Tank
Paxton flopped onto his couch, pulling his laptop to him. Cori was lying to him about something, he just knew it, and he was determined to find out more about her. When it came to technology, he was perfectly capable of simple background checks. This time, however, he wanted everything he could get on this woman. That meant calling in the big guns. Retrieving his phone from the coffee table, he dialed the one guy who could find out anything he wanted about someone.
“Tank, what’s up?” Mother answered cheerfully.
“Hey, man. I need you to look into someone for me. Her name is Cori Transue. See what you can find on her.”
“A woman? I don’t recall any of our cases involving a woman with that name. Is she involved with Petrov?”
Crime boss Lupis Petrov was currently on his deathbed. Paxton and the rest of the guys were still looking for his coward of a son, Ivan, who had gone underground after trying to kill Max’s girlfriend, Sloane. She had worked for a very powerful man, Detlef Marek. Unfortunately, he owed that power to the Petrov family. When Ivan came to collect, Detlef had since grown a conscience. Obviously that didn’t end well, and he was murdered right before Sloane’s eyes, putting her in the Petrov family’s crosshairs.
“Not Petrov. She’s my new neighbor. Something is going on with her.”
“You becoming a little old lady now? Sittin’ at home, spyin’ on the neighbors?” Mother laughed. “Sounds like you’ve got too much time on your hands, big man.”
“Kiss my big hairy ass, Mother. Someone broke into her place tonight. There was a small amount of vandalism. She claims she doesn’t know anyone who would do it, but my gut tells me she’s lying.”
“We all know you always listen to your gut. How deep do you want me to go?”
“Find out where she’s from. Whatever skeletons are in her closet that could come back and haunt her.”
Paxton could hear Mother’s fingers flying over his keyboard. It only took him a few minutes to do what would have taken Paxton hours.
“She’s twenty-nine years old. Parents, deceased. One younger sister, Brianna. Never been married and no kids. Damn, this chick is a doctor too.”
“What kind of doctor?” Paxton asked.
“Shrink. Hold up.” Mother paused for a moment. Paxton could hear the tapping of the keys again. “Looks like there’s a lawsuit filed against her. Just a few weeks ago too.”
“She’s being sued? For what? By who?” Paxton barked impatiently into the phone.
“Chill the fuck out, bro. I’m reading. Okay, looks like a patient committed suicide. Our girl is being sued for wrongful death by the grieving husband.”
Paxton could feel his blood boiling. “Any truth?” Even though he had just met her, he couldn’t imagine her being responsible for someone’s death. Knowing someone out there was blaming her pissed him off.
“According to these documents, no. He’s just looking to cash in.”
“Great.”
“So who’s this woman to you?” Mother asked again.
Even though Mother couldn’t see him, Paxton rolled his eyes. “I told you, she’s my neighbor.”
His friend chuckled. “Uh huh.”
“If you come up with anything else, let me know.”
Paxton ended the call. There was nothing going on with Cori, and there wasn’t going to be. That didn’t mean he couldn’t look out for her, though. He may not be a cop anymore, but the instinct to protect was still there in full force. He paced over to the same window he’d caught her watching him through earlier.
He scanned the yard. No one lurked in the shadows, and all her lights were out. It seemed as though she was settled for the night. Paxton decided he should probably turn in himself. He had to go to the hardware store in the morning. After turning off his laptop and television, he dragged himself upstairs.
***
The sun was barely kissing the horizon as Paxton swung his legs over the side of the bed. His knee ached like a bitch today. Scrubbing his hands over his scruffy face, he tried to wake up. When he felt his motor skills were awake enough to keep him from walking into any walls, he strolled naked into the bathroom. After he relieved himself, he brushed his teeth and entered the shower. The hot water sluiced off the rest of his sleepiness.
With nothing more than a towel wrapped around his waist, he went down to the kitchen to make coffee. He pulled a single-serving pod from the cabinet, put it into the machine, and waited. A few moments later, he had a steaming mug full of black coffee. He lifted the cup to his face, breathing in the aroma before taking a sip. The hot liquid instantly rejuvenated him. As he padded through the house to go get dressed, he stopped in the living room to check his phone. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed movement.
He opened the camera on his phone. Flipping it to video, he held it up in front of himself. With the phone in a selfie position, he used it to look over his shoulder. Once again, he found Cori in her window watching him. He felt the smile spread across his face. She liked to watch him. Hmm. Maybe he should give her something to look at? Paxton reached down with his other hand and dropped his towel. His eyes never left the screen that was now recording Cori’s reaction.
Her hand covered her mouth in surprise. He couldn’t stop himself from cracking up. It was the first time a woman had made him laugh so candidly, other than Max’s daughter, in a long time. Since Mia was only a few months old, he didn’t think she counted as a woman, though.
He could see the red blossom across her cheeks as she stood there staring. Her eyes locked onto his ass. Suddenly, she snapped out of her stupor. She looked around suspiciously before scurrying away from the window. Stopping the recording, he continued—naked—up to his room. He laughed the entire way.
Dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a gray t-shirt, Paxton left his house, locking the front door behind him. He glanced over at Cori’s window as he climbed into his truck. It was vacant.
The trip to the store was a quick one. He bought a new door, locks, and molding to fix the mess he’d made. In his defense, she’d been screaming like a damn banshee. He loaded everything into the bed of his truck. The whole excursion only took him a little over an hour. Hopefully she was awake so he could get started. Since the front door to Cori’s place was still boarded up, he traipsed around to the back door.
She was in the kitchen emptying boxes that littered the table. She looked cute as hell with her hair pulled back as she worked on the mess covering the countertops.
He rapped on the door, smiling as she jumped. Her hand covered her heart, while a cute scowl formed on her face. Smiling, he held up his drill. This time she didn’t meet his gaze when she turned the lock. He was slightly disappointed, which surprised him. She opened the door and moved aside for him to enter.
“Good morning, sweetheart. What, no breakfast?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “It’s too early for your shit, Paxton.” She shut the door and went back to the box she had been going through. “I hope you’re here to fix my busted door.”
“Well, I’m certainly not here for your sparkling conversational skills this morning.” He continued to smile at her. “It’s gonna be a little noisy. I have to fix the frame and re-drill. I bought you a new lock too. That other one was a piece of shit.”
Paxton tried not to notice how great her ass looked in the blue yoga pants she was wearing. He did not succeed. He just knew she’d look amazing bent over the kitchen island, with his fresh handprint pink on her ass cheek. Shaking his head clear of the image, he left the kitchen to fix the door.
He put all his supplies down except his hammer. It was time to get started. Pulling the nails out of his barricade, he tried to keep his mind on the task at hand.
He had the old door removed and the new one in place when his cell phone began ringing in his back pocket. He pulled it free and pressed the green answer button on the screen. He put it on speaker so he could keep working on the new lock. He could hear a lot of commotion in the background.
Gutter Mouth’s voice boomed through the speaker. “Whatcha up to, motherfucker?”
He chuckled in response. “You kiss your mother with that mouth, asshole?”
Kasper, aka Gutter Mouth, had the most vulgar vocabulary of anyone Paxton had ever met. That included cracked-out junkies and his many military buddies. Paxton loved the guy. He had ever since they were know-it-all teenagers causing trouble every chance they got. Gutter Mouth never failed to make him laugh.
“Only yours, bitch.” Kiss noises came through the line loud and clear. “Seriously, Tank. What the fuck are you doing? I thought you were coming in today.”
Paxton continued to put in the new lock as he talked. “Fixing my neighbor’s door. Are you at the office?”
“Yeah, but that’s no longer important. What neighbor and why are you fixing their door?”
“Because Grumpy kicked it in last night.” Cori startled him from the doorway. Her shoulder rested casually against the door jam, and one foot was crossed over the other. She was exquisite. He had an unusual urge to go to her. He needed to get his head back in the game.
“Well,” Gutter Mouth drawled. “Hello there, darlin’. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”
Cori laughed. “Cori, the new neighbor. And you are?” she asked playfully. Was she enjoying Gutter Mouth’s banter? She never sounded so flirty with him. What the fuck?
“Kasper. Hasn’t my buddy Tank told you about me yet? Tank, you holding out on me, man?”
“Shut the fuck up, Gutter Mouth.”
Her eyebrow arched in question. “Tank? Gutter Mouth?”
Gutter Mouth kept talking. “As you can see, my friend there is built like a fucking tank. And well…I’m sure you’ve guessed where my nickname came from.” Gutter Mouth’s laughter echoed through the speaker.
Paxton spoke through a clenched jaw. “Hanging up now, asshole. I’ll be in later.” He hung up and his gaze landed on Cori yet again. “Sorry about him.”
She looked at him as if deep in thought. “Tank…It’s fitting.”
“Yeah, well. It could be worse,” he grumbled.
She smiled sweetly. “I’m sure it could.”
“I’m almost done here, then I’ll be out of your hair.” He sat on his haunches after putting the second-to-last screw into place. He had to get away from her before he did something stupid.
“Thank you.” Her eyes dropped to her feet. “I should have said that last night.”
He stopped what he was doing and stood up. “Don’t do that,” he ordered firmly.
Her gaze darted up to his. “Do what?”
“Lose all that sass you’ve been throwing at me. The pensive look doesn’t suit you.”
Her body language changed instantly. Her back straightened and she glared at him. “And it’s good to see you again, Mr. Dick Weasel.”
Cori stomped out of the room as he roared with laughter. She was sexy as fuck when she was rattled. Paxton wanted to rattle her more. As he finished up the door, a wave of disappointment washed over him. He was done and therefore had no excuse to be around her. He wanted an excuse, damn it.
“Shake it off,” he mumbled.
She peeked her head around the corner. “You call me?”
“Better than new.” He pointed to the door and its shiny new lock.
She smirked. “It’s about time.”
“That’s my girl.” He threw her a wink as he gathered his tools. Her face flushed at his slip of tongue. He liked that. He liked that a lot.
***
“About time you showed up.” Gutter Mouth spun in his office chair like a five-year-old.
He flipped his best friend the bird. “Yeah, you look swamped.”
“Suck me.”
Sloane hustled over to him, throwing her arms around his neck. She was a little thing. Then again, Paxton could say that about most women. She had long, honey blonde hair and a smile that was contagious. She squeezed him tighter before stepping back to look up at him. She pushed her bangs out of her face, smiling up at him.
“Tank, how you doing, hon?”
He grinned. “Better since I saw your beautiful smile.”
“I wish you assholes would all stop flirting with my wife,” Max bellowed as he entered the room.
Gutter Mouth ejected himself from his chair like a rocket taking flight. He grabbed up Sloane in his arms, turning their bodies so he blocked her from view. He looked like one of those cheesy villains in the old movies that kidnaps the hero’s girl and ties her to the railroad tracks.
Gutter Mouth grinned at Max. “She’s not the little woman yet, Maxie Pad. There’s still time for her to change her mind.” He turned his head toward her. “Whatcha say, darlin’? Ready to run away with me yet?”
Max fixed Gutter Mouth with a death stare. “Get your hands off my woman,” he ordered through clenched teeth.
Sloane laughed. “Kasper, don’t get him riled up.” She slapped his arm playfully.
He winked. “You’ll thank me later.”
Paxton chuckled again. Max had been overprotective of Sloane from day one. They all had an immense amount of fun teasing him about it, but Paxton was happy his friend had found love. Real love. You could see it in the way they looked at each other. He thought he’d had that once, with Gillian. He’d been happy. He’d thought she’d been happy too, but it was all a lie. She’d been carrying on with other men for longer than he’d imagined. He’d been a cop and still hadn’t seen the evidence until the relationship was already over.
He wasn’t going to go through that again. No way. No woman was worth that amount of pain. One night—that’s all he was willing to offer anyone. He thought of Cori, but dismissed it just as quickly. That wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t that type of woman. She was the type of woman who wanted it all, he could tell. A cry from the back room momentarily silenced everyone.
“Sounds like Mia is awake from her nap. Excuse me, boys.” Sloane left the room, heading to the back room toward the soft cries.
All the guys at Fear Incorporated thought of Sloane and Mia as theirs too. Sloane cooked for them more often than she should’ve, and Max always told them to get their own women. Paxton always laughed at that. They were all playboys—that wouldn’t happen anytime soon. Instead, Mia had five incredibly large “uncles” that would make the perfect repellant for any future teenage boys who thought they could take advantage of her.
Paxton took a seat at his desk. The new office still smelled faintly of paint. There were six desks set up around the room—his was in the back next to Gutter Mouth’s, while the other desks were occupied by Mother, Benji, Max, and Sloane. Max was talking to Mother at his desk, Gutter Mouth had disappeared, and it had been almost a year since they’d last seen Benji.
He pulled up his inbox, not expecting to find much, if anything. The office had only been open a few weeks. Today was his first day. Anything important and any new jobs would go to Max and Sloane to divvy out.
With no case of his own yet, he made a list of all the things he needed to pick up later. Max would order any office supplies he needed, but Paxton wanted little things to make his space his. Those things he would pick up this weekend for himself. Mother walked over to his desk.
“Tank, I ran the widower’s credit cards and bank account. There’s no record of him being in Bush Castle. Although…he used his credit card about twenty miles out of town a few days ago. Either he went back home or he just hasn’t had the need to use his cards, and I’m not ruling out him using cash yet.”
“Thanks, Mother.”
“I’ll check traffic cameras in the area around the time of the incident. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“I owe ya one. Hey, anything new on Petrov?”
“The father is on his deathbed. Baby boy, Ivan, still hasn’t emerged from hiding yet. I’ve been keeping a watch on his electronic trail. Benji is still beating the pavement. He sends encrypted emails whenever he can to keep us updated.”
Benjamin Agani spent most of his time out of the office; he’d been an undercover officer while with the police force. When shit went down with Sloane, he took up his undercover persona once again to gather as much information as he could to help them, this time for Fear Incorporated. He was a master at blending in and had eyes and ears all over. That he couldn’t find Ivan, the next heir of the Petrov crime family, had pissed him off. He’d been looking nonstop for eighteen months—he even missed Mia’s birth because he’d had a lead that turned into nothing but a dead end.
Paxton groaned. “Fuck.”
“We’ll find him. Once we do and the father bites it, our girls will be safe.”
“The sooner the better. I’m surprised he’s been able to fly under the radar for this long.”
Paxton glanced toward movement coming from the back. He scurried over to a baby-toting Sloane. Snatching the little girl from her mother, he tossed her up in the air. His heart melted from her delightful squeals. “How’s my best girl today?”
She giggled, drooling slightly. He didn’t care. He’d do anything just to hear her laugh. She sounded like an angel.
“You guys are gonna spoil her rotten.”
Paxton kissed Mia’s little hand that was wrapped around his finger. She babbled away about something. “That’s what uncles are for, to spoil their beautiful nieces.”
“Hand her over.” Gutter Mouth reached out for the squirmy little girl.
Kissing Mia’s forehead, he relinquished her to his best friend. He made it all the way back to his desk before Sloane started the inquisition. Frankly, he was surprised it had taken her this long.
“So, Tank.” She moseyed over to him. A sly little smile tugged at her lips. “Who’s the new neighbor?”
He feigned innocence. “A woman who recently moved in next door.”
She frowned at him, her hands resting on her hips. “Don’t be a smartass. What’s her name? What’s she like? Is she married? Single? Boyfriend?” Sloane’s excitement reminded him of a little kid trying to guess at their birthday present.
“Cori. Her name is Cori. She’s not married. She’s a voyeuristic, stubborn, pain in the ass,” he grumbled under his breath.
Sloane gasped. She did nothing to hide the surprised look on her face. “You like her.” She wasn’t asking. She was telling him.
He waved her off. “Don’t be silly. I barely know the woman.”
“According to Mother, you know a lot about her now. And did I catch a voyeur comment in there?” She giggled. “What was she watching?”
Paxton smiled up at her from his seat. “I’d show you, but Max would lose his shit.”
“Oh my god, Tank.” Sloane covered her mouth to staunch her laughter. She stopped laughing and her face became worried. “Seriously, what’s going on? Is she in trouble?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Honestly, I’m not sure yet. My gut says something’s up. So I’m trying to find out.”
“Oh, boy. Anything I can do to help?”
Sloane was as sweet as they came. She was always looking out for them or trying to make things easier on them. He guessed it was her way of paying them back for watching out for her and now Mia. It was completely unnecessary, but that’s just who she was. “Nah, but I’ll let you know if that changes.”
“Fair enough.” She kissed the top of his head and walked away.
Max was certainly a lucky man. He watched Sloane pluck her daughter from Gutter Mouth’s grasp, much to his chagrin. Max crossed the room, taking both of them into his arms. He beamed down at them, his expression no less than extreme joy. Paxton felt that familiar pang of jealousy.
Not that he wanted Sloane. She was amazing, but not for him. He pictured himself with a giggling, raven-haired baby girl…
Whoa. That was enough of that nonsense.
He swiveled his chair back to face his computer. There had to be something to keep his mind off a certain pain-in-the-ass woman. These thoughts were complete bullshit.