Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
What they were discussing right then the least of them.
“I’ve touched her, that way, once. Tonight. When I needed her to focus and I put my hands on her face. Once,” Mo growled. “Lottie wanted a new bodyguard so we could start things up, but no one could be on her, but me. We held off. Now we need to make a decision about this guy because it’s done and that means my job is done which means I can claim my woman, so I’m done with this chat.” He turned to Hawk. “What do you want to do?”
“What do you want to do?” Hawk asked calmly.
“I want him dead.”
Hawk didn’t even blink.
“But I’m pissed as fuck and I’m tweaked as hell right now which means I can’t fully get behind that,” Mo continued. “So I want you to call Lawson and Lucas and get his ass in jail. We really got no choice but to let justice take its course, not that I can’t live with the other option, or Smithie can’t, or you can’t, but because I’ll probably have to explain it to Lottie and she won’t be able to.”
“Shit, fuck, you just had to bring Mac into it,” Smithie muttered irritably.
“She’s not being brought into it,” Mo shot back. “It’s all about her and has always been all about her. If I had my say, any victim would be able to choose what punishment their offender would get. That would be random and chaotic, but I don’t give a fuck. It’d be fair, and it’d give closure and power to the people who were stripped of it. I don’t get to decide the way our criminal justice system works. But from the second those journals were found, I was unofficially off the job, and the path was cleared I could officially claim Lottie as mine. So now I do get to decide how she’s protected in all ways. And I’m not gonna ask her to live with the fact that she knows some guy had his tongue cut out, even if I, personally, would like the opportunity to pull it through a gaping hole in his throat.”
“I think I like you,” Smithie announced.
“I don’t care,” Mo replied and looked again at his boss. “Are we done?”
“You might have to give false testimony, Mo,” Hawk reminded him.
“I don’t care about that either,” Mo replied. “Are we done?”
“You were on her, so no one has to know you were in the house,” Hawk muttered. Then said, “We’re done.”
Mo turned on his boot and walked toward the door.
“You got two days leave, Mo,” Hawk called to his back. “Starting today.”
Mo said nothing as he walked out of that house.
Though he did that thinking, not for the first time, his boss was the shit.
The sun was coming up in the sky.
The dawn of a new day.
Mo was looking forward to it.
He just hoped like fuck he didn’t run anybody over getting his ass back to Lottie.
* * * *
Hawk
Hawk stood looking out the window at Mo’s truck taking off.
He felt Smithie come up beside him.
“You’re gonna let me call Mitch and Slim?” Hawk asked.
“Yup,” Smithie answered.
“And you’re gonna let justice take its course?”
“Yup.”
“Then, after it does, if it doesn’t swing Lottie’s way, you’re gonna bring someone in to neutralize this whackjob,” Hawk guessed.
“Yup.”
Hawk stared at the empty street.
“My girls gotta be safe, Hawk,” Smithie explained.
“I didn’t say a word.”
“All girls should be safe.”
He turned to the man at his side. “I got a daughter, Smithie, and I got a wife. Even if I didn’t, you’re still preaching to the choir.”
“You won’t know,” Smithie assured him.
“I’d give you some names, you asked. But if you want to compartmentalize, this is your thing, she’s yours to protect, it isn’t my call.”
Smithie studied him before he noted, “Your man, he had no say, you just wanted him to think he did.”
“He was here speaking for her. The only thing I feel bad about is that Mo was right, she should have a voice in this. And in the end, she didn’t.”
“That’s what men like us are for, Delgado,” Smithie pointed out. “Someone’s gotta make the tough decisions. This guy,” he tossed up a hand to indicate the house they were in, “he’s touched. Somethin’ wrong with him. But that’s not my problem. What’s in that basement is anyone’s worst nightmare. That’s my problem. And that cannot stand.”
Hawk nodded.
He could maybe argue, but he wouldn’t know why, since he agreed.
“I’ll lock the door when you go,” he said.
Smithie didn’t hang around.
Hawk locked the door when he left.
He dealt with the situation first through Jorge, then he called Slim.
Mitch was a straight arrow.
Slim had been DEA. He got shades of gray. He’d take care of it.
Then Hawk went home and was met with the sounds of pandemonium coming from the kitchen. This pandemonium being his wife getting breakfast for their three kids.