Page 71 of Givin' Me Fitz!
I smiled. “Well, Sawyer had a very nice house for me to work with. He’s taken very good care of this place. I feel bad that you have to stay in a hotel when you and Mr. Abbott could have stayed here.”
She smirked. “Mr. Morgan—”
“Mrs. Abbott, please call me Fitz. I’m in love with your son. Seems fitting that you call me by my given name, ma’am.”
The woman had a happy laugh. “Okay. But you have to call me Celine. Or Mom.”
Sawyer’s mother was only a few years older than me. Calling her Mom didn’t seem appropriate. “Celine it is.”
Thankfully, the doorbell rang. “I got it, babe.” I heard Sawyer heading to the front door, so I went to the cabinet and pulled down dishes to feed everyone. I was kicking myself that I hadn’t made a salad, but we ordered three pizzas, so I hoped that was enough to fill up the five of us.
Instead of bringing in pizzas, Sawyer brought in a huge young man who appeared very shy. “Fitz, this is Tiny. He said Mouse found the place where they’re holding TJ. I’m going to go get him.”
I chuckled. “Not without me.”
Hurrying down the hallway to my bedroom, I opened the gun safe and pulled out my backup pistol. I was still waiting for fucking LVPD to return my Glock 22. I grabbed the small Ruger and a mag, shoving the gun in the holster and clipping it to my belt. I pushed the mag in my pocket and started out of the bedroom when Sawyer stepped in front of me.
“Where areyougoing?” Sawyer stared at me, seeming to take up the whole fucking hallway.
“I’m coming with you.” I went to the closet in my bedroom, reaching for the back of the rack to find another Kevlar vest I’d recently bought online.
Mine was in the truck bed in my toolbox, just like all the other hunters. We had gear at the ready if we were called in for any reason. I thought about enlisting Greeley, but I decided maybe it was best to keep my coworkers out of this shit. I had the feeling things wouldn’t end civilly.
“No, please, stay here and make sure my parents and Mr. Middleton are safe. I don’t want you involved in this shit, and I don’t want to worry about you. I love you, and nobody is more important to me than you and my parents, so please keep them safe.”
“Bullshit. If you think I’m not coming with you, you’re crazy. Fitz, you got anything I can borrow?” We both turned to see his father standing in the doorway.
I assumed the man meant a gun, so I reached for the one on my belt, handing it to him. I gave Sawyer the extra vest, and we all went out to my truck to get the other one for Keller.
I didn’t have a vest large enough to fit the other kid, Tiny, but I’d bring it up later with Sawyer. They needed to go into these stupid situations with as much protection as they could get.
I took Sawyer’s hand as he headed toward his truck, stopping him. “You come back to me, you hear?”
Sawyer gave me a quick kiss, and he got in behind the wheel, his father getting into the driver’s seat, and they followed Tiny, who was driving a rusted red pickup. I stopped at my truck and grabbed my Winchester rifle from the toolbox and a box of shells. If anyone came looking for Mr. Middleton, they’d meet me and my shotgun.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sawyer
My heart was pounding as I kissed Fitz before joining my father in the truck. As I backed out of the driveway onto East Windmill, I saw Fitz go to the toolbox in the back of his truck and grab a shotgun, which brought me a lot of relief.
Tiny and Tim were driving Tim’s old truck. Mouse was back at the clubhouse, monitoring everything, including TJ’s fitness watch that he wore around his ankle when he wasn’t working out because he didn’t like anything around his wrists. Apparently, his captors hadn’t looked for anything that gave off a signal. For that, I’d say that were fucking idiots and thank the heavens that they were.
“What the hell is going on, and don’t bullshit me.” My father’s voice was aggressive, and I wasn’t ready for that fight yet. It was coming, though.
“I told you. Someone kidnapped TJ, and they’re going to make him throw the fight. We want to bet on it to try and get some of the money back that the Scorpions stole from us, so we gotta find TJ and make sure he doesn’t take a dive.”
Dad chuckled. “Why don’t you just fucking kill him and eliminate the threat? Why haven’t you gone after those motherfuckers for stealing the money from the dispensary?”
I sighed. I knew this shit was going to come up.
This was where Keller and I parted ways in the gene pool. In my father’s day, the old-timers would have ridden out to the Scorpions’ compound and shot everyone in sight. They’d have paid off a cop to give a bullshit reason for the massacre—like infighting or something equally as lame—and the Nye County District Attorney would have looked the other way after a big donation to the reelection campaign. I’d heard the stories when the old-timers sat and bullshitted at club cookouts, and it always amazed me with how callous they sounded.
That wasn’t who we were trying to be anymore, but they wouldn’t accept it. I’d gotten away with making some changes without too much guff because the younger guys agreed with me, but under my father’s presidency, the Cowboys had earned that one-percenter patch.
“Dad, you know I’ve tried to take the club in a more legal direction. When we were able to qualify for the dispensary license, we voted to go legit and buy our weed from licensed growers. We follow the state regulations for the brothels, having our health checks weekly as prescribed. We’ve even gone into partnerships with the members in the club who have private businesses and are of the same mind to do things legally. We don’t want to do—”
My father snarled. “You’ve all gone soft, Sawyer, every one of you young guys. What happened to my son, the fiery young man who got out of the Army and was pissed at the world about the treatment he received while serving his country? He didn’t hide his bisexuality and was angry that he’d been treated like shit by many of his fellow soldiers due to their bias against him and his kind.”
