Page 40 of Trick
I began putting the groceries away, and by the time I finished, my refrigerator was full of more fresh ingredients than I’d ever seen outside of the produce aisle. I’d had to throw out the take-out containers to make room for it all, which wasn’t a huge loss since a couple of them were a day or two past their prime anyway.
My pantry contained things like brown rice, lentils, whole wheat pasta, flax seeds, and more nuts than any man had need of unless he had a pet squirrel.
I had to do some creative rearranging in the freezer to fit all of the meat he’d bought alongside the stuff I already had in there. I refused to throw away a single frozen dinner or breakfast burrito, simply on principle.
I looked around my kitchen, wondering how my life had come to this…quinoa in my pantry and a temporary roommate who was slowly driving me out of my mind.
“You have questionable judgement in men, Lauren Marie, that’s how it happened. Fucking Beau,” I muttered to myself.
Chapter 13
Trick/Jase
After back to back training sessions with some of the fighters, I turned my focus to working out the details of our upcoming Fight Night, this one featuring one of the Rossi underlings in the octagon against the head of security from the Flanagan organization in Chicago. Apparently, one of the Flanagan boys had married one of Rossi’s many nieces. The two families had formed an alliance of sorts, based here in the city, with Flanagan sending one of his men to head up security for the new alliance.
The security guy, Liam, had started coming to the gym a few months back, and he was a beast. Rossi’s man was good though, and hungry for a win. It should be a close match-up, and from what Rossi had told me, the bets were coming in fast and furious from all over the world.
I left the gym mid-afternoon and when I stopped by the front desk to tell Rod I was leaving I noticed Flanagan’s guy standing by the door as he answered his phone. I did a double take at seeing a wide smile cross his face. He was normally a stern-faced sonofabitch, and an absolute beast in the octagon.
“Hello, princess,” he murmured into the phone, listening for a few seconds before laughing softly and telling the woman on the other end that he would be home soon, then told her he loved her before hanging up.
I walked toward the door, causing him to look up.
“You had another strong workout today, Liam. Gonna be ready for Fight Night?” I asked, opening the front door to the gym and stepping out ahead of him.
“Yes, although my wife isn’t happy about it,” he answered, a slight Irish brogue accenting his words. At my questioning look, he explained, “Lila’s rather fond of my face without any bruises. I’ve had to promise that this will be my first and last official match in the octagon.”
“Got it,” I said knowingly. “Happy wife, happy life, or at least that’s what my married friends tell me.”
“They aren’t wrong,” he agreed, before unlocking his SUV and sliding in.
Jesus, it seemed like even rumored mafia assassins could be pussy-whipped, provided it was the right pussy, anyway. Maybe I shouldn’t give Rome and Jagger such a hard time, after all, especially since I knew I was well on my way to being whipped myself.
I stopped by the clubhouse to grab some clothes before I headed to Lauren’s place. I was worried about leaving her with just a prospect looking after things, although I did feel better since Brick had texted a couple of hours ago letting me know that they had the cameras and new system up and running.
The common room was pretty empty when I walked in, with only two of the bunnies sitting around watching TV.
I ignored both of them and went straight to Bull’s office, finding King in there, too.
“Hey, am I interrupting?” I asked.
Bull shook his head and waved me inside. “No, I’m just filling Prez in on the latest on the situation with Lauren.”
“Viking told me most of it earlier. How’s she doing?” King asked.
I shrugged, setting down in the chair next to King, in front of the desk. “She thinks we’re overreacting and isn’t thrilled about having me stay there, but she hasn’t put up too much of a fight about it, yet.”
I directed my attention back to Bull. “Do you have anything on those emails?”
He sat back in his chair and grimaced, rubbing his hand over his shaved head in frustration. “Not as much as I’d like. They’ve been a bitch to track. I’m still working on it, but they’re bouncing off IP addresses all over the fuckin’ world. Seriously, they pinged in a half-dozen places, from the east coast to the west coast, and then Japan, Chile, Greenland, and back to the US.”
“How the fuck is that possible?” I growled, rolling my shoulders to try to ease the tension gathering there.
He spent the next few minutes droning on about using a VPN to mask the original sender, spoofing IP addresses, and encrypting metadata, before I finally interrupted.
“I don’t understand a fuckin’ thing you said, man.”
“I don’t, either,” King groused. “Give it to us in plain English. Use small words.”
