d be sent to an even worse prison for life. “Do you think he forced him?”
Rowdy leaned back, and I could see a battle going on in his mind as he tried to parse the new info I’d given him with the old. His mouth twisted down in the corners, but then he shrugged. “You think Black is the dating type? I only ever knew him to take whatever he wanted.”
“Yeah.”
“And Black is gunning for Gaffin now?”
I nodded.
“Damn. That’s too bad.” His shoulders slumped.
“Yeah, that’s where I’m at with it. Thanks for all your help, fuckstick.” I balled up a napkin and sailed it across the booth at him.
He laughed and knocked the paper back toward me, and of course it landed in my coffee. I glared as I tugged the soggy ball out of my mug and dropped it on one of his empty plates.
“Maybe you can sneak him a bazooka. He’s gonna need it.”
“You’re a real fucking comedian you—” I blinked at him and sucked in a deep breath. “That isn’t a terrible idea.” I shot to my feet and scooted out of the booth. My wallet wanted to jump from my fumbling fingers as I tugged it out of my pocket.
“It isn’t?”
I threw down enough money to cover both our meals and still leave a nice tip. Ducking my head as I shoved my wallet away, I whispered, “I could arm him somehow.”
“You almost managed to convince me you’re the smart one.” He shook his head. “How? And what happens if you get caught?”
