“Sure.” Castello easily agreed to it, Steele’s word was good enough for him. “Your father knows you are in Florida?”
“Nope.” Steele’s face blanked of all emotion, the mask Castello had seen so many times in the field wiping everything off his face. “But he will by the time I am done.”
***
Axel scrubbed himself dry with the towel and wrapped it around his
waist. Stepping out of the shower, he headed to the dryer just a couple of steps away, squatted, and opened the door to search for a clean pair of jeans.
At the first touch of metal on his cheek, he dropped to the floor, kicking out with his legs in a sweeping motion. The man jumped over his legs to avoid having his feet taken out from under him. Axel’s hand reached for the knife he kept stashed between the top of the machine and the counter it was under.
“Hey, bro, it’s me.”
Only at the sound of the voice did Axel look to see who his attacker was. “Shit, you nearly gave me a heart attack, asshole.”
Grif St. Clare grinned down at the man he had called brother for most of his teenage years. They had been prospects together at Hell’s Eagles. He held out his hand and grabbed Axel’s, pulling him to his feet. “We—” Grif jerked his thumb over his shoulder to a man that Axel recognized as Rock, a friend of Grif’s who had visited the club with Grif when he was home on leave.
“We were bored and heard you and your man might be hunting fuckers.” He tucked a strand of hair that had come loose back under the bandana he wore on his head. “We decided to help.”
“My man?” Now that Axel knew it was Grif, he went back to pulling jeans out of the dryer and put them on, zipping them but not yet buttoning them.
“Moran.” Rock pointed to the wall. “The one who’s dick you were sucking.”
“Jeez, babe, classy.” Griff grumbled, “Don’t mind him, he’s just pissy as he had to tell our kiddo no when she pouted about not being allowed to come with us.”
Wait—stop the fucking lights already, Axel was confused, and he was pretty damn sure it showed on his face. “You are a couple?”
“Nope.” Rock leaned against the doorframe of the laundry room, in a pose so similar to one Castello often did that Axel had to bite down on his cheek to not tell him to stand up straight. “I don’t get it?” He asked Grif instead, as it appeared Rock was going to be the dick he had always thought him to be.
“We have a woman and kid.” Grif shrugged, “We have two weeks to get this shit sorted, as we have to marry her before she has our next kid.”
Ah, these two were more confusing by the second, “C’mon in the house, I think I am gonna need coffee before I understand it.” Or maybe coffee should just move the hell over and make way for alcohol. He was pretty sure
he was gonna need lots of it by the time Grif was done with his explanations.
“Sure,” Grif stepped back, allowing Axel to lead the way, with Rock in the place he always took, watching Grif’s six. “So, you and Moran, huh?”
“Shut up.” Axel could feel the flush rising up the back of his neck.
Thank fuck for living in Florida, may he could pass it off as sunburn. He knew it was stupid to be embarrassed, especially after growing up in a clubhouse where patch whores were a dime a dozen and he’d seen people fucking in public since he was a kid. But this thing, whatever it was, that he had going with Castello, he wanted to keep it private.
***
“How many in the truck?” Castello asked Connor.
“Two that I can see, Boss.”
“Where is the last one.”
“I have him.” Zack pushed a man down the stairs from where the room Axel had given Ambra to sleep was located. His arm wrapped tightly around the man’s neck even from all the way down the hall, Castello could see the dark metal of his K-bar pressed against the man’s lower back. He already knew from the location and the man who held it that he was probably directly over the captive’s kidneys.
“Who the fuck is he?” Castello frowned at the man, there was something almost familiar about him, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t seen him before.
Cas was good at faces, he never forgot one once he had seen it. But there was a resemblance to someone he should know. Maybe this dude was a family member of someone. He raised his eyebrow at Steele and shook his head.
Nope, he didn’t know him. Turning back, he caught a glimpse of a hand signal the man made to Steele, “He’s Mossad?”
“Former,” Steele admitted, “but also former Delta.”
