Page 21

Maverick

I’d never expected to roll into Dallas with a woman clinging to me so tightly that I could practically feel her heart pounding against my back. Or was that my own? But there we were, weaving through traffic on my Harley. The city sprawled around us, tall skyscrapers glinting in the late afternoon sun, highways tangled like spaghetti, and an endless barrage of cars honking in frustration.

Lexi’s arms were wrapped around my waist, her cheek pressed between my shoulder blades. I could definitely feel her relief when we veered off the main drag and turned onto quieter streets. Or was that my own as well? The further we got into her neighborhood, the more we both relaxed. It was as if the comfort of familiar territory lessened her fear of being shot at yet again. As soon as she settled, I settled.

We’d first parted from Nova and Chigger last night, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Since then, Lexi and I had been chased out of our motel, nearly gunned down, and forced to keep moving like fugitives with targets on our backs. She’d lost her mother. Granted, Diana wasn’t exactly a model parent, but still her mother. Everything in her world had crumbled in less than a week. And me? I was playing bodyguard, detective, and borderline loverboy all at once, trying not to lose my head.

Lexi’s apartment complex rose before us, a squat, three-story building that looked older than either of us. A row of tall oak trees lined the sidewalk, and a small metal gate stood partially open, giving a glimpse of a shaded courtyard. As I pulled into a visitor’s spot, I felt Lexi’s grip tighten.

She didn’t let go until the bike’s engine died. Then she slid off, pulling off her helmet, her hair tumbling in wild waves around her face. She exhaled, staring at the building. It wasn’t the nicest place, faded paint, a cracked walkway. But it was hers.

“Home sweet home,” she murmured, her voice laced with exhaustion. “I can’t believe we’re finally here.”

I climbed off the bike and ran my fingers through my hair, scanning the area like a hawk. No immediate signs of danger, no tinted SUVs lurking, no suspicious characters on the sidewalk. But that didn’t mean we were safe. “You feel okay?” I asked quietly, stepping closer so only she could hear. “We can get in and get out. We don’t have to linger.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Yeah... I just… we need to see if there’s any sign of whatever my mom stashed here. This is the only place I can think of.” She squared her shoulders with a determined look that made my chest tighten. “But let’s be careful.”

I gave a curt nod. “Always.”

We made our way through the courtyard, stepping over uneven paving stones. The space had a shabby charm, a few potted plants, a small fountain that wasn’t running. Lexi led us up a narrow stairwell to the second floor, then down an open-air walkway. Her apartment door was near the end. It took her a moment to fish out her keys. Her fingers trembled, betraying her nervousness.

“You okay?” I asked again, softly, hovering just behind her.

She shot me a quick look over her shoulder, mouth curving in a half-smile. “Yes. Just… wondering if someone’s inside, waiting to blow our heads off.”

The tension in her voice made me want to pull her close, but I just rested my hand lightly on her shoulder. “If so, I’ll handle it.” I forced a little bravado to my tone.

She exhaled, slid the key into the lock, and twisted. The door opened onto a small living room with a worn beige couch, a low coffee table stacked with law books, and an assortment of mismatched rugs covering the scuffed wood floor.

Lexi stepped inside cautiously, half expecting an armed thug to leap out. I followed close behind, scanning corners, my senses on high alert. But nothing looked disturbed. No overturned furniture, no footprints in the dust. The place smelled slightly stale from being closed up for days, but otherwise normal.

“Clear,” I muttered, though I never truly let my guard down.

She let out a shaky breath, locking the door behind us. “Thank God.” Then she flicked on a lamp near the couch, bathing the space in a soft glow. “I guess no one decided to sabotage my apartment.”

“Seems that way. But stay sharp,” I reminded her.

She gave a small nod, dropping our bag on the couch. “I will. Let me show you around. Though there’s not much to see.”

I took in the room like a detective scanning a crime scene, neat rows of law journals on a bookshelf, a second-hand TV stand holding a modest flat-screen, a stuffed armchair in the corner. On the walls, she’d hung a few framed prints of famous court decisions, alongside a poster of some half-naked male cover model for a romance novel. My lips twitched at that. She definitely had a thing for smut.

She noticed my gaze and blushed. “Hey, a girl’s allowed to have fantasies,” she mumbled, crossing her arms.

“I’m not judging, princess,” I said with a half-smile. “I’d just pegged you more for the serious attorney type. Not the cover-model-lusting type.”

Her cheeks reddened. “I can be both, you know.”

“Mm. I do know.” My tone rumbled with innuendo as I took in her shirt. “What’s a morally gray man?”

“A bad boy, basically.”

“Like a biker?”

She cleared her throat, turning to lead me down a short hallway.

We stopped at a closed door at the end. She hesitated, hand hovering over the knob. “This is it,” she murmured. “I keep all of my mom’s old stuff in here, at least, the stuff that belonged to her that I couldn’t throw away. Some of it used to be at my aunt’s place. She raised me, but after my aunt died, I had nowhere else to store it. So, I… stuck it in here.”

I studied her profile, noticing the flicker of sadness in her eyes. She’d lost her aunt, the woman who truly reared her, then her mother, no matter how flawed. It was no wonder she was guarded. “You sure you’re ready?”

She pressed her pretty lips together. “I have to be.” Then she twisted the knob and pushed the door open.

Lexi clicked on the overhead light, and a single naked bulb flickered. The room was small, filled with boxes. Some were stacked neatly along the walls, others haphazardly piled in the corner. A battered trunk sat against the far side, and a few plastic bins were labeled with marker. I smelled a faint mustiness, like old clothes and yellowing paper.

She took a step inside and gestured helplessly. “Here we are. A lifetime of Dirty Diana’s junk.”

I whistled low. “We got our work cut out for us.” Part of me was impatient to rummage through everything, but I also sensed Lexi’s emotional turmoil. “We’ll find whatever we can, if it’s here.”

She nodded, swallowing. “Yeah.”

“Let’s do this systematically,” I said, letting my old detective instincts surface. “We’ll open each box one by one, see if there’s anything relevant, documents, receipts, letters, anything that could link your mom to that Grinder guy or the mob or the SOS MC folks.”

“Right.” She took an unstable breath. “Let’s start with those bins.” She pointed to a trio of plastic containers near the trunk.

We settled on the floor, side by side, and pried the lids off. The first bin was stuffed with old clothes, feather boas, sparkly tops, fishnet stockings, like some leftover relics of Diana’s freewheeling days. Lexi rolled her eyes and tossed them aside, clearly unimpressed.

The second bin was full of random knick-knacks, cheap jewelry, half-burned candles, a handful of photos from who-knows-when. I paused over a polaroid of a younger Diana, wearing a leather jacket and pouting at the camera. She was in a parking lot filled with motorcycles, a man’s arm around her waist. Only half the man’s face was visible. A tall guy, moustache, beard, big grin. No patch or sign of affiliation that I could see. Possibly the father Lexi never met, but there was no obvious clue.

“You recognize him?” I asked, showing Lexi.

She squinted, a faint line forming between her brows. “I don’t think so. My mom had a different boyfriend every year, so it’s hard to keep track. She never told me his name if he was around, anyway. Just called him ‘baby’ or ‘darling.’”

I slipped the photo into my jacket pocket. “Might be worth checking out further.”

She nodded, a flash of sadness crossing her face. I suspected the idea that she might see a photo of her dad stirred complicated feelings. But she pressed on, rummaging through the rest of the bin. Some diaries with missing pages, a deck of tarot cards, a half-empty perfume bottle. Nothing that screamed incriminating. We set the bin aside.

The third bin held more of the same: random clothes, old lipsticks, a stack of cheap romance paperbacks. I couldn’t help but smirk at that. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. We found a battered notebook with half the pages torn out and a typed letter from a small claims court referencing overdue rent in some place in Nevada. No mention of the mob or blackmail or anything relevant to a target on Lexi’s head.

“Damn,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair. “So far, this is a bust.”

Lexi sat back on her heels, blowing out a breath that fluttered a strand of hair from her eyes. “We still have boxes. And that trunk.” She eyed the trunk warily.

“Let’s tackle it.”

We moved a few smaller boxes to get to the trunk. The boxes contained old Christmas decorations, some random children’s toys, which Lexi explained were hers from when she was a kid, though how her mom ended up with them was a mystery. I flipped through the final small box. More photos, mostly blurry, a few letters from men who wrote “I love you, Dirty Diana,” with no last name or real address.

Finally, we pried open the trunk. It creaked ominously, revealing piles of crocheted blankets and doilies. Lexi gave me a quizzical look, rummaging through them. Underneath, there were old receipts from a roadside diner in Colorado, a few postcards, some from Alaska, ironically enough. My heart twinged at the mention of Alaska, remembering my time there, but I pushed that aside.

“This is insane,” she murmured, frustration sharpening her tone. “I don’t see a single document that screams blackmail or mafia dealings. It’s just junk. My mom’s entire life was junk.”

I touched her shoulder gently. “Could be we haven’t found it yet. Could also be that your mom kept her secrets somewhere else. Or maybe she really didn’t have any. Could be the threat was about something else entirely.”

She sighed, slumping. “Or maybe she just lied to everyone, including me.”

We searched for another twenty minutes with no real luck. I snapped pictures of some older letters, just in case a random signature might mean something. But I doubted it. As we closed the trunk, Lexi flopped onto her butt, a wave of exhaustion washing over her features.

“Ugh, I’m so tired of sifting through my mother’s half-life,” she said softly. “I didn’t want to do this when she was alive. Now I have no choice.”

My heart constricted. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, wishing I had better news or a comforting truth. But I was never good at sugarcoating. “It might mean the mob’s after you for some other reason. Or someone else orchestrated it all to look like a mob hit.”

She nodded, eyes downcast. “So, we found nothing.” She let out a long breath, then mustered a weak smile. “Thanks for helping me dig. At least I know now.”

Lexi burst into tears, and I wrapped my arms around her, just holding her against my chest as she cried. After a few minutes, she settled down. Releasing her, I stood up and reached out. I tugged her gently by the arm, helping her stand.

“Let’s bag a few of the photos, the diaries, anything that might have even a scrap of info. I’ll keep them safe. We can comb through more thoroughly when we have time.”

She agreed, so we did that quickly, stuffing them into a bag. When we were done, we both stared at the messy room, boxes and bins scattered in disarray.

“So that’s it?” she asked quietly.

“For now,” I said. “We should probably get out of here soon. No telling if someone’s tailing us. We’ve already been here a few hours.”

She glanced at her phone. It was late. “You’re right. But… can I at least cook dinner first? I’m starving.”

I was about to protest, but something in the way she said it stopped me. She looked so worn, so desperate for a shred of normalcy. And honestly, so was I. We’d been eating diner food, gas station junk, and fast bites for days. The idea of a home-cooked meal made my stomach rumble.

“All right, princess,” I relented, a half-smile tugging at my lips. “Cook me something. But we gotta keep an eye out.”

She beamed, relief flooding her face. “Deal.”