Page 29 of As Thick As Thieves

My emotions were all over the place about it too, but if there was a chance I could be with her again, I wasn’t going to fuck it up by getting mad about the whole situation.

“I need to go. I have a visit with Ry,” Jett said as he stretched his arms over his head. “Are you staying here, Drake?”

I glanced at Cruz and he nodded. “Yeah, I’ll take him home. Tell Ry we said hello.”

“Will do. See you later. Nice to meet you, Penn,” Jett replied with a smile before leaving, and Penn frowned.

“Who’s Ry?”

“Ryder is Beckett’s twin. He put himself in rehab recently,” I said without elaborating as I checked my phone.

Knox: Stone’s acting weird. He’s given everyone the day off and vanished.

Drake: Good, now he has plenty of time to plan his funeral.

Knox: ???

Drake: I’ll explain later. Meet me?

Knox: Alone?

I huffed, annoyed to be separated from Penn, but I knew he wouldn’t if she was there.

Drake: Yeah. I’ll be home soon.

“So you’re living in the Heights?” I asked as I gave Penn my attention. “With Lopez? I’m kind of pissed Logan didn’t tell me.”

“No, apparently Lavaro has a place. He’s been helping some girls get out of the skin trade, and it’s like a safe house. Him and Zavier have been letting Penn stay there, so Logan didn’t know until I went around there and threw hands with Zavier yesterday,” Cruz said with a straight face. “He’s lucky I didn’t break his nose.”

Penn scowled, giving him a dirty look. “He was helping me!”

“Asshole still could’ve told me. I thought we were buddies,” he grumbled.

“Can you drop me off at home? Knox wants to talk, but then I’ll come and find you guys again.” Penn looked uncomfortable, and I quickly added, “Just drop me off on the road, you don’t need to drive into the compound or anything.”

I didn’t want her anywhere near Stone if he’d betrayed her like that.

Cruz stood, dropping a bunch of bills on the table to cover the food. “Yeah, I can do that.” He took her hand and pulled her to her feet, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “You okay with that, baby?”

“Yeah, as long as I don’t have to deal with Stone,” she replied, surprising me as she reached her hand out for mine to hold. I took it, giving it a small squeeze as we walked outside, and I let her sit in the front since I was getting out soon.

It was also so I could stare at her without looking like such a creep.

Knox

I knew that bitch would suck him in the moment I saw them on the camera together. Whatever she’d told him had made him forgive her for abandoning him, and she was lucky I didn’t storm into the cafe and choke her out for it.

I watched on the screen as they got in the car and started driving, Drake sending me a message.

Drake: On the way Xx

If they brought her inside, I was going to tear shreds off her for what she did to Drake. He’d been a mess ever since, and I didn’t like her just popping up out of the blue. She’d probably escaped the nuthouse.

I shut the computer down and left the room, limping through the quiet compound and into the kitchen. The bite on my leg was hurting but I ignored it, too focused on the possible war that was on the way to my front door.

Leah was sitting with Sandra, and a few others were sitting at the far end with beers in hand.

We never had days off like this, it was weird.

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