Page 49 of Beyond the Badge: Nox

He wasn’t.

ChapterEleven

His commuteto work was short and sweet. Only one flight of stairs stood between his apartment and the task force’s office space.

The feds leasing the top floor of The Plant from the Blue Avengers had fattened the club’s coffers. The monthly payments weren’t a huge windfall but certainly helped keep the lights on and prevented the BAMC treasurer, Mike Miller, from jacking up the members’ dues.

Once the DEA shut down the task force, they’d be back to doing a bunch of fundraisers and trying to recruit more members to help fund their clubhouse.

Nox punched in the security code and as soon as he heard the lock release, he walked in to find that quite a few of the task force members had already arrived for the meeting.

Today’s meeting should be a pivotal one. They were nearing the end of their investigation and had gathered enough evidence between the three task force groups to get indictments on the Deadly Demons MC. The Tri State Federal Drug Task Force group leaders, including Crew, had submitted their damning reports to the Assistant US Attorney.

He was sure Crew would be giving them an update on where the investigation was heading next.

“Hard Nox!” Rez called out.

“How the fuck are you here before me?” Usually, his BAMC brother sauntered in at the last minute.

Rez shrugged. “Guess you’re a slacker.”

With a shake of his head, Nox dropped the container of chocolate chip cookies in the center of the conference table next to a ravaged box of donuts. Not much remained except for powdered sugar residue, chocolate smears and crumbs.

He tucked the last cruller between his teeth and headed over to the coffeemaker for some much-needed black gold.

Thank fuck someone had made a pot of coffee, even though the full carafe would be kicked soon enough. The whole team drank it like it was crack.

As Nox filled his mug, Torres asked, “What’s in the container?”

He glanced over to see some of the guys already crowding around the cookies.

Rez leaned in to inspect the contents. “What is it?”

“Is it food?” asked Crew.

“Chocolate chip cookies.” It was hard to understand Torres since he had already shoved a whole cookie into his mouth. Once he swallowed, the plant manager exclaimed, “Damn, these are the bomb! You make these?”

“Have I ever baked for you fuckers before?” Nox asked around a mouthful of the sweet, airy donut.

Torres shrugged. “You could’ve found a new hobby, asshole. How the fuck would I know? It’s not like you share a lot.”

The “share” comment had him thinking about Aaliyah.

And he was trying not to think about her.

It was a losing battle.

He hadn’t thought about anyone else since the other night at the community center.Hell, he hadn’t thought about much ofanythingelse, either.

The woman had somehow embedded herself in his brain.

He had told her that he wasn’t going back to her group.

But he already knew that was a lie.

He’d be going back.

He shook himself mentally to return to the conversation happening around him. That was when he realized the herd of hungry, hungry hippos circling the table had emptied the container within seconds.

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