Rock Chick 08 Revolution (8 page)

“Care about your brothers, your
dad, your friends worried about you.”

I felt something unpleasant slither
through me. Something that forced me to ask, “Has Lee shared with Indy?”

“No,” he said firmly.

I liked the firm, but I needed
more.

“Eddie with Jet?”

“No, Ally. No fuckin’ way. They
tell their women what you’re doin’, those crazy bitches will be all over
gettin’ in on the act. You think those men want their women involved in this
brand of shit? That is, when this brand of shit doesn’t hit them when they’re
actually
not
doing anything to buy
it, rather than doing what you’re doing, which means doing something that might
buy it.”

No. I didn’t think that.

So good.

That secret was safe.

And it was a secret for precisely
that reason.

I could sense danger, and stay away
from it, but that didn’t mean I didn’t court it. And the Rock Chicks had had
enough of that. With their track record, there would probably be more. I didn’t
need to be the one to bring that down on them.

Not to mention, if I did, Lee,
Hank, Eddie, Vance, Luke and Mace would lose their badass minds, and I
really
didn’t need that shit. Badasses
were a pain in the ass to deal with. The Rock Chicks didn’t agree, but then
again, they were getting orgasms regularly given to them
by
said badasses, and it was my experience that colored a woman’s
thinking.

But it was more. I liked doing
this. It was mine. And the Rock Chicks would be all over getting involved.

Doing this wasn’t a fun diversion
for me.

It was something else.

I just didn’t get what it was, so I
was riding the wave until the cosmos shared that intel with me.

And I was getting off on it.

“Fuck me,” Darius murmured.

I’d lost focus on him again, but
when I went back to him, I saw him eyeing me but shaking his head.

“What?” I asked.

He stopped shaking his head and
locked eyes with me.

“The what is you’re you. You’re
gonna do what you’re gonna do. What you’re not gonna do is do this shit not
knowin’ what the fuck you’re doin’.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but
Darius shook his head again and kept talking.

“I get that you need this to fly
under Rock Chick radar. And I
really
need
this to fly under Rock Chick radar.
 
Those motherfucking men will flip right the fuck out if their women get
a hint of what you’re doin’, get involved and that somehow blows back on me. So
we’re keepin’ this under radar.”

I was down with that.

I just didn’t know exactly what he
was talking about until he told me.

“I’m talkin’ to Zip. On the down
low, we’re takin’ you in, gettin’ you a weapon.”

Oh shit.

Zip owned Zip’s Gun Emporium. I’d
been there. Zip was old. Zip was cantankerous. Zip was also a hoot. And his
shop had all any badass needed to kit out his badassness and make it
lethally
badass. I loved his shop. I had
a stun gun, Taser and a variety of mace delivery systems I’d bought in his
shop.

Zip’s place also had a firing
range.

I wasn’t sure about carrying a
weapon, though. I could stun gun with the best of them, but a real gun?

“Darius, I—”

He lifted a hand. “No, woman. No fuckin’
way. You’re in a bar like this, you come in carryin’. But you come in carryin’
and knowin’ what you’re doin’. I know your dad taught you how to handle guns.
But before you go out packin’, you’re gonna shoot at Zip’s and you’re gonna do
it a lot. We’ll talk him into openin’ the range after hours so you don’t get
seen there. And you work with your weapon so you’re so comfortable enough with
it that it feels like an extension of your arm. You understand it. You respect
it. You know what it can do. And you know how to use it.”

That sounded kind of exciting, but
I didn’t get to tell him that because Darius was not done.

And it got better.

“Lee uses this dude’s place down in
Colorado Springs. The guy’s got three set ups. One’s a warehouse you gotta
clear, good and bad guys. One’s a house you gotta clear. You walk through with
your weapon shooting pop-ups. You fail if you take down one innocent, and that
means you do it again. And again. And again. Until you pass. You don’t go
through it memorizing the scheme. He switches the pop-ups and you never know
what you’re going to get. You don’t pass until you can get through it
completely clean.”

I
so
wanted to do that.

In fact, I couldn’t fucking wait.

“He’s also got a driving course,”
Darius informed me. “Learn to drive defensive, learn to drive a chase. You’re
doin’ that, too.”

I so fucking was!

“You’re tall but you’re slight,” he
continued. “That means you don’t learn how to fight. You learn some defensive
moves and you learn how to get away. I’ll teach you that. But, starting
tomorrow, and every day after that, you run. You got trouble, there’s a high
probability you’re not gonna be able to beat it down. You do not shoot at it
unless you absolutely have to. Stun guns and pepper spray can get commandeered
if you don’t got the moves to stop it, and then be turned on you. So you get
your ass in trouble, you run away. But you’re not in shape, that trouble’ll
catch you.”

This did not sound all that fun. I
wasn’t an exercise sort of person, unless you counted walking in a mall.
However, I didn’t share that with Darius, in case me poo-pooing any part of the
righteous deal he was offering would mean he’d take the deal off the table.

And anyway, if I ran regularly,
that meant I could drink more Fat Tire and eat more LaMar’s donuts.

So I decided to focus on that.

“You got it,” I agreed.

He nodded once and kept going.

“From here on out, you start
anything, you gotta be invisible.”

“I already do that,” I told him,
but he shook his head.

“Not what you’re thinkin’. I mean
you go to Brody. He makes a mint off that game he programmed, but he gets off
on this sleuth stuff. Lee pays him a whack, but that guy would come to work
every day for free, he’s so into this shit. You give him more, he’ll be all
over it. You can solve your problem with an electronic investigation that
doesn’t put your ass on the line, you do that.” He paused. “First.”

This made sense and would likely
only cost me energy drinks, Costco boxes of king-size candy bars and Apple app
gift cards all of which I could make my “clients” procure for Brody. Since all
that was doable, I nodded my agreement.

Darius kept talking.

“And from here on in, I’m briefed
in full about everything you do. I know all your cases. I know what you
uncover. And you do not,” he leaned in, “
ever
walk your ass into a place like this without me as your wingman. This last is
the most important, Ally, and if you’re not down with that, you lose all the
rest. You also buy me goin’ to Lee and lighting a fire under his ass to take
you off Denver’s game board in a way no one will ever contact you again for
this shit.”

Lee could do that.

And Darius
would
do that. He cared a lot about me.

And if either of them did that, it
would piss me off.

But I didn’t need to expend that
energy, seeing as I had absolutely no problem with him being my wingman.

In fact, I had absolutely no
problem with any of it (save the running, but I figured I could rock a track
suit and I could get some of those kickass double hair band thingies to pull my
hair away from my face while I ran and be totally stylin’).

In order to communicate this to
Darius, it was my turn to lean into him.

And when I did, I whispered, “You
know, I totally love you.”

Something moved over his face.
Something I’d seen before when he didn’t know I was watching.

Uncertainty mixed with melancholy.
I didn’t totally get it. What I did get was that Darius Tucker had had a
beautiful life a long time ago. A big loving family, good friends, a bright
future. And all that went to shit. He made desperate—and it had to be said,
angry—decisions, and his life spiraled down the toilet. In that time, I
suspected he did a lot of things that seared marks onto his soul.

I just didn’t know if he was on a
path to redemption or thought his future only held damnation.

That was his to know and share if
he felt like it.

As for me, I’d learned over and
over again, since Rosie dragged Indy into his mess (thus starting the Rock
Chick Rollercoaster), good people did bad things and bad people did good
things.

I just trusted God would sort it
out as it needed to be.

When Darius said nothing, I assured
him, “You don’t have to say it back. I know where you are. And if I didn’t, you
coming here tonight and doing what you’ve done would have told me.”

To this, Darius said, “You’re a
pain in the ass.”

He so totally loved me.

“Good,” I replied on a smile.
“That’s what I strive to be.”

“Woman, trust me. You’re succeeding
beyond your wildest dreams.”

My smile got bigger.

He took it in, shook his head, then
looked back in my eyes.

“Tonight, you’re done. You wait
until we look over what Brody gets. He gives you what you need, you got no
reason to come back. He doesn’t, we’ll assess and plan. You down with that?”

“Totally.”

“Right,” he muttered, sliding out
of the booth. “Get your ass outta here. We’ll go somewhere else and get a
drink. You brief me, then I can end this day and get home.”

I followed him out, asking, “Would
it be a hit to your street cred if I held your hand?”

“Pain in the ass,” he muttered as
answer.

“Or hugged you?” I threw out an
alternate suggestion.

“Total pain in the ass.”

I grinned.

We hit the door.

Darius pushed it open for me.

I moseyed through.

* * * * *

Two
days later…

I hauled my ass up into Darius’s
black Silverado and slammed the door. I didn’t put on my seatbelt. I leaned
forward, put my elbows to the dash and drove my hands into my hair, yanking it
away from my face and scrunching it at the back of my head.

Brody had found nothing.

But we’d just had a conversation
with one of Darius’s informants, and he knew everything.

The vehicle rocked when Darius
folded into the driver’s seat and closed his door. He didn’t hit the ignition
and the cab stayed silent.

It was the dead of night and we’d
just cracked Garden Girl’s case.

And what we learned
sucked.

After some time, Darius broke the
silence.

“Tomorrow,” he said gently, “you
report this to her man and walk away.”

I sat back with a jerk, pulling my
hands out of my hair and twisting to him.

“We have to do something,” I snapped.

“We don’t gotta do shit,” he
returned, his words harsh but his tone still gentle.

“Darius—”

He leaned into me and hooked his
hand behind my head, pulling me close.

“This guy works at an electronic
store and is payin’ you by givin’ you a discount on a new flat screen TV. You
do not wade into a mess like that for twenty-five percent off a flat screen TV,
Ally.”

“That’s a good discount,” I shot
back.

His lips curved up, but the humor
didn’t reach his eyes. “You give him what he asked for and let him deal.”

“His woman is turning tricks to pay
off her brother’s drug debt,” I told him something he already knew since he was
the one who found the informant and he stood right by me when we both learned
what had befallen Garden Girl.

“That is not your problem.”

“Someone has to tell her it’s not
hers.”

“That’d be her man’s job.”

“You think her man’s gonna stick by
her side, knowing she’s giving fifty dollar blowjobs?” I asked.

Darius said nothing.

That meant no.

I kept going. “Someone has to kick
her brother’s ass straight into rehab”

“That’d be her job.”

“Darius—”

His hand on my head tightened.
“Ally, I know his dealer. I already told you, he’s taken two digits, and he’s
threatening next up is this guy’s dick. And this dealer will do that. He won’t
blink. And he’ll keep sellin’ to him ‘cause he doesn’t give that first fuck
this guy’s breakin’ into cars to steal stereos to feed his habit or that his
sister is spreadin’ her legs to keep him trippin’. She should have
never
swung that deal. That’s on her.
Her man’s worried about it. You found his problem; it’s on him to solve it. You
give him what he needs and walk away.”

He waited for that to penetrate,
and when I just sat there grinding my teeth, he kept going.

“And his dealer is all over havin’
her sweet pussy out there bringin’ in coin. You take that away, I take that
away, we insert ourselves into a situation that is not ours to deal with, and
we make a dangerous guy unhappy. That is not our mission. Our mission was to
find out why that bitch was bein’ hinky. We found out. You report it. We’re
done.

“This is fucked up,” I hissed.

“Learn now,” Darius returned. “You
keep doin’ this shit, you’ll see a lot that’s fucked up. Then you’ll learn a
whole new definition of fucked up, and that definition will keep changing. What
you always gotta remember is that it’s not
your
fuck up. It’s someone else’s. You never take that shit on. You do the job and
walk away.”

I clenched my teeth and slid my
eyes away.

Then I looked back and asked, “Why
would she do that for her brother?”

“What would you do, body parts from
Lee or Hank came to you through the mail?”

I again clenched my teeth and slid
my eyes away.

This was my answer, but Darius
already knew it.