Page 76 of Creole Kingpin
He winks, making me melt into the leather beneath me. “I have a few. And all three of us—me, Jules, and Trey—took a lot of tactical driving classes. Partly because we needed to, but mostly because they were fun as hell. Saved our asses more than once, though.”
“Then I’m glad you did. Turn here, Earnhardt.”
A few minutes later, we pull up in front of my cheery yellow house.
“It won’t take me long,” I tell him as I reach for the door handle.
“I’ll help. We’re a team, after all. Where you go, I go.”
Moses shoots me a winning smile, and it’s in that moment that I realize I’m falling in love with him all over again. Not with the man I knew fifteen years ago, but with the man he is today.
Despite everything, today is a lucky day,I decide. Now, here’s hoping it keeps on going.
Forty-Eight
Moses
When we get back to the house in the Marigny, my gaze lands on Trey as I carry in Magnolia’s twin suitcases. “Any luck? We could use some good news right about now.”
His attention darts from us to his keyboard as he speaks. “I got a hit on the plates, but it doesn’t match the description you gave of the driver, unless he’s secretly a seventy-four-year-old black woman and his disguise was damn good.”
“Damn it,” Magnolia says from behind me. “Does that mean he stole it?”
Trey’s head bobs from his seat at the kitchen table. “Most likely, or he stole the plate of another black Fusion.”
Jules leans against the kitchen island. “What’s our next move? Because we gotta do something.”
Part of me wishes I’d taken Jules’s advice and had him intercept the guy, but there’s no way in hell I was going to let him take this on alone. I also wasn’t risking a confrontation, one that would most likely end in blood being spilled, with Magnolia at my side.
She might be tough as hell, but she doesn’t need to be in any more danger. Visions of her getting ready to stitch up the slice in her own side are still all too recent in my brain, and I refuse to let it happen again.
Across the table that Trey has turned into central command, complete with notebooks littered by scribblings and a slew of empty coffee cups, I ask, “You find anything else on the dead guy?”
“Nothing helpful yet. I’m still looking.” He scratches the back of his neck, and then his fingers are flying again.
I don’t need to tell him to hurry or look harder, because Trey’s already doing everything he can. The man is a beast on a computer, and I trust him to do the job better than anyone else could. Plus, he doesn’t know the wordquit, which is exactly why we work well together.
“Okay, so we keep running that down, and we’re on high alert everywhere. No driving without checking for tails. Mama, you’re with me. Like glue. We’re takingnochances.”
She worries her bottom lip and crosses her arms over her stomach, feeling whatever is going through her head. “What about my girls? And Desiree’s? Is there a chance he could go after them? I still own the house. Because I was young and dumb, it was in my real name from the beginning.” Magnolia’s weary tone is filled with concern. “If this guy is looking for me and tracked me to my condo, would he try to find me through them? I mean, the bond for deed between me and Desiree is filed, but technically, my name is still on the house, so I’m connected.”
“Shit, yeah. She’s got a point, man,” Trey says with a nod. “We don’t know what the hell this guy will do.”
“He looked for you at the condo and not the house first, so this guy clearly has some intel of his own on you.”
“Just like the guy who tried to kill me in the elevator,” Magnolia says, and the reminder burns a hole in my gut.
Not letting that shit happen ever again.
I reach an arm around her shoulders and pull her near. “Yeah. Going to the same place as the attempted hit makes sense.”
“Attempted hit?You really think someone paid the guy in the elevator to kill me?” Magnolia asks, fear causing her voice to rise.
“It’s a strong possibility. Too many things have happened since. It all adds up to none of this being random, including Ricardo.” I press a kiss into her hair, hating that she has to deal with any of this. “We’ll clear the girls out of the house. If it’s empty, there won’t be anyone he can hurt there. Is there somewhere they can go? Friends? Families?”
Magnolia presses her lips together, but not once does she falter or lose her grip on the situation or her emotions.Strong as hell.
After a minute, she says, “They’ll all find somewhere to go. It’s just the money part. Some of them will have to leave town completely, and if they can’t work where they’re safe and protected, they can’t pay their bills. I don’t like doing that to any of them—my girls or Desiree’s.” She groans, looking skyward as if searching for an answer from above. “I don’t like putting them in a position where they might have to make choices that could put their safety at risk. It’s too dangerous.”
