Page 12 of Smoke After Hours

My eyebrows raised in surprise at her mention of a prior conversation. “You’ve been paying attention to your surroundings.”

“Just like you taught me,” she murmured with a sheepish smile that punched me right in my gut.

Over the years, I’d had plenty of time to train Bentley on being cautious of everything around her. She always had street smarts, but she needed to cultivate those skills a bit. When my brother, LaCross, had gone to prison and my mom lost both of her jobs, someone had needed to take care of the bills. My dad had never been in the picture. I took to the streets for a while, but I didn’t want to chance getting arrested, forcing my mom to visit both of her sons behind bars.

Meeting Jackie D and a few other Crowne family members when they were in New York for an event had seemed like the break I needed, and in a lot of ways, it was. I was working security of a venue at the time, and I hit it off with Hennessy, Jackie D’s brother. Of course I knew about street gangs and mafia groups, but I hadn’t met an organized crime family like the Crownes before. They moved different and were in the spotlight quite a bit more than what I would have assumed a family in their standing would be.

At their holiday galas, you often spotted some of everybody. Politicians, law enforcement, philanthropists, educators, porn stars, celebrities, and everything in between. With legit businesses to mask their illegal ones, I was hooked on what I called the Crowne high. When Jackie D invited me to Chicago and initially recruited me for his security team, I was one of theyoungest men on his payroll, so I had a lot to prove and not a lot of time to prove it.

During those early days, we went on missions as a team of three to make sure someone always had our back. We usually trained off grid and never trained on the Crowne estate grounds.

Yet, that day, we were told some family was visiting from New York. I’d been covering for one of the gate guards and was nosy about the visitors since they resided in my home state. That’s when I saw her again. My beautiful, bright-eyed Bentley walking around the grounds with two women I later learned were her play cousins, Nessy and Lyric.

I hadn’t seen her since that one time in high school, so it almost felt like fate was tossing me a bone. I wasn’t able to call out to her—rules to being a gate guard—so I watched her from afar, captivated by how magnetic she was. Unfortunately, I had to head on a mission later that day with my teammates, Dominic Prescott and Evander Hood.

I told them both that I had spotted the woman who was never far from my thoughts, and while Dominic encouraged me to go for it, Evander teased me that I’d probably clam up when I spoke to her. Dominic was from money and hailed from Rosewood Heights, South Carolina. Whereas Evander was from Detroit and grew up hustling for money like I had.

A sound ahead of us in the darkness distracted me from my thoughts. A shadow passed one of the red lights, the hallway growing murky as we continued to walk.We’re close to the river.I had already studied the area when we arrived and spotted the river past the parking lot behind the movie theater.

My sense of urgency heightened when a slither of light from the post outside wafted through the hallway when the door was slightly opened by whomever was testing my patience.

With determined strides, I pursued the elusive figure who had vanished through the exit door moments before. Bentleystayed close behind me, her footsteps quiet like mine despite the fact that we’d quickened our pace.

Pushing open the door slowly, I studied the desolate back parking lot, the chill of the night air sending shivers down my spine.

“Fuck,” I huffed as we watched the creeper hop on a motorcycle and take off.

“What should we do now?” she asked.

“Nothing.” I scanned the empty expanse, a sinking feeling settling in the pit of my stomach.Something is off.And I hated that feeling.

“Are you okay?” I asked, not ready to put my gun away yet.

She nodded, an uneasy look in her eyes. Instinctively, I reached out to reassure her, my voice steady as I suggested we retreat to the hotel.

Despite the darkness that enveloped us and the uncertainty lurking in the shadows, I found solace with Bentley tucked into my arms as we made our way to the car.

“Oh no, what about the High Hoppers who are watching the movie?” she asked. “I need to let them know we’re leaving.”

“They’ll be fine. This technically wasn’t an official stop on the hop. I’ll shoot Santiago a message letting him know we’re leaving. He’ll tell everyone else.”

Santiago may be young, but we were cut from the same cloth. I knew it the moment we met.

With a silent nod of agreement, Bentley finally got into my rented SUV, but her mind seemed a million miles away.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“You already know what,” she said. “I noticed exactly what you did.”

“Maybe it was an employee of the theater,” I suggested, trying to make her feel better.

She frowned and smacked her lips. “You don’t have to do that right now.”

“Do what?” I asked.

“Protect me.”

I released a forced laugh. “Newsflash, but I’ve been protecting you for years.”

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