I could not get Angel home fast enough, holy shit she was making my head work overtime. Everything was an argument with her. Everything. She may have been in the clear with Chaz Malone, and I had paid an extra hundred thousand dollars on top of what he had been asking just to make sure of that, but she and I still had some issues to settle. One of those issues was approaching the misunderstandings from fifteen years ago. The other was dealing with this sudden attraction I had to her.

She didn’t look any different to me at all. Maybe a little more mature, but she had the same long blonde hair and the same curvy body she always did. Maybe her hips were a little wider and her breasts a little more full, but I don’t remember ever feeling like I wanted to wrap my hands around her waist and get lost in the softness before now. My dick swelled to attention just thinking about putting my mouth on her skin, just like I did last night but with more purpose.

She also had the same snapping blue eyes and smart-ass mouth, too.

I was on my way to the office, and I laughed to myself just thinking about what had happened when I dropped her off at her apartment. The Washington Arms. That place was a funhouse.

She didn’t want me to walk her up, which was hilarious to me considering I had just saved her from a kidnapping, and if she thought that I would just drop her off at the curb without checking to see if her apartment was safe, she was nuts.

Her building wasn’t large, maybe eight or ten apartments, but what gave me the creeps as I walked her up to the building was that someone was looking at us from every single window. Some were peeking through blinds, some from behind curtains. There was one apartment on the first floor that had the window treatments wide open, and an older guy, probably in his seventies or eighties, was just standing there staring at us with his arms folded across his chest. He looked grumpy as shit but I couldn’t figure out why. Angel saw where I was looking and was quick to explain.

“This is a retirement apartment building. I’m the only person under sixty in the whole place. My neighbors are super nice and fun to be around, but they are also extremely nosy and way overprotective. Me coming home with a guy after staying out all night is the equivalent of the walk of shame. That’s Gary. He can’t hear for shit and has his answering machine turned up so loud I can hear it pick up through the floor of my apartment.” Angel smiled and waved at him through the window. After a moment, he dropped his scowl and waved back.

“Okay, so if you are going to walk me in then I think you should be prepared.” Angel continued, making me wonder what kind of apartment complex she lived in that visitors needed a warning before they walked in.

“Prepared for what?”

“The welcoming committee,” Angel said as she swung the door to the first floor open, revealing a hallway that ran right through the center of the building.

“What welcoming committee?” I didn’t see anyone, the hallway was deserted. Angel took a deep breath in through her nose and rubbed her thumb between her eyebrows like she had a headache. A wave of nostalgia passed through me and I was overcome by how much emotion I felt watching that simple little tic. Something Angel didn’t even realize she was doing, but I had seen probably a hundred times in the years we had been close.

I missed you.

The thought surprised me and I had a moment of panic thinking maybe I had said it out loud, but then Angel shook her head and gave a knock on the hallway wall. Not even on a specific door, just randomly on the wall, like she knew someone was already listening.

“All right, biddies, come on out. I know you’ve got your ear to the door anyway, Jolene.” Who the hell was she talking about? Man, Angel had a mouth on her. I was just getting ready to tell her to ease up on the throttle when the first door to the right opened up and a head popped out of the doorway.

“Hello dear, you called?” The older woman entered the hallway to greet us and I was shocked at her diminutive stature. At six foot one I could have missed her completely in the hallway until I stepped on her—that was how short she was. Her brown hair was set in perfect curls all around her face and she held a margarita glass in her hand. I assumed it was full of margarita, too, considering the greenish color of the liquid inside and the copious amount of salt on the rim.

It was nine thirty in the morning.

“Oh, can it, you nosy biddy,” Angel said with a laugh, and it was at that moment I realized she wasn’t being rude. She knew this person had been watching us from the parking lot and was calling her out. But she wasn’t mad. Angel just sounded exasperated.

The older woman stood in front of me and gave me the once-over. It was amazing how someone over a foot shorter than me could still make me feel like she was looking down on me. I met her gaze, stare for stare. I was the alpha here, I refused to be intimidated by a boozed-up grandma wearing a turquoise tracksuit and giving me the hairy eyeball.

She looked me up and down while I gave her my most beguiling smile.

She narrowed her eyes at me, and I let my smile grow wider, showing a little teeth.

Her next words were not directed at me, but to Angel, which was a little disconcerting because she was still looking me right in the eye while she was talking. “Now, Angel dear, a lady doesn’t stay out all night and then creep home with a gentleman caller.”

“Well, Jolene,” Angel said dryly, “a lady doesn’t start drinking margaritas at nine in the morning either.”

The old woman smiled then, and I noticed the mischievous gleam in her eye right before she turned and acknowledged Angel. “They do if they haven’t gone to bed from the night before yet!” Then she erupted into the most disarming and adorable set of old lady giggles I had ever heard, and I had to pass my hand in front of my mouth to hide my own laughter.

“Don’t encourage her, Gabe,” Angel said, but she was laughing, too, as she plowed through the hallway and over to a set of stairs that would take us to the second floor. She paused on the second step from the bottom. “This is why I don’t need you to check my apartment, Gabe, no one gets in here without being noticed. No one.”

“Check your apartment? You get yourself in some kind of trouble, Angel?” The older woman I assumed was Jolene looked concerned, but I wasn’t fooled. I bet she was looking for some juicy gossip.

“Your girl here got herself accidentally involved with some shady people by witnessing a crime. Then she got herself kidnapped and almost sold off overseas. Good thing she has a handsome, rich hero around like me to come save the day, right?” Jolene’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her sockets.

“Goddamnit, Gabe,” I heard Angel whisper under her breath as she thundered up the stairs and left me standing on the first floor. I consoled myself with watching her ass bounce up and down as she stormed off in a huff. Her apartment door slammed and I took it as a message I was not expected to follow her. That was okay, she could be mad at me if she wanted, the directive was to make sure Angel was safe. After meeting the residents of The Washington Arms, I had almost zero concern anyone would be lying in wait for her upstairs. I doubt a squirrel could climb up a tree outside unnoticed.

Jolene found her voice and hollered back through the open door of her own apartment, “Gerta! DVR today’s stories, Angel just had an adventure and we need the details. Bring the pitcher and let’s go.” She was already halfway up the stairs when an equally tiny woman with hair so grey it had a blue tinge came out of the apartment holding a pitcher of margaritas in her hand. She didn’t say anything as she passed me, just gave me a polite nod as she shuffled her way slowly to the stairs. Yeah, Angel was going to be kept pretty busy today. I doubted she could get into any fresh trouble, and I really did need to head back to the office and straighten some things out. When I had finally gotten ahold of Dino the night before, he had mentioned some pretty disturbing things. Things I didn’t want happening in my town.

Seemed like Chaz Malone wasn’t lying when he put Angel up for sale. Being situated right on Lake Erie meant a lot of cargo ships came in and out, and a lot of smuggled cargo as well. Drugs were everywhere, addiction was rampant, and it was a very dangerous blight. But you could spend all your resources trying to wipe out the dealers and another ten would pop up in their place. You avoid drugs by not getting involved with them in the first place, and I know that is easier said than done sometimes. But T-Town was being used to move people, and that was something no one could protect themselves from. I had a large finance company to oversee; I had a runner named Melody to investigate; I had just spent the night wrapped around Angel Jax; and I had some feelings about I didn’t quite know what to do with. I had a lot on my fucking plate.