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“You’ve been distant and I get that. Even though I’ve never served another man’s time, I get it. But the anger toward us, I don’t get that.”

Yeah, well, I didn’t get that shit either. “I don’t know what to tell you, Cross. I’m doing the best I can.”

“And that’s why I wanted to come and have a drink with you. I see you’re trying to get back into things, which means you want to be here. And I think I’ve figured it out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out, Cross.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Savior said we should’ve talked to you about it at the time, but I disagreed. You know those calls at the prison aren’t private unless you’re with your attorney.”

I gave a sharp nod. I knew it well. More than a couple inmates had been caught up with their own words. “Talk to me about what?”

“About the asshole who actually murdered Ricky Tran.”

The fucker who’d died shortly after his DNA had been identified under Ricky’s nails. With him dead though, the prosecutors had suppressed the information, or tried to because we’d gotten into a scuffle earlier that same night. “What about him? He’s dead now, right?”

Cross nodded. “As soon as we got the ID on that DNA evidence we went after him, Alan Baker. No affiliation other than he fucking hated Asians. We made sure he understood the ramifications of not coming forward. He chose the alternative.”

Both of my eyebrows rose. “A round with Savior?”

His face filled with evil happiness. “Jag. Figured if he hated people of color, he might appreciate the challenge. He did, but Jag did not.” He shook his head, a wistful smile of remembrance on his face. “He didn’t want to come forward. The asshole was more afraid of what would happen to him in prison than what we’d do to him. We proved him wrong.”

I nodded at what he hadn’t said explicitly and released three more darts, barely hitting the board. Singles all around.

“I’m telling you this so you know, Golden Boy. We had your back then and we have your back now. If I thought there was any chance of him coming forward to help, I would have dumped him in front of the cop shop myself. The fucker probably would have said you worked together, so we handled it. Our way.”

I appreciated it. A lot it turned out. “Wow, man. I was ready to tell you to go fuck yourself, that I wasn’t pissed at the club, but shit, maybe I was. Thanks for letting me know, Cross.”

I didn’t know what else to say because talking about my feelings wasn’t something I did regularly—and definitely not with Cross. “You know, I am a Reckless Bastard down to my fucking bones. And I know I’ve been distant. But only because I needed to get my anger under control. If I hadn’t fought with Tran that night, I wouldn’t have ended up where I did for six fucking years.”

“And that hot model you’re dating is keeping you in bed whenever she can?” He laughed, his eyes lit with teasing as his brows waggled.

“She’s a former model,” I corrected and took a long pull of my beer, grateful the tension was gone. My body felt lighter, less weighted down now and I was able to smile. To finally relax. “And we’re not dating.” We were fucking, plain and simple. Any and everywhere we could. Hard and fast, slow and tender, long and affectionate. Every goddamn night, too.

“It’s okay if you like her,” he said easily, his gaze searing into me to make sure I understood his words. “You deserve something good after what you’ve been through. I say enjoy it.”

I was enjoying it. Too damn much, if you asked me. There was no way I could give Teddy anything a woman like that deserved in life. She’d had a shit run of things as a kid and then after, she deserved a man who would bring her flowers and do romantic shit. And we couldn’t be more than what we were. “Yeah thanks, Cross. Want to curl my hair and paint my toes next?”

He laughed. “Nope. Just had a mani-pedi with Savior.” He wiggled his fingers in my direction and we both laughed, finishing another round of beer in silence. Like men should do. But it was nice now that the distance was gone. It felt like old times.

Finally, I fucking felt like I’d left that prison for good.

Chapter 14

Teddy

The past few weeks had been relatively uneventful as far as my stalker was concerned, but that only made me worry more after Tate’s less than helpful advice about stalker behavior. Every damn time I felt my body relax and the notion of safety began to sink in, all I could think of was that this was a trap. That the moment I let my guard down was the moment I’d end up dead like one of Tate’s cellmate’s victims.

So, I stayed inside. With the exception of work, I rarely left the house anymore because my nerves were such a twisted jumble of anxiety. Even something as simple as going to Jana’s house filled my mind with images of my pregnant best friend getting caught in the crossfire, so I begged off every invitation under the guise of fatigue. Which honestly, wasn’t that far off. I was run down. Fucking exhausted.

Which was why Tate and I were curled up together on the sofa, watching a scary movie. It was the fifth or maybe even the nineteenth, in the franchise, but it was surprisingly good. And gory. Still, just hanging out with a guy and watching a movie was mundane, but completely unfamiliar territory to me. I didn’t hang out with the men I slept with, hadn’t since I realized everything they said was a lie to get more pussy. But with Tate, things were different. Maybe it was because he was easy to talk to or maybe it was just because he had no interest in impressing me, he was just Tate.

Or it could be that he fucked me so good I didn’t give a damn about anything else. Including my appearance, as evidenced by the fact I was lounging around in nothing but a pair of cotton booty shorts and a thin tank without a bra. It was the definition of comfort, something I didn’t often feel around men. Any men.

But Tate was all man and so far, I couldn’t get enough of him. Which was a bit troublesome since we weren’t dating. He was helping protect me and we were sleeping together. That was the sum total of our relationship and I was okay with that, even though things were starting to get...confusing.

I kept my gaze focused on the big ass TV where a man was begging for his life to no one in particular, but when another person appeared, I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Ass,” I told Tate when he laughed at me.

“Sorry, but it’s cute that you’re scared of a made up thing on the screen when, you know, real life.”