Page 26 of Saving Blood

Diesel’s face falls. “Right, Boss.”

I draw in a deep breath and head for my office. The last person I feel like dealing with right now is Juan and his bullshit.

I slam through the door, and the skinny shit jerks in his seat.

“Why are you here?” I demand as I lean my hip on the front of my desk.

“I got something very valuable for you.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

The idiot smiles. “You’ll change your attitude when you hear it.”

I brace my hands on the arms of the old-school wooden chair, getting right in Juan’s face. “I’m in no mood for your bullshit today. As a matter of fact, I’ve been looking for a reason to knock somebody out since I woke up this morning—so don’t test me.” I push off the chair and round my desk.

“I saw you with the new chiquita who’s fighting for RBMC, Maxine.”

My brain spins for a few seconds. “Saw me where?”

“By the side of the gym, after midnight. Saw you getting it on with the hot fighter bitch. I saw everything.” Juan waggles his eyebrows.

Great, the little shit likes to watch. “And?”

“And . . . after you were done, I had nothing to do, so I followed her.”

I lean my palms on my desk. “Are you going somewhere with this or just letting me know you’re a perv who likes to watch people fuck and then stalk them?”

“I followed her to her apartment.” Juan pauses.

I huff out a breath. “Stop wasting my fuckin’ time.”

This guy is driving me nuts with this bullshit. I was having a hard enough time getting Maxine out of my head, and the last thing I need to be thinking about right now is our night together.

“Her apartment is in a building owned by Hector Rodriquez.”

I stare at Juan, wondering if he knows how close he is to getting his face smashed in.

“So, Rodriquez owns property in Tijuana, and she’s renting from him. Big fuckin’ deal.”

Plenty of the Royal Bastards own property in the States. Great way to hide and wash money with a decent return on investment.

“She’s not renting from him. The two-story building houses all the girls who work for Rodriquez as whores. He likes to keep them all corralled together. Easier to keep track of and to keep eyes on.”

A cold sweat creeps up my spine and surrounds my neck. “Are you telling me Maxine is?—”

“No, no, she worked as one of his fighters down in Rosarito until about three weeks ago.”

“Right around the time she started fighting for us.”

“I thought you’d find it interesting.” Juan lowers his voice. “She’s fighting for your club, but she used to fight for Hector, and now she’s living under Hector’s rule in an apartment he owns.”

“You sure about all this?”

“After I followed her, I did some asking around. I’m friends with one of the other girls in the building.” Juan raises his eyebrows. “She told me Maxine has been living there for almost a month.”

I evaluate every conversation between Maxine and me. Truth. We haven’t had any deep conversations aside from smart-ass banter, mixed with her telling me she likes rough sex, and me telling her to ride my cock harder.

My brain flashes to the other night and her being at the gym after hours, then the strange neatness of my desk. Had she been inside the gym and my office prior to our hookup? Did she use sex to distract me while somebody else broke into the gym? It explained her not wanting to continue what we started. Not so shocking she used her body as a weapon against me. Super shocking it bothered me so fuckin’ much.

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