“Remember the number?” he asked, glancing up at me from under those appealing thick lashes of his.
I came up blank.
But it was Voss who came in for the save, rattling off the number easily.
“Hey, baby,” Valen said as he was typing. “I have you saved in my phone as the best fuck of my life. Care to give me a name so I can change that? Winky face. Kissy face. And send.”
“How the fuck did we not think of that?” I asked, looking over at Voss who looked equally as dumbfounded.
“Your hearts are in it. Clouds your judgment,” Nave said, shrugging. “Shit. That fucker is horny, huh?” he asked when his phone dinged just a minute later. “Curtis, babe. Now why don’t you send me a picture to refresh my memory?” he read. “Alright. Muss up your hair and give the camera a pout,” Nave said.
“What? No way. What if he’s been keeping an eye on the club?”
“That’s a good point. Alright. Let’s see what I got…” he said, pulling out his normal phone and scrolling through his camera files. “Curtis. Does that sound like someone who likes blondes? Brunettes? What about a redhead.”
“Everyone likes a redhead,” Voss piped in.
“Fair enough,” Nave said, sending the picture to his other phone, then shooting it off to Curtis. “When can we have a repeat? Water splashes. Eggplant. Too much?” he asked, genuinely waiting for an answer for us.
“Don’t ask me,” I said, shaking my head.
“Take off the eggplant,” Voss suggested.
“Yeah, sounds about right. Okay. So, we have a name. Curtis. Not an uncommon one, but how many crew leaders could possibly have that name?”
I didn’t even pause as I rushed into the living room.
There was Junior, an absolute giant of a guy with blond hair and icy blue eyes, looking a lot like his father Brian who went by the name “Breaker.”
I don’t know what I expected from him. I guess to be an enforcer like his dad. Not to take after his mom with the computer thing.
“Curtis,” I said, voice louder than I intended, making everyone in the room jolt.
“What?” Fallon asked, rubbing his tired eyes.
“Curtis. That’s the name. Nave texted him, playing a former hook-up.”
“Smart,” Fallon said as Junior’s typing got faster.
“I have my moments,” Nave agreed.
“Curtis. Curtis Carver,” Junior said.
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Fallon said, brows pinching. Because he made it his business to know all the major players.
“Yeah. That makes sense. Not a big player. From this little nowhere town in the corner of Florida by the Alabama border. The fuck was Valen doing in that area?” Junior asked, mostly to himself as he continued typing.
“Probably heading into Alabama. He was just traveling through the country,” I reminded them.
“Shit,” Junior said, letting out a hiss, making my heart drop.
“What? Shit, what?” I asked, voice sounding choked.
“He and his crew have rap sheets as long as my arm,” Junior said. “But that’s not the shit part.”
“What’s the shit part then?” Fallon asked, straightening.
I didn’t know Junior well, but it seemed as though Fallon did. And if Fallon was alarmed about what Junior was saying, it was time for my own panic to trip into overdrive.
“The rumors about the shit that this crew hasn’t gotten locked up for. Lot of bodies missing. A lot of unsolved rapes. It’s ugly. These fuckers are some of the worst of the worst, it seems.”
“How the fuck did Valen get wrapped up with them?” Fallon asked.
“Who knows,” Junior said, shrugging.
“He wasn’t with them,” I insisted.
“No fucking way,” Voss agreed.
“Look, that shit doesn’t matter right now,” Fallon said, clearly not believing us, leaving me offended for Valen’s sake.
I mean, other arms dealers? Sure. Even enforcers or loan sharks? Absolutely.
But rapists?
Fuck no.
Not Valen.
Not any of the guys raised in or around this club.
“What would they be doing in Jersey?” I asked, choosing to ignore Fallon for the moment, but reminding myself to give him a piece of my mind at some later point.
“Looking,” Junior said, then made us sit there in pained silence for almost five full minutes before he spoke again. “There we go. New sheriff in town. Literally,” he added with a little smirk. “Chased them out of town. Looks like they’ve been a little directionless since then, creating havoc everywhere they happened. But one of the guys that works for Curtis has an aunt up near the city who owns a pretty successful jewelry store.”
“You think they want to rob the jewelry store?” I asked.
“If they’re desperate enough. You blow through a lot of cash when you’re moving around too much.”
“And then, what, Valen was just a loose end to cut off on the way?” I asked, my anger boiling up again at the idea of waiting this long to move. Even if we hadn’t had a direction.
“Or a fall guy,” Fallon said, shrugging.