Page 63 of Iron Will

I don’t quite know what to make of this. I never saw it coming.

Or hell, maybe I’m lying to myself. Maybe I’ve wanted this all along. I don’t know.

All I know is, I want to keep seeing Laney. I want her on the back of my bike.

I want her under me. I want her on top of me. I want her every way and any way I can have her.

My cock stirs.

Jesus. I think I’m gonna have to do something about this.

Back at my place,I’m out of the shower, a towel wrapped around my waist, when I notice there’s a new message on my phone. It’s from Joe McBride, his personal cell.

I don’t bother to listen to the message, just press reply pull the phone up to my ear.

“Hey,” I say as soon as he answers. “I saw you called.”

“Yeah. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Mickey King’s out on bond. His hearing was this morning. Judge set the bond at a thousand dollars, and someone bailed him out.”

“You happen to get the name of the person?”

“Yeah. A James Mazur.”

Huh. So Jimmy Mazur loaned Mickey the money. I wonder what Mickey had to promise him in exchange.

“Sucks that he’s out,” I remark, “but good to know. Thanks for tellin’ me. You got anything else?”

“Just his court date.”

Joe tells me when it is, but I’m not all that interested. Mickey might get jail time, he might not. My only concern is making sure I know his whereabouts from now until then. And making sure he leaves Paisley and her mom the fuck alone.

I thank Joe and hang up, then get dressed. I call Yoda and leave him a message, letting him know Mickey’s out. After that, I head out on my ride, thinking I might take a detour back over to Jimmy Mazur’s place on the way back. See if he knows what hole Mickey has crawled into.

25

Laney

“Laney.”

Blake Barber’s voice is dry as a husk.

Final.

Definitive.

“I need to see you in my office. Now.”

A few minutes later, I’m perched in the impossibly uncomfortable chair that sits across from him, looking at him over the expanse of his desk. I swear he chose this thing on purpose, just to make it suck more to be in here.

I haven’t had the chance to talk to Katie about whether Blake has questioned her yet. But given my presence in his office right now, my assumption is that he has. And that she had to throw me under the bus to protect her own job. So, as I sit in silence, waiting for Blake to speak, I steel myself for the worst.

I’m going to be questioned, and I’m going to have to give him the version of the story I’ve crafted in my mind. The one where Katie had absolutely nothing to do with trapping Mickey. I hope my acting chops are up to the task.

But as it turns out, Blake has called me in here for a completely different reason.

“I cannotfathom why you are consorting with an obvious criminal, Laney,” he states, his mouth twisted with contempt.

I expect him to say more, but apparently he thinks that’s enough. And that apparently, he also thinks I owe him some sort of explanation for showing up on the back of Rourke’s bike just now.

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