Stone Cold - Ashby Crime Family

Deep inside me, I had an ache I’d never felt before.

It startled me and I pulled back, eyes wide and chest heaving to suck in one proper breath. One look at Cal showed he looked just as shaken up as I felt. But he also looked angry and I sucked in a breath. Horrified.

He didn’t want this.

“Oh my God, Calvin. I am so sorry.” I didn’t wait for a response. I turned on my heels and ran away as fast as I could, not stopping until I was locked in the safe quarters of my temporary home.

Chapter Eight

Cal

After Bonnie ran away from me like her ass was on fire, I gave her a minute to come to her senses. When that didn’t happen, I went to my own quarters and did what I did best. Got down to work.

I focused on digging into Addison Marie Beck’s life, but more specifically the life of Jack Beck. Her father. Jack was a truck driver who’d spent most of his life in the Boston area driving for an industrial food packing company with his wife and later, his little girl. It wasn’t all clear yet, but at some point, Jack Beck and his daughter—only his daughter—moved to Texas. When I looked really closely, the company he worked for was an Ashby company, Jas Freight Lines. It would take more time to uncover the rest, but at the moment, my mind wasn’t clear. That was all I’d been able to find after a couple hours of digging.

It was pathetic.

Thoughts of Bonnie filled my mind. That kiss and those lush, pink lips that had made more than one appearance in my fantasies lately were only part of the problem. The other part was she was obviously deeper in the shit than she wanted anyone to know. That worried me for multiple reasons.

At the top of the list was protecting my family, even against the sweet little church girl. She laid one hell of a kiss on me, which wasn’t very church girl-like, and then she’d run off like a scared little rabbit. Exactly like I’d expect a church girl to behave. But that didn’t square up with her hanging out with one of The Crusaders. I needed to get a better read on her, which meant no more fucking distractions.

No more kisses. No more fantasies. No more thinking with my dick.

The security monitor beeped as the screen flashed several times to focus on the image of Jasper. He never came to this part of the property, which meant he wanted to talk. Or he wanted help, which he would disguise as an order.

“Jasper, what can I do for you?” I said with a grin guaranteed to piss him off as he walked into the spacious living room that acted mostly as my office.

He frowned at the bank of screens. “What’s all this?”

His gaze immediately went to the screen filled with photos of Agent Beck as a child. And her father. “Something about Agent Beck seems off, don’t you think?”

He narrowed his brows to a question mark. “Not really. She’s young, so she still believes in the good versus evil bullshit, but she’s harmless.”

“You blinded by a pretty face, Jas? The woman has a hate that goes well beyond cops and robbers. I don’t like it, so I’m digging until I find out why.”

“Don’t bother. Marshall will keep a leash on her.”

“He doesn’t give a shit how he takes us down, as long as he does, brother. Believe that.” Jas raked a hand through his hair and looked around the room, probably searching for my bar.

“Jas, your blind spot where Agent Beck is concerned is…alarming.”

He snorted with a hard and icy glare, aimed my way with military precision. I was unfazed.

“You don’t have shit to be alarmed about, Cal.”

I grabbed a beer from the fridge and handed it to him with a sympathetic smile. His job wasn’t easy, but neither was continuing to take orders from my big brother. “The name Jack Beck ring a bell?”

He blinked. Shook his head. “No.”

I knew Jasper, and I knew when he was lying, which meant I had to keep digging.

“Right. You stop by for another reason?”

He took a long pull from the bottle and nodded. “How’s Bonnie? Oliver said you brought her home tonight.”

This fucking house was like living in a small town, or worse, a fishbowl. “She’s not doing well. One-way ticket to hell as far as I can see. I’m worried as fuck about her, but fuck, do I even have a right to be?”

Jasper stared at me for a long moment, but it wasn’t his usual judgmental look or his commanding, king of the world shit. This was assessing and then it was disgust. “Not you too,” he groaned.

I shook my head, vigorously. “It’s not like that.” I told him about running into her tonight at Club Degenerate. “I’m not sure if she’s just trying to cope with all the shit she’s going through or if she’s a liability.”