Page 44 of As Thick As Thieves

Penn wouldn’t cope with that, and I wasn’t sure if I would either.

“How long have you fucking known?” Rory asked coldly, giving me her full attention. “Or did you always know?”

“It’s new information. Penn didn’t want anyone to know in case you guys went after us for it as a whole. We’d never do that to you, Stone was acting selfishly out of spite,” I answered calmly, but inside I was freaking out. What if we still ended up killed?

Penn had lied about it too, so had I just put a target on her head?

My arms tightened around her and Rory noticed, her expression softening the smallest amount. “I’m not going to hurt her. You know we’ll have to deal with Stone though, right?”

Penn flew out of my lap before I could stop her, landing hard on her knees as she fell at Rory’s feet. “Please, don’t kill him. It was my fault. He—”

“How the fuck was it your fault?” Rory bit out, but she lost all anger as Penn kept babbling, my heart breaking for her.

“He was mad at me, I kept annoying him, and if I’d just gone home, it wouldn’t have happened. If I hadn’t made him so mad—” She really believed it was her fault?

“Get up,” Rory murmured, and when Penn didn’t move, I stood and walked towards her.

“Come on, baby. Get up from the floor.”

“It was my fault!” she screamed, making me wince at the volume. If she didn’t calm down she was going to put herself in a panic attack. Between the shooting incident, me getting shot, and her being in a room with Stone, I think it was all a little too much for her.

“Drake, take her upstairs,” I sighed as I pulled her against my chest. “I’ll fill you in later.”

Rory kept watching us as Drake joined me and took Penn into his arms, gently guiding her from the room.

“She’s weak,” Skeeter muttered, assessing me. “Are you sure she’s a good fit for you guys?”

Annoyance hit me, but Rory beat me to it.

“She’s not weak, she’s fucking traumatized. She’ll grow stronger now that she has people around to support her. Asshole,” she huffed, having no problem smacking him in the back of the head like he was a naughty child. His eyes flared with anger but Hunter smacked a hand down on the table to get their attention.

“Handle your shit later, guys. For now, we need to figure out who shot at our fucking kids tonight.”

Skeeter scowled and leaned back in his chair to light a cigarette, my fingers twitching as the smell hit my nose. Stone had forced the entire organization to quit smoking months ago thanks to some dumbass leaving a cigarette butt at a house we’d broken into, and it had been a messy issue with the law.

Maybe that was all Stone needed, a goddamn cigarette.

“Put that out. We quit,” Rory ordered, but Skeeter shrugged.

“I’m stressed and like one sometimes.”

“You’re about to be even more stressed if I have to take it from you.”

I swore all they did was argue.

One by one, other people joined us until the room was full, and I wasn’t surprised when Archer Hendricks exploded a few minutes into the meeting. “What the fuck do you mean you don’t know who did it? Some asshole shot my little girl!”

She wasn’t little, she was a grown-ass adult, but I didn’t dare say that out loud.

“Whoever did it had a plan. This wasn’t a last minute decision,” Knox grunted. “They remained hidden, had a quick escape, and—”

“No one’s talking to you!” Archer snapped, and Rory rolled her eyes.

“Can you not make enemies out of my contacts?”

“This is crew business. They don’t need to be here.”

“No, they don’t, but they’re also willing to assist us to help bring down whoever took shots at our kids. You need to play nice with others, Hendricks.”

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