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Chapter Twenty-One

Fitz

“I say we call him and tell him he won a prize at the Tropical Breeze Casino on the other side of the lake and pick him up when he shows. Tell him he’s got to go to the rewards desk at the casino with his ID. We wait for him there and nab him.” Jagger smirked as though he’d come up with the most brilliant idea in the world.

We were sitting at a restaurant in Lake Tahoe, California. Our jumper, Whitey Crow, had skipped Vegas after being picked up for aggravated assault and drunk and disorderly conduct on The Old Strip. The address he gave for the bond was in Green Springs, Nevada, and when he missed his court date, we went there to find it was an abandoned shack. Hardy checked and found the lot was for sale for five grand if I wanted to buy it. I hung up on the smart-ass!

Thankfully, Hardy put an alert on the credit card Crow used when he paid our fee, and we were notified when the guy withdrew money at a casino in Lake Tahoe on the Nevada side. We’d rented a hotel suite, which was way overpriced because in the middle of November, ski season was going strong.

Sparky agreed to the exorbitant room expenses because he wanted his forty grand returned, and we were trying to come up with a trap to catch the guy.

Leo and Digs were sitting across from Jagger and me, and the three of us thought Jagger was joking with his little bait-and-switch proposition until he didn’t laugh with us at his half-assed idea.

Digs rested his hands on the table and stared at Jagger. “How will we get the casino to let us arrest him inside? It’s private property.” Leo smirked at Digs’ question.

I turned to my “partner” and shook my head. “I can tell you for a fact that the casinos in the area aren’t fond of cooperating with law enforcement, much less quasi-law enforcement like us. Patrons don’t like to see anyone getting handcuffed across from the craps tables.”

I picked up a piece of wheat toast and dipped it in my runny egg yolk. I was frustrated beyond compare with this bullshit of being led around by our noses by some jackass who didn’t know how to handle his liquor and got into a fight with a tourist for putting his hand on the guy’s wife’s ass at the roulette table. It was a shame the young man didn’t put him in the hospital—or that the judge hadn’t ordered a GPS tracker so we could find him without all this headache.

Meanwhile, the guy I loved was up to his beautiful neck in a mountain of horseshit, and here I was in a ski resort with three numbskulls looking for a moron.

“Well, anyone else got anything better?” Jagger picked up the bacon fat that Digs had pulled off his six pieces of bacon and ate it without a thought.

“You’re eating the fat? Dude, that’s gross.” Digs pushed his plate away.

“Seriously? What do you think pork belly is?” Jagger offered a shit-eating grin and picked up another piece, munching away.

I stared out the large window of the diner where we were eating breakfast just down the street from the Nevada line. I saw a tan Honda pull up outside and park on the street, leaving the flashers on to keep from paying at the meter.

When the guy walked into the restaurant, he was wearing a red shirt and hat as he approached the counter, placing a large red insulated bag on the chair next to the end and flipping open the top. The server brought over several carryout containers and handed them to the driver, which sparked something in my memory.

I quickly called Hardy. “Hey, Fitz. How’s it going?”

It seemed logical to me that a guy who had no defined job would need to make money somewhere if he was able to play craps. I’d asked Hardy to do a search of IRS records to see if he paid taxes for any job, anywhere. Not surprisingly, Crow hadn’t filed anything in the last three years. So, where did he get his money?

The easiest way to make money and not really have a record of it was to get paid under the table without taxes being collected, but those jobs were usually low paying. The next best way was to work as a contract employee where they didn’t collect taxes up front, leaving it to the earner to pay the taxes at the time of filing. Like a freelance employee. If one changed employment often enough, it could take quite a while for Uncle Sam to catch up with them.

The red-shirted delivery guy reminded me that delivery services usually hired anyone with a clean driving record and a valid license and insurance, so it stood to reason Crow might be working in the same capacity. Since the last hit on his credit card was in Tahoe, maybe he had relocated from the Green Springs desert lot.

“I’m fine, Hardy. Can I ask you to do what is likely a fruitless search?” Nothing would probably come of it, but it was worth a shot since we had nothing to point us in his direction.

“Of course. I love doing those. They’re my favorite kinds.” The kid giggled, which made me grin.

“Can you have fun searching through records for food delivery services in the Tahoe region? Nevada and California. I’m wondering if our guy is working for one, and the easiest way to catch him is to have him deliver food to our little hotel, you dig?” Hey, it was a lame idea, but nobody else was coming up with anything except Jagger, and I didn’t want to sit through another brainstorming session with him.

“Oh, I like that. Let me get at it. I’d bet they require your driver’s license number and your car tags.” I heard his fingers flying over the keys at a million miles an hour, so we ended the call.

“He’ll get back to us. Let’s go cruise the parking lots of the casinos to see if we can find Crow’s shitty Honda.”

We paid our tab and made our way out to my truck. I wanted to find this fucker and get the hell back to Vegas. There was another man I’d rather be hunting.

Sawyer—what’s going on? I’m watching reruns of Columbo and missing you a fuckton. Fitz

My text was lame, but Jagger was down in the gym with Leo and Digs, and I was lying on my queen-size bed watching reruns of an old detective show. The haphazard police detective was a clown, but he always got his man. Maybe I was hoping for inspiration?

I’m a cowboy, on a steel horse… It was Sawyer’s ringtone that I’d set after our second date. It made me grin.

“Hey there, cowboy.” I chuckled.

“Hey, babe. How’s it going? Any leads?” His voice was like sinking into a warm bath and since I happened to have a nice big bathtub in the room that I shared with Jagger… who was gone…

“Not really. We haven’t had a hit on his card anywhere else, but we’re trying a couple of things. How’s it going with Grandpa Middleton and TJ?” I was more worried about his sanity than my own case.

Sawyer sighed. “They’re with me at the compound. My parents are flying in for a visit in a few days. I’m trying to clean the house and figure out what to do with Mr. Middleton, long term. I really miss you, Fitz.”

“Are you in your bedroom?” God, I missed him, too.

“I am. Where are you?”

I turned on the water in the bathtub and dropped in the complimentary bath bomb. A relaxing soak sounded damn good as I regulated the water temperature.

“I’m running a hot bath. I’m in Lake Tahoe, and it’s cold. It’s supposed to snow tomorrow, and I’m not ready for it. How’s the weather in Vegas?” I put the phone on speaker and pulled off my socks, jeans, sweater, and undershirt, tossing them in the corner to shove back into my duffel.

“It’s in the sixties here today. Are you taking off your clothes?”

I chuckled. “Should I get into the bathtub fully dressed?”

“Never. So, you really do like a bath, huh?” Sawyer’s voice was deeper, and it turned me the fuck on.

My dick was pleasantly filling until he asked the question. It was as if blood rushed from my head to my groin in a heartbeat, making me dizzy.

“I enjoy a bath every now and then, but this tub is big enough for two. I’m a little lonely.” Was I taunting Sawyer? In the best possible way. That man had me on tenterhooks.

“God, Fitz. I can’t wait for you to come home. I want you to meet my folks.”

I sucked in a breath and my dick unfilled just as quickly at the idea of the scenario he was suggesting. Meeting the parents? Hell, I was nearly older than them, I was sure. “Do you want me to meet your parents or your club members? I’ve met a few of them.”

“Fitz, baby, calm down. Right now, I want you to take a deep breath. Meeting my parents isn’t the end of the world. I need my dad to meet with the club because of the robbery and all the shit that’s happened over the last few weeks. He can talk some sense into them before they do anything stupid. I, uh—I kinda told my dad that I’d met someone.” The nerves in his voice were easy to hear.

“Okay. Is something wr—?”

Out of the blue, my sweet guy began babbling. “Look, if you don’t want to meet them, then we can put it off. I just… I want you to know you’re not just a one-night stand, babe. I care about you so much. I want us to make this long term. I mean, if you want it to be long term. I think we can really have something great. I, uh, I’m in love with you, babe.”

So, the bath I was planning wasn’t what I was going to have. No dirty talk and no sexual release. But—this was so much better. “I’m in love with you, too, sugar.”

Sawyer’s deep voice was in my ear. “God, I need to see—,” and then a click and nothing. Shit!

My phone began buzzing, so I pulled it back to see the icon, so I touched it and there was his handsome face with a huge smile. “Tell me again, now. I wanted to see your face, Fitz. This wasn’t how I planned to tell you, but not much is in my control these days.”

I felt bad for him. I wanted him to know it was okay that it wasn’t the most romantic way to tell someone you loved them.

I grinned, hoping to put him at ease. “I’m in love with you, sugar. I think we can have a good future. We have things in common that we can build on, and I believe it’s a good start for us. I want a future with you, Sawyer.”

His handsome face seemed to light up as we stared at each other. When that gorgeous smile moved his lips, I knew we were on the same page.

“Thank you. That’s a relief.” He exhaled and sat up against the headboard of his bed.

“So, what’s going on with TJ?” I wanted to help with his problems as much as I could.

“He’s still working out as if he’s going to go into the fight. I don’t know if he’s taking a dive or beating the fuck out of that Garza guy. That’s the problem. If we bet on TJ and he takes the dive, we lose a lot of money. If he doesn’t, we win. I still need to figure out about the Scorpions.”

“I’m curious why you’re not going after the Scorpions. They fucking robbed your business, Sawyer. If it was them, then you need to know who did it and why. Did someone betray your club? I think you need to do something about that.”

Maybe I was out of line, but I didn’t want the man I loved to be in danger, and it was a distinct possibility, what with the shit show brewing with the Scorpions if they were the ones who robbed the dispensary. Sawyer had mentioned it, and the more I thought about it, the more I saw the logic in his assumption.

With the dead Viper King guy at TJ’s grandfather’s house, it wasn’t a stretch to believe the Viper Kings were involved in the beef with the Scorpions, probably more than the Cowboys thought. I wasn’t acquainted with any of the factions involved, but I knew I wouldn’t let anything happen to Sawyer.