Idly waving my hand, I suggest, “Then why didn’t you leave it as it was, and let the rest grow to catch up with it?”
“Get out of here, Freak. You’re putting me off my game.”
“You don’t have a game,” Paint observes while clearing the table, then sinking the black ball easily. He holds out his hand.
Rat groans and places a ten-dollar bill in it. “Set them up again.”
As Paint obliges, my stomach growls. Leaving the brothers to rack the balls on the pool table, I head for the kitchen.
Breakfast is long over, of course, but I’m hoping one of the club girls will be around to rustle up some brunch. Of course, it’s just my luck to walk in and find Trixie sitting at the kitchen table, flicking through a magazine.
“Afternoon, Freak.” Her voice is pleasant enough, but her expression is wary.
I raise my chin, but before I can speak, footsteps sound behind me.
A hand lands on my shoulder. “Good fuckin’ night, wasn’t it?”
Turning, I see Tempest grinning. “It went smoothly,” I agree, but stop there. I’m not going to say more in front of Trixie.
“Gonna cook us something?” Tempest doesn’t even try to hint at his needs, just asks directly.
Trixie closes her magazine without complaining. “Want a late breakfast, or something else?”
“I’ll take eggs, bacon, sausage links, and hash browns.” Tempest places his order.
I’m easy, so I say, “Same for me.” Going over to the coffee machine, I test the jug to see if it's hot, then pour myself a coffee. I raise a brow toward the sergeant-at-arms. He nods, so I get another cup out and fill that too.
Trixie busies herself, going between the fridge and the stove, gathering the items for our late breakfast together. She casts a look over her shoulder at me. “How’s Ace doing? You heard from him?”
It’s none of her fucking business.But as Tempest tilts his head questioningly, I take it he is also interested. “He’s doing great,” I spit out, tossing her one of my best enforcer looks to prevent her from probing further. In truth, I know nothing about him since I dropped him off with his aunt last evening.
Apart from when he’s at school, he’s either here with me, with Ma, or very occasionally, with one school friend whomwe’ve vetted beforehand. This is the first time he’s been such a long distance away from me since he was six months old. Surreptitiously, I draw my phone out of my pocket. The screen showing no new notifications just confirms what I’d suspected. I hadn’t felt it buzzing, and there’s been no response to either of my messages. I frown.
“You okay, Bro?” Tempest catches my expression.
With a glance toward Trixie, I stick to saying, “All’s good.” Remembering her warning before I took Ace to Flagstaff, she would probably blow his lack of response all out of proportion. He’s probably having such a good time with his aunt, he’s overlooked my text.
Trixie starts plating up, and soon, Tempest and I have full plates in front of us. Neither of us speaks for some time, as we’re too busy stuffing our faces. Me, in particular, as I can’t remember the last time I ate. I think it was when I grabbed a sandwich yesterday, before I went to pick up Ace.
Once our plates are as clean as if we’d licked them, Trixie collects them both. Tempest jerks his head toward me, and I follow him into the clubroom.
Bullseye and Saint are sitting at a table and wave for us to join them.
“Got your message that all went well last night,” Prez starts. “Good job. Any comments about how it went?”
I defer to Tempest with a raise of my chin.
“Nah, Prez,” he tells them. “That charity disguise seems like a go. They checked our credentials, but didn’t appear suspicious.”
“You got the guns where they needed to be.” Saint leans back in his chair. “Sounds like a success to me.”
“I’d rather we still had the route over the mountains,” I observe. “Fuckin’ shit that we gave that up to the Mojave Devils.”
“But they did get caught using it.” Bullseye chuckles. “Double-edged sword. We can’t use it, nor can they. There’s somuch camera surveillance now, even a flea couldn’t jump across without being detected.”
My eyes gleam. “Cameras can be hacked into.”
“They use drones,” Tempest inputs.
