“What about Marlowe?”
“Bringing her here would only make this guy suspicious and put her in more danger than she’s already in.”
I knew he was right, but at that moment, I cared more about her safety than my own, and I was going to do whatever I could to protect her. “Then, I’ll stay over at her place.”
“Not sure that’s a good idea, brother. One of you says or does the wrong thing, and this whole thing blows up in our faces,” Menace warned.
“I won’t let that happen.”
Shotgun, our club’s enforcer, had been all but silent since we’d started church. He’d been taking in everything we’d discussed, but when it came to this, he refused to keep quiet. “Menace is right. You need to be here.”
I wasn’t surprised by his remark. It was his job to protect the brothers, but it was my job to protect Marlowe. “If the tables were turned, and this was Remington we were talking about, what would you do?”
“I would do exactly what you’re doing.” His eyes grew intense as he warned, “You’re gonna have to watch your back, brother. If you run into any trouble—”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
Once that was settled, Viper dismissed us all from church. Usually, the guys quickly dispersed and went about their own business. Not today. It seemed they all had something to say about the situation with Marlowe. While I appreciated their concern, I was eager to find out more about this Eric asshole, so I excused myself and went down to Menace’s room. I didn’t want to disturb him while he worked, but I needed to be there in case I could lend a hand with anything. When I walked in, Menace was at his computer with Hawk sitting right beside him, quietly sifting through a folder.
Neither of them paid me any mind as I made my way over to the empty chair next to Hawk and sat down. As I peered over Hawk’s shoulder, I whispered, “Whatcha looking at?”
“The pictures of Stark’s place in San Antonio.”
I’d already seen them a few days before, but I peered over his shoulder for a second glance in case there was something I might’ve missed. He was sifting through the different images when something caught my eye. “Hey, go back to that last picture.”
As he flipped back to the previous photograph, he asked, “Why? You see something?”
“Yeah.” I pointed to a real estate sign in the front of the lot. “Is that for this property?”
“Looks that way.” Hawk leaned in closer, then said, “Holy shit. Are you seeing this?”
“Yeah, I see it.”
Curious as to what we were looking at, Menace glanced over his shoulder and asked, “What?”
Hawk handed him the photograph and said, “Check out the name on the sign.”
“Stark Realty? Are you fucking kidding me? How the hell did I miss that?”
“I missed it, too.”
“That’s how he keeps moving so fast.” Menace quickly turned to me as he asked, “Hey, am I crazy or wasn’t Kate bragging about the fact her new boyfriend was in real estate?”
“I believe she did. I also think she mentioned him working on some development while he’s in town. Bought some property and was prepping it for resale. Shouldn’t take much to find out which property, right?”
“Just a matter of looking up recent sales.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” A smirk crossed Hawk’s face as he said, “I think we’ve got him, boys.”
“It’s certainly looking that way, but I’ll run the facial recognition just to be sure,” Menace replied. “I want to cover all our bases.”
“Agreed.”
“Let’s give him some breathing room.” Hawk stood as he looked over to me and said, “’Bout time for us to head over to Stilettos for our shift.”
I glanced up at the clock on the wall and was surprised to see it was already after three. I told Marlowe I would be coming by her place this morning, but time had gotten away from me. As I followed Hawk out to the parking lot, I got it set in my mind I was going to make it up to her, and I knew exactly how.
When I walked into Stilettos, I found Marlowe busy behind the bar making drinks. Damn. She looked so beautiful she took my breath away, and I couldn’t wait to have a few minutes alone with her. I walked up and just watched her go through the motions of making one of her fancy drinks. She was a great bartender. She took pride in her work and never failed to impress. When she finally realized I was standing there, a soft smile danced across her perfect, full lips.
“Hey there, beautiful.”
“Hey.” A shroud of concern washed over her as she muttered, “Where’ve you been? I was expecting you to come by my place.”
"I was planning to, but I got held up at the clubhouse.” I stepped behind the counter as I asked, “You got a minute to talk?”