Page 31 of Grumpy Sunshine

He’d been on his way out of the job, hating just like we did that people that committed big crimes kept getting allowed out while the ones that did barely anything were hit with the book.

He’d intended to get out at least, until he’d met Shasha Semyonov, the Russian Bratva’s Pakhan and Shasha’s little sister, Nastya.Later on, my brother, Cutter, had married Shasha’s other sister, Milena, tying all of us together forever.

Shasha and the Truth Tellers had a connection.

Shasha hated people that didn’t get what they deserved, and we did, too.

“Good.”I sighed.“I’ll talk to you later.”

“You’re there, aren’t you?”he asked.

“There” being at Aella’s.

“Yep,” I replied.

“Go soft,” Webber suggested.“She may look like she can handle a lot, but I think she’s barely hanging on.”

I wasn’t a soft kind of person.

My life had ensured that was a reality for me.

However, for Aella…I might be able to pretend to be soft.At least for a little while.

“We’ll see,” I returned.

“One more thing.”Webber hesitated.“I wanted to tell you the reason we hired Trini in the first place.”

I paused, worry going through me.

“Okay,” I waited.

“Cakes asked us to let her come work for us because he had some questions he wanted answered,” he said.

“Cakes” was also Paden Nobleman, one of what we called the geriatrics.

He wasn’t old.He was just with the Truth Tellers the longest.He’d joined when he was in his twenties and now was in his mid-forties.He and his old lady, Cally, had recently gotten a divorce, and a lot of stuff was coming to light for him after Cally hadn’t gotten her way in the divorce proceedings.

One of which was that he possibly had an adult daughter running around out there that he’d had no clue about until now.

Did that mean…

“Does he think that Aella is his daughter?”I asked.

“He suspects,” he answered.“He said that there was an instance when he was younger where he’d slept with Trini.He remembers Trini coming around after that, but he’d just met Cally, who had a big problem with him talking to other women.”

That was true.

Cally had been so over the top jealous that it was hard to be around her for any length of time.

She was very abrasive and condescending, and poor Cakes had to deal with that day in and day out.

Not to mention, if Cakes even so much as took a beer from another woman, Cally was accusing them of cheating.

“Thanks for the info,” I said.“I’ll bring some of her hair.”

Webber hung up without replying, as he always did, and I shoved my phone back into my pocket and padded barefoot to the bathroom.

The only thing I could hear was the shower, at least, until I got closer.