Page 36 of Reckless Pawn

"Club—"

She raised her hand and stopped him before he could finish. "Never mind. I don't want to hear it again."

But he did. With JD busy with one of the club women, he wouldn't hear back from him for a while unless he sent him an emergency code. He hesitated to go that far. "I'd like to hear about it."

"About what?" she asked.

"Your father." Wasn't any purpose in pulling punches with her. At this point he believed she'd respond with better results if he told her as much of the truth as he could.

Again, the light of her anger extinguished and the emotion across her face went blank. He marveled at her ability to shut down. That had to come from many years of practice. Schooling her emotions around someone like Frank Mazzeo would be a very important skill.

He softened his voice before he continued. "I have a feeling we can help each other out." And he was going to go out on a limb to do it.

"How so?"

"You want to know about the deal Houston made and I need information about your father. If you know as much as you say you do, you could save lives."

Her eyes narrowed. "That sounds pretty dramatic."

Axel smiled. How could he not? She didn't seem to miss a thing. "It's criminal and dangerous. Does that count?"

She looked down at the ground and hid her eyes from him. He was learning pretty quickly that if she wasn't careful she gave away a lot of her feelings with a single look. "Does this have to do with Houston? Is he in danger?"

He nodded. "But he's not the only one. There's a missing college girl we need to find."

Her head jerked up. "This has to do with Marco, doesn't it?"

"Probably."

She seemed to be considering what he said as she shifted from side to side, letting her gaze wander again. But when she returned her focus to him her eyes had narrowed and her expression looked fierce.

“I can probably help you, but I want more than information in return.”

He couldn’t stop from widening his eyes at her and he barely bit back the smile it gave him. Such a shame a spitfire like her was being wasted hidden away in a cabin. Now, however, seemed like the perfect time to rectify that.

“Then we canprobablymake a deal. Within reason and after we loop JD into this of course.”

She nodded. "Then tell me what you want to know."

Chapter Thirteen

Houston

"This had better be good." Houston hung his leather jacket on a hook inside the door and proceeded to drop into one of the chairs at the table. He'd been called back to the Wrath compound for an emergency session of church and no amount of undercover excuses got him out of it.

"I'm pulling you out of the field and bringing you home," JD announced.

Houston stood up straight, his whole body on alert. "What? What the hell for? I just finally started to get somewhere. I can't walk away now. We're getting close."

JD shook his head. "Fucking Frank is yanking your chain. He's got your number and is stringing you along. You are living on borrowed time with that fucker. So you are out."

Houston looked around the room. "How is that possible? Do we have a breach?"

"No. But we have received some reliable intel that led us to believe you are probably compromised and even if you're not, you'll never get where we need you to be to find that girl."

His mind reeled at this new information. All the time he'd put into the case was for nothing? And everything he'd done to get this far… his stomach churned at the memories.

"That can't be right. I've been working this for weeks to get close to him. I'm almost there. I'm sure of it."

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