Lex:Just arrived at MissWebber’s.
I sat up with an annoyed groan. Served me right for checking messages before I was fuckingvertical.
I deleted the text and dragged my ass out of bed, rubbing the sleep away. I cleaned up and got dressed in my workout clothes, tossed some jeans and a T-shirt into my gym bag. Made myself a massive breakfast smoothie and drank the entire thing before I let myself deal withLex.
It was Saturday. And fuck, this week was movingslow.
All week, it had beenMiss Webberwith this guy. NoV, like I’d told him to call her over text message. NoWild Cardin casual conversation, like a lot of the other guys I knew called her. NoVeronica, like I sometimes called her. NoRonieven, like everyone else in the world calledher.
Miss Webber just arrivedhome.
Miss Webber is having lunch with MissMayes.
Pretty sure he assumed I had a thing forMiss Webber, and he thought he was gonna get extra points for beingpolite.
He was half-wrong.
Lex—Lexington, that was his actual name, I couldn’t possibly make this shit up—had recently joined my security crew. Lexington Miller Davenport. Dude had the name of an investment company. Or maybe a villain on a soap opera—which was exactly what he looked like, from a distance, if maybe you were drunk. But then maybe you sobered up when he grinned and you glimpsed, on either side of his perfect white porcelain veneers, the shiny platinum canines that told you you’d misjudged him.Badly.
I kinda prayed if Roni noticed him, he didn’t try to put her at ease by smiling ather.
Luckily, Roni didn’t scare tooeasily.
And anyway, if Lex knew one thing it was how todisappear.
Like so many others, Lex was a good man with a dark past and a need to make a living. Enter my brother, Piper, who’d recruited him to the West Coast Kings MC, the most powerful outlaw motorcycle club in the PacificNorthwest.
Like many men on the Kings’ crew, Lex was hungry for legit, legal work to supplement his other endeavors. Plus, he didn’t have a record and was cleared to travel. And so, just like I’d done with several other Kings, I’d gotten Lex legit work—on Dirty’s security payroll. As personal bodyguard to Dirty’s lead singer, ZaneTraynor.
Which had lasted about two nanoseconds. Frankly, Lex irritated the shit out of Zane, which meant I had to reassign himelsewhere.
Granted, most of my guys irritatedZane.
I sighed and threw on my hoodie, ready to get on with this fucking day. Then I dialed Lex. “Call her V,” I told him the second he picked up. I hated having to repeat myself. “No more of thisMiss Webbershit. All you gotta say when you text me isV. Think of it as a code and quit writin’ me novels. All. You. Need. Is. One. Letter. FuckingV. Memorizeit.”
“Sorry, brother. Thought you’d wanna know I just saw Mr. Murphy leaving Miss Webber’s building. V’s building. Shit. Do I call her V over thephone?”
“Call her whatever the fuck you want over the phone, as long as no one hearsyou.”
“He’s, uh, on his bike. I haven’t seen her leave the building yet. You want me tofollow?”
Right. Because this surveillance gig would undoubtedly get a hell of a lot more interesting—for him—if he tailed that bike. But no, I did not want him to follow. I wanted him right the fuck where he was, which was as close to Roni as he could get without her noticinghim.
“No. Just let me know where she’s at. V, coffee shop. V, hair salon. V, fuckin’ bible study.Whatever.”
“Uh, I don’t think she’s a bible study sorta girl,brother.”
“Anything more eventful than that,” I said, ignoring that observation, “you pick up the phone. AndLex?”
“Yeah,boss.”
“Call him Mr. Murphy again and I’m gonna shoot you in theass.”
“Alright, then.” I heard the smile in his voice as he cracked his gum. It wasn’t that Lex was stupid. He was just trying too damnhard.
I hung up onhim.
I wondered at what point he was gonna decide that what I had him doing—running surveillance on a woman, for her “protection,” when she didn’t even know it was happening—was dirty as fuck, and tell me to go fuckmyself.
