When He's Bad (Walker Security Adrian’s Trilogy #2) - Lisa Renee Jones Page 0,24
deal?”
The bedroom door opens again and Savage swings his big body into the bedroom. “We have our Adam,” Savage says, poking his head back into the bathroom. “He still has no Eve.”
Rolling my eyes, I murmur, “Lord help me,” and reach for the clothes I set out before I got in the shower.
“Is he here?” Adam demands.
“Yes,” I call out, already pulling on my pants. “He is here.” I walk into the bedroom to find Adam hovering at the door. “Are we having a Walker family reunion?” I eye Adam. “Or do we have real news on Deleon?”
“We do not,” Adam says. “But something went wrong with our plan. “
“Yeah,” Savage says. “Let’s talk about what went wrong. Who knew about the cabin?”
“I told you,” I say. “My family.”
“Right,” Savage says. “Is Rafael fucking you over?”
My teeth grind together. “Rafael is not fucking me over. Alex—”
“Is dead,” Savage supplies. “Dead people don’t dance, sing, or fuck people over.”
I scrub a hand through my damp hair, too damn tired to be dragged down this rabbit hole. “Alex and I were both undercover inside the Devils.”
Savage’s eyes go wide. “No shit. How did I not know that?”
Adam studies me long and hard. “I didn’t know either.”
“I thought it was irrelevant,” I reply. “As you said, Savage, he’s dead.”
The door opens and fucking Lucifer walks in. “Donuts in the kitchen. Six dozen. Almost enough to go around, so grab ‘em and run.”
“This,” I say, “would be a good time for everyone but me to go eat the damn donuts.”
Blake appears in the doorway and it’s official. Everyone in the house who isn’t Pri is here. Blake’s brown, intelligent eyes meet mine and I don’t know what he finds in my stare, but his chin lifts slightly before he says, “Everyone who isn’t Adrian should go eat the fucking donuts.” He steps further in the room, a charge in the air around him, a sense of power and control, and no one questions it or him. No one argues. They leave.
Blake shuts the door. Exhaustion weighs on my shoulders and back and I sit down on the end of the bed. He steps in front of me and leans on the dresser. “What happened out there?”
I don’t ask what “out there” means. He’s talking about the shit show that was my plan to hide out in a secret cabin that wasn’t secret at all. A plan that cost at least one man his life.
There are ten reasons I’d like to avoid a direct answer, but none of them allow Blake the chance to go into the rest of this mission with eyes wide open. “I suspect it started with my parents’ murder.”
“Not what I expected to hear, but somehow, this all makes more sense. I’m going to gamble and say Waters was somehow involved.”
“On the surface, it could have been tied to any one of my father’s many arrests, but I kept digging. Apparently, Alex did as well. By the time I found the connection to Waters, he was already undercover with the Devils.”
“He was on a revenge mission.”
“Yes. He was, and if you knew my brother, his form of revenge was leading him nowhere safe.” I give a laugh that is all bitterness and add, “I joined the task force with the intent of saving his life.”
“And now he’s dead.”
“Yes. Now he’s dead. Alex did just what I knew he’d do. He got in too deep. He was pulled under, seduced by the lifestyle, and I couldn’t snap him out of it. I couldn’t bring him back.”
“It happens to a lot of good men.”
“Yeah well, I knew he had a dark side. I knew. I never believed he belonged inside the agency, but who was I to make that call?” I glance skyward, fighting a memory of our final fight before I refocus on Blake. “The cabin was always our secret, our safe house if anything went wrong. Obviously, Alex told someone about the cabin.”
He’s back to studying me a little too hard. “I read you and your brother’s files. He disappeared a year after you both went under.”
My jaw clenches. I do not like where this is going. “That’s right,” I agree.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
It’s a moment of truth, one I owe Blake Walker for all he’s done for me. “He’s dead. That’s all I have to say on that topic.”
“I read between the lines and assumed as much. I see you and understand you. What you need to