Page 23 of Gunner

“He was in a relationship? Our investigation didn’t turn up anything about his personal life.”

“Because he was private.” I took a cigarette from my pocket and lit it. “Where are my manners? Want one?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Of course you don’t, Mr. Squeaky Clean Cop. Or are you really?”

“Am I what?”

“Squeaky clean like you pretend.”

“I don’t have anything to hide.” He took a step forward, but when I didn’t budge, he stopped. “Why aren’t you doing anything?”

“Just a few things before we go in,” I said. “She and Butcher broke up about two years ago, and she might not know anything. So don’t go in expecting much.”

“I’ve been a cop for almost twenty years. I know how to temper my expectations. Can you stop stalling and go? We’ve already spent way too much time on this case without a lead.”

7

BEN

Ben was almost shot tonight. From the way my heart hurt, I know I care about him. Maybe I should give up Gunner.

Despite me telling Gunner I knew how to temper my expectations, my heart pounded as we entered the apartment building. The whole place looked like it should have been condemned a decade ago.

After the frustrating past two months coming up empty, Gunner might have given me my first lead. We’d been checking the family background of each person who had died when we rescued the children, but the bikers in question were difficult to trace. None came from a stable home. Two had grown up in the system, and one had been a runaway from another state who’d lived on the streets. The club seemed to have been their idea of a family.

Unlike the others, I’d found some information on Gunner. He’d grown up with his father, who had been a leader in the club before him. My research didn’t turn up anything at all on his mother. For a notorious leader who had been in power for somany years, not much was known about him. As far as I knew, he had no serious relationship, no kids, and no blood relatives. He didn’t seem to have any close friends either. Not like I’d seen the bikers in the Grimm Reapers club react to each other.

Gunner was a loner.

As we climbed the stairs, cigarette smoke lingered behind him. I averted my head to avoid inhaling it. Mason had quit smoking when I’d teased him that I might as well be licking an ashtray when I kissed him. I smiled at the memory. Him holding me down and kissing me over and over. Those had been the…rare good times.

We’d spent so much time together—for work and fucking. Had our good times really been that rare? He’d never been out and hadn’t planned to come out, which I’d put up with, but it had always caused tension between us. It’d gotten so bad that after every time we had sex, he’d almost seemed guilty. Like our sleeping together was a huge burden on him despite the way he made me feel and the things he said to me when he was inside me. Postcoital bliss had been rare for us and had become intolerable at the end when we decided to take a break.

“You stuck on the stairs or something?”

Gunner’s malicious voice snapped me back into the present. He was several steps ahead of me. I’d stopped walking and clutched the railing tightly. Without a word of explanation—because I didn’t have one—I hurried to catch up with him.

Only four apartments were on the floor. He stopped at the one at the end of the hall and knocked.

“You should let me do the talking,” he said.

“I’m the cop, and this is an official police investigation.”

“She won’t talk to you. Not unless I give the go-ahead.”

“Then why the hell did you bring me?”

“Because you don’t trust me. Knowing you, I wouldn’t be surprised if you questioned anything I might have said to you that I learned from her.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Better than you think.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Had the asshole been looking me up? Gunner didn’t seem the least bit disturbed by my question.

Bolts and chains made a concert of music, and the door opened.

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