Page 9 of Tattered Souls (Whispering Falls #2)

Garrick

It was exactly a few days later when I was at the garage working.

My brain had spun over the past few days on how I could approach shit with Tatum and not come off as an overbearing prick.

Sadly, I wasn’t coming up with shit.

And I didn’t want to bring it up and hurt her.

Didn’t want to criticize her without knowing the truth.

“Dibs,” Chance said.

I shook my head and kept right on working.

I heard Chance’s footsteps out of the garage, and then I heard, “Well, hey there, pretty little thing. What can we do for you?”

I had just tightened a bolt on the head of this motor we had pulled apart to replace the head gasket when I heard a soft voice say, “Umm.”

At the sound of that single word, I jerked my head from out of the hood, tagged the red rag in my back pocket, and walked to where Chance was standing.

Motherfucker needed to move.

He was blocking my sight of her.

“Chance, move,” I barked.

Lucky for him, he stepped to the side.

Just in time for my eyes to lay on absolute perfection.

Tatum Leanne Rogers.

The woman who was too young for me, but I didn’t give a good goddamned.

I wanted her.

In every way a man can want a woman.

Unfortunately for me... she was taken.

Taken by a piece of shit who didn’t fucking deserve her.

Neither did I.

But I was a fuck of a lot better man.

Not the best man, nah, that title went to my father... but... for the right woman... I could be that man.

And she was standing in front of me with her long dark brown hair falling softly around her shoulders, a light purple dress that sat just below her knees.

I felt a smile pull at my lips when I saw her feet were in a pair of brown flip-flops... but that wasn’t what had me smiling.

No. It was the black nail polish on her toes.

I lifted a brow as I caught her eyes. “Rebel day?”

She tilted her head to the side. “What?”

“Normally, your toes are painted pink, purple, or light blue. Black is the color of a rebel. So... which is it?”

At my words, I watched as a light pink color formed on her cheeks.

Yeah, Tink. I see you.

“You noticed that?” she asked as she put some of her hair that had fallen in front of her face behind her ear.

I nodded.

That was when I noticed that Chance was still standing there, so I looked at him and said, “Get back to work.”

He shook his head and had the fucking balls to cross his arms over his chest. “No. I called it.”

I nodded, then turned to face him, leaned in, and my voice got low.

“If you don’t get out of my motherfucking sight right fucking now, you're going to find out how it feels to have a wrench shoved so far up your ass that you’ll feel it in your throat. Get. The. Fuck. Gone.”

Once he swallowed and nodded, I turned back to look at Tatum.

Then I noticed what I had missed earlier... and that something put me on high alert.

Her hands were clenching and unclenching on the sides of her dress.

Immediately, I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I might be paranoid, but something doesn’t make sense.” She said, biting her bottom lip.

I had to recite car parts in my head to keep my dick from getting hard.

Fuck, but this woman didn’t know what she did to me.

Once I had my dick under control, I asked, “What is it?”

“Well, the other day, I went to Michaels to get supplies to make a gift for Granger.” She said.

I nodded, showing her I was following along.

“I didn’t tell Lance where I was going or what I was doing on my day off. I used cash. He was at work.”

I nodded. “So... what is it?”

She swallowed. She was nervous.

“I umm, I think he might have put a tracker on my car.”

I lifted a brow at her.

She shrugged, “I know it sounds weird... but how else would he know?”

I nodded, “Pull your car into bay four.”

While she was doing that, I walked over to Dom, lowered my voice, and said, “Figure out a way to make her a bogus ticket and then come give me a hand.”

He jerked up his chin and then headed to the office.

I looked at Chance, Leo, and Dane, and said, “Take a two-hour lunch. I’ll stay late and cover the rest.”

Chance looked at Tatum, then at Dane and Leo, and asked, “What do you need?”

“Need y’all to disappear for a bit,” I told them as I saw Dom walking back to where I was standing.

Leo crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you need?”

I looked at the three of them, then at Tatum. “You cool if they help me and Dom?”

She bit her lip and then nodded.

She was nervous.

And I didn’t blame her one fucking bit.

I locked my gaze on the three of them. “Asking y’all to keep this shit to yourselves. Lock it in a vault, don’t give a fuck how you do it. But this shit stays here. Tatum thinks her boyfriend put a tracker on her car.”

Leo nodded.

Drake nodded.

Chance walked over to the bay doors and closed them.

Since Rita was off today, we didn’t have to worry about her.

I walked back over to Tatum and then asked, “You ready?”

At her nod, I pointed to a stool. “Take a seat, Tink. Don’t know how long this is going to take.”

And then the four of us got to work.

Dom talked to Tatum for a bit, and I watched from the corner of my eye as she handed him her bag and her phone.

Not even two minutes later, he placed something small and black on top of the worktable.

He looked at her and said, “Disabled the tracker I found in your phone. Also, there’s the tracker that was in your bag.”

Then Dom got to work helping us.

We found three trackers on her car.

I stared at the objects, trying to fight off the need to throw them on the ground and crush them with my boot.

Or... better yet, hunting the motherfucker down, and shoving them down his throat.

Consequences be damned.

She walked over to me and then wrapped her small arms around me.

I wrapped her in my embrace and held her tight.

It was as she was getting in her car that I saw it.

Saw it... and couldn’t fucking believe it.

I knew what that was.

She had tried.

Tried to cover it up with makeup.

That motherfucking piece of human goddamned garbage.

However, before I could make a move and do something about it...

It happened.