Page 50 of JoJo

Angel Girl gave a sheepish shrug of her shoulders. “We couldn’t really turn it down. We’re trying to expand Redemption, Inc. since most of the girls hate doing the work for Product Testers.”

“That the business y’all have where you bust guys who would cheat on their women?”

Angel Girl rolled her eyes. “That’s a simplified version of what we do,” she explained. “Are you going to tell us how we make them do something they normally wouldn’t by tempting them?”

“No. I think that’s pretty much the case for every cheater isn’t it? Something tempts them, and they either take it or they don’t. If they don’t walk away from that choice then they need to live with the consequences and their significant other should know that they’re too weak a person for the level of commitment they were expecting.”

Angel looked like a fish out of water for a minute with her mouth falling open in shock. “I think you’re one of the only men who has ever seen it that way without one of us having to explain it.”

Steel laughed. “That’s because you have two types of men. The ones that can’t fathom anyone needing that service, because they’d never feel okay about stepping out on someone they were serious with. Then you have the others who have either thought about stepping out on someone or they’ve done it. Of course they’ll take the defensive stance that you set them up, because no man wants to face the fact that he made a shitty decision.”

“I like him,” Angel Girl said to me while throwing a grin my way. “You should definitely hang on to this one.”

“I plan on it,” I told her. I did plan on it. I hadn’t expected Steel to fall into my life the way he did. I certainly didn’t expect him to be the person I had come to love and admire, but he was. I couldn’t imagine anything I wanted to see more than this beautiful man trying out fatherhood, because I had a feeling he was going to set the bar for that pretty high too.

My yawn caught both of their attention. “I’ll let you two get back to settling in. I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay,” Angel Girl said as she moved to the door of my room again.

“Can you tell the girls I really appreciated the effort. I’d do it myself, but it’s a hike to get back upstairs right now.”

“I will, and we can clear a space on the main floor for you if you’d like. Just to make things easier on you both until you are healed up more.”

“That won’t be necessary. I like my space down here. Plus, there’s less noise,” I admitted.

“Yeah, I should have thought about that when I chose one of the rooms upstairs above the bar. The little bit of soundproofing we did up there wasn’t enough.”

I chuckled at that, because it was exactly why I’d chosen the placement of my room. Everyone had laughed at me when I picked one that was almost directly underneath the office. Angle eyed me speculatively then. “You are one smart cookie,” she finally said. I winked at her, but then yawned once more. “All right, I’m out of here. If you need anything, pick up the phone and let one of us know.”

It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep, but the nap was shorter than I would have liked. It took me a minute to realize what had awoken me, but then I heard the voices outside my room.

“I don’t think you need to wake her,” Steel was telling someone.

“Listen, I know you’re looking out for her, but she’s going to want to know.”

There was a pause and then the door cracked open so I made an attempt to maneuver myself into a sitting position on the bed, which was actually quite difficult considering my opposite leg and shoulder were injured making for a painful wobble-into position.

“Damn it, Jo, wait. I’ll help you,” Steel called out before throwing what I could only assume was an angry glare at the women following him into the room.

“Sorry,” Keys managed to get out, which did not alleviate my husband’s irritation with them.

“It’s fine,” I squeaked out as Steel helped move me and place a pillow behind my back so I was more comfortable. “Thank you,” I told him before he leaned in and kissed me.

“I told them to wait. If you think they should have, I will find someone to kick their asses for you.”

I laughed at his suggestion, as did the girls.

“We deserved that,” Angel agreed as she moved in closer to perch on the side of the bed furthest away from where Steel was. “I thought you should know what we found out during the interrogations.”

That got my attention since I was extremely interested in knowing why I was the target, and who had paid to have me killed. I glanced at Steel. “Do you know already?”

“We haven’t told him yet,” Keys informed me, but she was glancing nervously between Angel Girl and Steel, and which had my ears perking up a bit.

“It was a woman,” Angel started.

“A woman?” I questioned, racking my brain trying to come up with anyone who had a grudge against me. “Who the hell? Was it one of the RC members I kicked out before?”

Angel shook her head and Keys bit down on her thumbnail. It was one of her nervous habits that made me squirm a little on the bed. I had a feeling this was not going to be an answer we were going to like very much. “What aren’t you saying?”

“The woman who hired the idiot that was following you around in that Chevy,” she started and then looked at Steel. “Her name is Jenn.”

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