Page 78 of Rebel

Storm shook his head like I was a crazy person. “How much did you think a custom ring was gonna cost you?”

“I dunno, a hundred thousand dollars? I was half expecting to tell him I couldn’t afford it. I mean gold is expensive, right?”

“Yeah, gold’s expensive, but it’s the time and his level of skill that costs so much.”

I assured him, “I’ve seen the quality of work he does on the fingers of a lot of the club’s old ladies, so I’m sure it’s gonna be great.”

“I’m glad you’re happy. You might want to save the rest of your cash for a fancy wedding. Once that’s out of the way, you’ll both be set. You can settle down and live the American dream together.”

“Oh, I plan to, Prez.”

Glancing around my place, he added, “Don’t be surprised if she decides she wants a big house.”

“Not my ladybug. She loves my container home. Says it’s trendy, modern, and cool.”

Storm just smiled at me. “You are the luckiest fucker on planet earth, and you don’t even know it.”

“The hell I don’t,” I told him. “Right now there is only one thing standing between me and marrying the woman of my dreams.”

Storm teased, “Let me guess. It’s the three months you’ve got to wait on that ring to come back, right?”

“There’s two things, one is waiting for the ring to be made, but the other is beating information out of the asshole who abducted her.”

Storm looked almost guilty when spoke, “Celt had a go at him and got new intel.”

“Don’t leave me hanging, Prez. What did that cousin of yours find out?”

“It didn’t take much to get the asshole to admit that he was the one who broke into Livingstone Electrical.”

I shot him a disgusted look. “I figured as much. What I really wanted to know was why. What did he hope to gain by breaking into the family business?”

“Edwards admitted to wanting to find something incriminating to blackmail her with.”

My mouth fell open. “He thought my Lacey was cookin’ the books? That’s crazy talk. He doesn’t know Lacey at all to think she’d be stealing from her own parents.”

Storm explained, “He wasn’t focused on any particular kind of wrongdoing, he just wanted to find something embarrassing to manipulate her with.”

“Of course, my Lacey was squeaky clean. That’s why it took him time to work up the nerve to abduct her, right?”

“It looks that way, Hacker managed to check his van’s GPS, and it looks like he made quite a few trips from LA to here over the past few weeks.”

“So he was stalking her? I am going to beat the fuckin’ stuffing out of that dipshit.”

“That’s the thing. I think my cousin messed him up already. All he does it stare at nothing for hours now.”

“The fuck? It sounds like he might have some kind of head trauma.”

“We could drop him off at the ER or give him a dirt nap. Your choice,” Storm said with a shrug.

I ran one hand through my hair. “I’d like to say dirt nap, but my Lacey would say take him to the ER.”

Storm grumbled, “Yeah, women are softhearted that way. What we need to ask ourselves is how likely it’ll be for him to talk to the cops, or even come after her again.”

A soft feminine voice drifted from behind us, “Just drop him off at the ER. You know I don’t approve of killing.” Storm and I both whirled around to see Lacey standing at the door. I wondered how long she’d been there for, and I hoped she hadn’t heard me talking with the jeweler.

I tried to cover my surprise by walking over and putting my arm around her. “That’s just what I was gonna say. We’ll drop him at the hospital and let the doctors there figure out what’s wrong with him.”

Lacey looked thoughtful for a moment, “What about the police, would he tell them you’ve been holding him?”

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