Page 30 of Deadly Aloha
I spotted her phone on the coffee table behind her. Like she’d been on it when I’d knocked on the door and set it down to answer. I wrapped an arm around her middle to keep her secured to me as I leaned forward to grab the device. I still had to replace mine that was no doubt a pile of melted plastic by now.
I looked at the picture on her lock screen, surprised it hadn’t changed in the years since she’d left. It was a picture of myhouse.Herhouse. She’d taken it the day she’d moved in with me. She’d grown up in a rundown shack of a house, and she’d been so excited to finally have a home that she’d taken this picture. I never understood it, because it was a small, old house, but it was like it was a sense of pride with her that it was now hers.
I glanced up from her locked phone, to her, and back down to the phone. What else hadn’t she changed? Since my face did not unlock her phone, I swiped up to bring up the keypad. Six digits.
Staring at her to catch her reaction, I hit the numeric buttons for my birthday. Her expression did not change, almost like she was challenging me to comment as her phone unlocked.
I pulled up her contacts, knowing Lu wouldn’t have deleted anyone’s number just because she was pissed and disappointed enough with me to accept a job on the Mainland.
“Did the bastard who hit you know the passcode to your phone was still my birthday while he was fucking you?” I asked as the ringback tone sounded in my ear.
Her eyes narrowed just slightly, but she said nothing.
“Lu?” came over the phone.
“It’s me,” I told Hiro. “Lu was dating someone before she came back from the Mainland. I want to know who. Name, address, everything.”
I heard something that sounded like a snort. “Do you want to know his blood type too?”
“No,” I said honestly. I didn’t look away from Lu as I added, “Sharks don’t care about blood type.”
She gave me a look that said she did not like where this conversation was going. Tough shit.
Hiro chuckled darkly. “Does Lu get to throw all the womenyou’veslept with overboard too?”
“If she wants to,” I told them. “I could care less. This one dies because he hit her.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone before Hiro said in a serious voice, “Give me five minutes.”
I hung up, tossing the phone to the other end of the small couch.
I wasn’t sure what I expected to see on her face after a conversation like that, but the sadness I saw confused me. I tucked her hair behind her ear. “Talk to me, Lu.”
“You’re still…” She shook her head like she was disappointed in me. “You haven’t changed. I mean, I should have guessed after last night and seeing you fight, but Kanoa said he hadn’t seen you in almost five years. I guess I thought…or anyway it was just wishful thinking…”
I knew exactly what she was talking about. I brought her face back to me. “I’ve kept my promise. It was too little too late in regard to us, but I kept it.”
“Then why were you at the docks last night?” She wasn’t suspicious, per se. Not like she thought I was lying. She knew me better than that. Lying was the coward’s way out.
“I owed someone a favor. I was there for information, but then I saw you being carried inside that fucking storage building.” My grip on her hair turned possessive. “And I will never stand back and watch while you’re in danger, Lu. It’s physically impossible for me.”
She was quiet for a moment before asking. “Who did you owe a favor to and why?”
I sat back a little. The shift in our bodies changed my position inside her. “His name is Elrik Jameson. He’s the National President of the Royal Bastards MC.”
Lu nodded, understanding my words but not their significance. “And why would you owe a favor to him?”
I’d never told her the whole of the story of how I’d almost died. She only knew the very simplistic version. “Because he saved my life.”
It took her a moment, and then her eyes widened. “From…?” I nodded. A flurry of emotions crossed her face, too quick for me to name. “And,” she swallowed hard, “what was the favor he called in?”
“There were reports of the Bloody Scorpions MC being on O‘ahu. He sent down two of his club from LA to investigate, but they needed a native guide.”
“The two strangers from last night,” she said under her breath. “One gave me his shirt.”
I nodded. “Red and Aftermath. I agreed to help to get both them and the Bloody Scorpions off my island. Return things to how they were. But now that’s changed.”
“How so? Are they refusing to leave?”
