Page 30 of Ravaged With You

“That’s still on the agenda, but if you expect me—”

“I do expect it,” Red said. “Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate any help you want to offer. But this is your time, man. Enjoy it. And I’ll see you for drinks on Thursday. Open bar at Swift Red in lieu of a strip club for your bachelor party. Very untraditional of you, bro.”

“Abby’s all I want an eyeful of,” Renly said. “And I can still marry my girl and help you out.”

“No way,” Jo said. “Red’s right. We’ve got this. And if we need help, Ryan will put someone on it, right?” She glanced toward Ryan, who nodded.

Renly shook his head. “I hate the thought of—”

“I have six minutes on you, bro,” Red said. “So shut the hell up and do what your older brother says.”

“Ass,” Renly replied, but Red knew that was the end of it.

“Thank you all so much,” Jo said, writing down the code for the keypad lock at her house and sliding it to Mario.

“Like I need a code to get in. Oh, sorry,” he added, probably seeing the look of shock on Jo’s face. “Fact of life, though, right? But I’ll upgrade the keypad while I’m there, too. And you double-lock with a deadbolt, right?”

She nodded.

“If I can get it open in under twenty seconds, I’ll replace that, too. I’ve got a model in the supply room I’ll take with us,” he added, as if he was certain the existing lock would fail. From what little Red had heard about the tech geek’s skills, Red was certain Jo would have a new set of locks by the time they returned to her place.

“Yours too,” Mario said, looking at Red. “Wanna give me your key or code?”

Red half-grinned. “Hell no. If you need that to get in, you’re not anywhere near qualified to be on this project.”

They all laughed, and it felt good, the last of the tension that had been clinging to him finally fading away.

“You’re sure there’s nothing else we can help you with now?” Ryan asked as he pushed back from the table and stood.

“Actually, I forgot one thing.” He pulled out Mel’s phone and put it on the table. “We need this cloned and analyzed.”

Mario reached for it. “You got the code, or do I need to hack it?”

“Got it,” Red said, then recited it from memory.

“Two clones? That way we’ve got one for each of you and we’ll keep the original here. If we’re looking for oddities to try to figure out what Mel got himself into, Jo’s gonna be the best bet, but this way, we’ll all have eyes on.”

“Perfect,” Red said.

“We’re on it,” Ryan said. “Anything else?”

“I think that’s it for now,” Jo said. “But with any luck, we’ll have a few more leads by this evening that we’ll will need help with.”

“Call me tonight,” Renly said, and Red promised to do just that.

Then, knowing that at the very least, the distillery and their homes would be secure, Red put a hand to Jo’s back and steered her toward the door.

Time to go play detective.

Chapter Nine

“You remember how to get to the firm?” I ask, once we’re away from The Domino.

“Straight up Santa Monica toward the towers, but you’ll have to remind me of the turn.”

“Sure.” I pick at non-existent lint on the knee of my favorite jeans, hating how stilted and awkward we sound, and not really sure how that happened. We’d both been quiet on the ride to Stark Security, but inside the office, things felt back to normal. Or, at least, what passes for normal at the moment.

Now, though, it seems like I’ve lost him again, and I want to understand why.