Page 57 of All of Me

Diesel chuckled. “Pink said I drove her nuts.” He sobered a little. “I think when you’ve seen the worst of what humanity is capable of, you expect it, and want to shield those you love from it.”

I hitched in a breath.Love?Diesel had never shared much of his life, but then there hadn’t been time. I looked up as I heard a door open, then tried not to be disappointed when Danny wandered in, heading for the kettle. “Okay?” Diesel asked.

“I’ve been doing some digging and I can’t make any sense of this.” Diesel nodded to the chairs and took over making Danny’s tea.

“What, tonight, or all of it?” I asked, because he wasn’t the only one.

“I’ve got links,” Danny said, sitting down, “or I’m pretty sure of connections between Dodson, Ringo’s dad, Dunne, Bruin, and obviously Ryan Connaught, but I can’t find anything to indicate he’s desperate enough to employ a hit team.”

Diesel put down Danny’s tea, and he carried on. “Tulip Homes or Dearden might make sweet with the zoning committee, bribe even, but I’ve got evidence to prove they’ve walked away from deals they couldn’t persuade the owner into that would have made them a lot of money. No one’s died, and if Ryan paid for last night, there would be a trail. Something.”

“Baby,” Kane appeared, looking concerned at Danny. “I thought you were done.”

Rawlings looked down at his phone when he got a text. Then he called a number and put it on speaker. “Jay, you’re on speaker with Shae, Danny, and Kane.”

“I just want to know what you want me to do, Diesel.”

“About?”

My stomach dropped. I didn’t know why, but it did.

“Ringo went to check on Albert and Moira while we did another perimeter sweep over an hour ago. He’s not answering his phone and his truck’s still here.”

I got to my feet, and Diesel’s eyes turned to me. “Did you try the alert?” He was asking Danny, but I knew what that was. I’d seen Drake respond before. It overrode any silent notifications, and Drake always responded.

Diesel frowned and glanced at Danny. “Have you got any video out by Albert and Moira’s?”

Danny shook his head. “There’s nothing to piggyback onto. It’s all farmland at the back. He glanced at his watch. “Gael’s going to kill me.” But then he dialed and put it on speaker.

“Yo.” It was Jake.

“Sorry. I need Gael.”

We all heard Jake mutter “It’s your other boyfriend,” and Gael’s snort.

“Everything okay?”

Danny briefly described what had happened and Gael whistled. “The hell?”

“We don’t have any CCTV out there as it’s farmland.”

“Hang on. Let me see if Thor knows anyone.”

I shot an incredulous look at Kane and Diesel, but they were both hyper focused on Danny.

It took a while and I was getting antsy. I tried calling Drake again but it went straight to voicemail.

“Okay,” Gael said. “They’ve got one of those doorbell cameras. Sending you the feed now. It’s old and there’s no audio.”

“Thank you,” I gasped out before anyone else had a chance to.

Gael’s voice softened. “You’re entirely welcome. Call me if there’s anything else.”

“There’s six recordings from this evening,” Danny pointed to the screen. It wasn’t great quality and only showed the door, butit was better than nothing. “Albert takes the dog out then comes back,” Danny murmured and moved to the third one.

“The fuck?” Diesel snapped out as we saw one man knock and then the door must have opened. What looked like another three men rushed in, slamming the door behind them. “What’s the timing with the SUV’s?”

“Seconds after the shots started,” Danny said grimly, and my heart threatened to break my ribs.

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