I went right to him, stopped, and planted my hands on my hips, glaring down at his pale face, which had luckily lost the pimples he used to have when I’d met him, though some of them had left marks.
“Have you lost your mind?” I hissed.
He leaned toward me but kept his seat, “Cher, it’s a big job and the guy who hired me trusts me to do it right.”
I.
Was.
Gonna.
Kill.
Ryker!
“Is the guy who hired you gonna console your momma when you get dead doin’ this big job for him?” I asked.
His face got even paler, but he didn’t answer.
I read this to mean he knew the danger.
I didn’t know the danger.
But I knew it was significant.
And I knew that if Lissa and Alexis wouldn’t be upset that daddy didn’t come home, I’d go to the nearest gun store, buy a baton, find Ryker, and beat him unconscious.
I threw out my hands, leaned toward him, and repeated, “Ryan, have you lost your mind?”
Suddenly, his head twitched and his brows shot together. “Do you know what the job is?”
“I know I don’t want you doin’ it,” I returned.
He seemed to relax before he replied, “I’m a big boy, Cher.”
“You’re my friend, Ryan. You’ve had my back a lot over a lotta years. It’s not about you bein’ a big boy. It’s about me givin’ a shit about you. And part of that givin’ a shit about you is wantin’ you to be safely sellin’ extension cords at Radio Shack and not sittin’ in your car outside a house two doors down from mine where I know a dickhead lives and is likely into dickhead shit that makes you unsafe. And part of this unsafe is that you’re surveilling a house two doors down from mine, doin’ it stupid by,” I leaned deeper, “sitting in your car outside that house.”
Ryan sat back hard in his chair when I leaned into him. “It’s my job to keep an eye out.”
“I got that,” I returned. “And even though that job is over, heads up, you don’t do that sitting right outside a house you’re staking out.”
“I got ears in that house, and when I put them in, I didn’t have time to use the good stuff. The feeds don’t range too far. I gotta be close.”
At the news Ryan had actually broke into my dickhead neighbor’s house and planted bugs, I rolled my eyes to the ceiling, wondering if it was possible to feel your blood pressure spike since I was pretty sure I was experiencing that.
I rolled my eyes back just in time to see Ryan’s gaze shoot over my shoulder. He jolted in his chair before he froze, his eyes wild, his body strung tight.
This would lead me to believe Colt had joined our huddle.
However, I knew the feel of the man who had entered our space while I was too busy reading the riot act to Ryan to notice.
And that feel was not Colt.
Shit.
“Ryan’s surveilling a house two doors down from yours?”
Merry asked that question and he did it in a voice that was low and tense, an indication that he was about to go apeshit crazy.
Slowly, I straightened, and even more slowly, I turned to my man.
I looked into the blue shards of his glittering, pissed off eyes.
Yep.
This close to apeshit crazy.
Needless to say, Ryan doing stupid shit (repeatedly), not to mention being a friend of mine, he was well-known by the entirety of the BPD.
“Merry—” I started.
I didn’t finish because he moved and he did it fast.
Lunging toward Ryan’s table, he slammed a fist down on it so hard the table jumped. Ryan also jumped. But Ryan didn’t otherwise move because Merry was still moving, this time so he had Ryan’s sweater in his fist and his face in Ryan’s.
“You got a job two doors down from Cher?” he growled.
“D-d-dude—” Ryan stuttered.
“Answer me!” Merry barked.
“Y-yeah,” Ryan whispered.
“Who put you on that job?” Merry asked.
“Merry—” I tried again.
“Shut it, Cher,” he clipped, his eyes not leaving Ryan. “Who put you on that job, Ryan?”
“I…I…n-n-no disrespect, Merrick,” Ryan stuttered, “but the dude who has me on the job would lose his mind, I shared that with anyone.”
Merry stared into his eyes, then pushed him off and Ryan’s chair tipped up on two legs. Ryan threw his arms out, wheeling them as his feet kicked so he wouldn’t slam to his back. He seemed suspended until his chair tipped forward and he was safe.
But I was not.
Because Merry had turned his attention to me.
“You know who’s got Ryan on this job?” he asked.
“Merry—”
“My name is not an answer to my fuckin’ question, Cher,” he bit out. “You know who’s got Ryan on this job?”
I looked into his eyes, my heart taking that moment to kick in, beating too fast.
This was me fucking things up.
I should have told him.
Merry this pissed off was a good deterrent to open sharing about things such as these, though, and if he gave me the opportunity to defend myself when he was calmed down, I would tell him that.
But the fact remained, he was Garrett Merrick. He was a cop, but he was just that guy. That guy who would want to know if someone he cared about was close to something not good. And he was definitely that guy who would want to know if the woman he was seeing and her kid were close to something not good.