Page 131 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

I would face the reality of whom exactly that was. After I spoke to Angel.

Rolling my shoulders, I walked to the sofa and sat down to dig through my contacts for Angel’s number. Before I could, the phone rang in my hand.

I stared at the unknown number for a moment, then clicked to accept the call. “Nash.”

“Yeah, Nash, this is DuCaine.”

It took me a minute. I heard her name often from Lindsey, but her first name, not her last. “Jamie?”

“Let’s stick with DuCaine for now. You haven’t earned the right yet. So, what are your intentions toward my best friend?”

“Intentions?” I wasn’t reduced to sputtering, but it was damn close. “Why are you calling me?” Even before she answered, I was on my feet. “What is it? What’s wrong with Lindsey?”

She let out a compressed sound that straddled the line between a breath and a growl. “You’re lucky that’s how you responded. I don’t like people fucking with her. You could say that I have a problem with not resorting to violence when it comes to someone messing with my best friend.”

“Are you threatening me? And if so, thank fucking God.”

“Do you enjoy pain? If so, I can oblige you.”

I rolled over that as if she hadn’t spoken. Truly, I was trying to block it out of my head. “She must be okay. You wouldn’t be worried about making my small and wrinklies a hood ornament if she wasn’t all right.”

“Say what? Don’t get all Irish on me. I’m not Lindz. That doesn’t get my panties in a wad.”

“Thank God for that also.”

She huffed. “Where are you?”

“In my flat. Where are you?”

“We just finished our show. You should damn well know where it is, because your woman performed her fucking ass off and it’s your job as head cock to keep an eye on that shit.”

“You’re in DC tonight.”

She let out another huff. If she was satisfied that I knew, she certainly didn’t offer any praise.

But she didn’t insult me further, so I supposed that was progress.

“What happened?” I asked quietly, balling my free hand in my pocket. I was already shuffling around appointments in my head. Whatever she needed, wherever I had to go, I would do it in a heartbeat.

“There was an incident. I wasn’t—”

“Incident?” Rage blew through me like a storm. “What the fuck does that mean? Is she okay? Damn you, tell me every detail.”

“Whoa. Whoa. I thought I’d call you and find out you had one leg out the door. Instead, it’s some Romeo and Juliet BS. Don’t get your sacrificial knife out just yet. She’s in one piece.”

I gritted my teeth. In another time and place, I probably would’ve been amused by Jamie.

This wasn’t it.

“What happened? This is the last time I’ll ask.”

“Because I can tell you’re genuinely worried, I’ll allow that. I put some of it together from her and some from Darcy, since Lindz is a goddamn vault when she doesn’t want to worry other people. Which is always. Some asshole showed up here and asked to see her. Pretty sure she assumed it was you, so she took her time to pretty up.”

The fury and worry causing me to pace like a leashed animal turned to an icy wave of fear that nearly buckled my legs. I steadied myself on the back of the couch, my throat too tight to speak.

If she’d been hurt when she thought she was meeting me…

“She’s fine,” Jamie said, correctly reading the direction of my thoughts. “Physically anyway. The cowardly fuck wasn’t in the green room when she got there. But he’d ripped one of our posters in two and burned out her face.”

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