They were doing this?
Time to do it.
“Yeah,” he confirmed.
Light hit her eyes.
“They need me to come in, don’t they?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said softly.
“Okay, we should get dressed.”
That was when he tightened his hold on her.
She focused on him. “We should get dressed, Beck.”
“You kept this secret for months, scared shitless about Valenzuela, and babe, you should have been. That guy is a whackjob. But now it’s, ‘okay, we gotta get dressed?’” he asked.
“I didn’t have you before. Then even when I had you, I didn’t. Now I have you. And it was killing me, not saying anything. Not doing my part. Not helping them find who hurt Chantilly. Now I can do my part. So yes. Now it’s ‘okay, we need to get dressed.’”
Well, shit.
She trusted him.
Trusted him to keep her safe.
He looked in her eyes.
She was all in.
All in with him.
And it was all out there.
All out there for the both of them.
But getting it out didn’t force a bunch of shit in between.
Having it out brought them together.
So he had to get it all out there so she knew what she was getting.
“I loved her,” he shared.
Her expression went soft.
“I know,” she replied.
“I hurt her,” he said.
“I know,” she repeated.
“I let them hurt her,” he kept at it.
“I know,” she whispered.
Beck slid his hand to her jaw. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”
Janna, pressing close, her face growing gentle, her eyes going warm, slid her hand to his throat.
“I know.”
She knew.
Fuck.
He kissed his girl, his woman, wet, but light and soft, making it sweet.
When he pulled away, the melting look was in her eyes.
He gave her that.
Beck made her happy.
He took that in.
Then he said, “All right, baby. Let’s get dressed.”
While Janna sat with a cop named Jimmy Marker, giving her statement, Beck stood off to the side, out of earshot but not out of sightline of his woman, with Brock Lucas and his partner, Mitch Lawson.
“As I told you, Bounty is now Resurrection, we ousted Digger and Pacino. Straight up, the guys who we have left are the decent ones. The guys in the joint kinda sucked. As evidenced by them refusing to swing deals and instead live off the state because they think it makes them badass to serve time. Way the club is going, not sure they’ll be asked to patch into Resurrection when they get out. So there’s nothing there,” he said to the detectives, eyes not leaving Janna.
“So what you’re saying is, you’re not gonna be able to get anything on Bounty or Valenzuela,” Lucas noted.
He turned to look at the man. “Aurora charter of Bounty is dead. They’re Resurrection, man. They’re into that shit. Valenzuela dropped us, and without Digger or Lannigan pulling the strings on that, he’s not coming back in. But it doesn’t matter. They’re not hyped up to get caught up in shit again. Not any shit. At all. So yeah, there’s nothing to get.”
Lucas looked to Lawson, but Beck looked back to Janna.
“I gotta go in, do the rest of my time, let’s get on that, yeah?” he muttered.
“We’ll talk to the DA, see what’s happening with that,” Lawson said.
“I got a choice, I’d rather it be done sooner than later,” Beck shared.
“You do realize you caught a killer,” Lucas declared.
Beck looked back at him.
“As far as your brothers know,” Lucas went on, “your woman shared shit that happened before you hooked up with her. Then you did what anyone with a soul would do. You got her to the cops so she could unburden her mind, and the man who killed a troubled woman could pay for doing that. Coincidentally, your club got shot of him that same day. But I figure you can spin that.”
“What are you saying?” Beck asked low.
“I’m saying the DA is going to like this,” Lucas told him. “They tend to get off on putting criminals behind bars. We would never have Janna if it wasn’t for you. And you linked Lannigan to Benson, leading us to the known associate we didn’t have of a man who last night murdered five prostitutes.”
Holy fuck.
Beck turned fully to Lucas. “You’re shitting me.”
Lucas shook his head. “No. That situation is hitting crisis level and we thought we already hit it when Valenzuela reentered the game. Benson might not have rolled over on Chew, but now we got something heavy to lean on him with, and a man like that, he’ll split open. If Sanderson knows dick, he’ll also split open. Topping that, seems you single-handedly cleaned up an MC who was dicking shit up. They keep their noses clean, not wasting the time or resources of the local police force, that would be good. And through all this, if they found you out, one of us would be identifying you at the morgue. So, you swung your shit out far. I think the DA will look favorably on all that.”
“Rosalie—”
“Diane Ragowski was Rebel Stapleton’s best friend,” Lawson entered the conversation. “Rebel Stapleton is in Rush Allen’s bed. Which we all know means she’s claimed as Chaos. What you did to Rosalie Holloway, it’s for her to say. What I can say is that Chaos will be torn, not able to fucking hate your guts and think you’re a total piece of shit since, in a roundabout way, you did something important for one of their own.”
“They know you’re a CI, Beck,” Lucas said quietly. “We’ll feed them this and like Mitch said, it’s up to Rosalie. But she might be moved to drop the charges. Regardless of what happens, I’ll share with you right here I think it says a lot about the man you hope to become you went the distance with this and were good to do your time when it didn’t work out like we’d hoped.”
Lucas was a decent guy, so Beck could not deny that felt good to hear.
Still.
“If Rosie wants me to—”
Lawson cut him off. “There will be no pressure. Just an information exchange. The DA isn’t in a good mood, we’ll be in touch.” He glanced to the side. “Now I think you best see to your woman.”
Beck looked her way to see Janna had her head turned toward his.
Marker jerked up his chin, so Beck moved through the desks as Janna put the strap of her purse over her shoulder and straightened out of her chair.
The minute he got close, he slid an arm around her waist and pulled her to his side.
“You good?” he asked his woman.
She nodded.
“You got what you need?” he asked the cop.
“Yes. If he doesn’t confess, we might have to ask Janna back to see if she can do a voice identification. But for now, we’re good.”
“I’d never forget that voice,” Janna told him, and he looked at her.
“That’s good, Janna, but hopefully we won’t need that.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come in earlier,” she said in a small voice.
“You’re here now and that’s all that matters. Now, I’ll go get that printout of your statement, you can sign it and then you two can go,” Marker replied.
He got a nod from Janna before he took off.
Beck curled her so they were front to front.
“Still good?” he asked.
She gave him a little smile. “Yeah. Still good since the last time you asked half a minute ago.”
He just glided his hand up her spine into her hair and tucked her cheek to his chest.
“Shouldn’t you call someone in your club?” she asked.
“About what?”
“Well, this guy was in your club,” she pointed out. “Shouldn’t they know?”
He dropped his hand to the back of her neck and she tipped her head to look at him.
“Babe, I’m gonna have to step outta the club.”
She appeared confused. “Why?”
“Because I made a deal to inform on them.”
“But there was nothing to inform on, except one of them was a killer, and they got rid of him so why would they care?”