“Hey Pal, what’s up?”

“Dad,” Tripp whispered and Layne’s back went straight at his tone.

“Tripp, what’s up?”

“I told Coach Fullerton I had to use the john,” Tripp told him.

“You’re callin’ me to tell me –”

Tripp cut him off. “It’s Rocky, Dad.”

Layne stood instantly and walked to the monitor to switch it off, asking, “What’s Rocky?”

“She’d be mad,” Tripp said. “I didn’t know if I should tell you but I reckon I should tell you and this is the first chance I had to call.”

“Tripp,” Layne bit out.

Tripp started talking in a hurry. “I think she’s gonna do somethin’. I went to her classroom after school, you know, just to say ‘hi’ and ‘see you tonight’ but I didn’t go in because I heard her talkin’ to Mrs. Judd.”

Shit. His woman was a nut. This could be leading anywhere and with Raquel it was a crapshoot as the various degrees of bad it could be leading.

“What was she saying?” Layne asked, his eyes slicing through Ryker who was sitting, watching him, reading Layne’s tone and body language and therefore on alert. Layne walked to his desk, dumped the nine millimeter in the drawer, locked the desk and grabbed his jacket from the chair.

“I don’t know for sure,” Tripp answered. “But it sounded like they were makin’ plans to break into the management office at The Brendel for some reason.”

Shit! Where it was leading was bad considering it was felonious.

Layne cocked his head to hold his phone between ear and shoulder and swung his coat over an arm.

“You did good tellin’ me, Pal,” he told his son.

“You won’t tell Roc I snitched?” Tripp asked.

“No, Tripp, our secret. I’ll take care of it. See you tonight,” Layne answered, taking his phone out of his shoulder and shrugging on the other side of his coat.

“Okay, cool. Later, Dad.”

“Later, Pal.”

Layne flipped his phone shut and Ryker barked, “What?”

Layne headed to the door saying, “Gotta go, brother, just got word my woman is plannin’ on committing a felony.”

Ryker immediately unfolded his big body from the chair and followed Layne. “Shit, things aren’t borin’ for you.”

“I’d pay for boring,” Layne informed him of the God’s honest truth.

“Trust me, bro, you wouldn’t,” Ryker replied as Layne opened the outer door and Ryker strode through.

Layne punched in the code to the alarm thinking that Ryker was way wrong.

* * *

On his Harley, Ryker trailed Layne through the gates of The Brendel and then through the grounds as Layne followed the signs to the management office.

When they made it there, Layne’s jaw got tight as he saw the operation was already in full swing. Josie Judd was standing outside with two young, attractive women wearing expensive suits. One was the blonde who showed Rocky her apartment. Josie was gesturing wildly with her arms toward a Jeep that was parked in front of the offices and she looked in full snit.

Layne parked outside the management office three spaces down from the Jeep that Josie and the women were standing on the sidewalk in front of, Ryker pulling up on Layne’s side.

Layne got out and heard Josie shout, “Who’s gonna pay for that? Hunh? I got that nail in my tire here! Innocently visiting my friend and the next thing I know I have a flat! I have kids to take to school! I have errands to run! I have bills to pay that don’t include a patch job I should not have to get on my tire!”

Josie, apparently, was providing distraction.

Layne’s eyes sliced to Ryker. “You shut that shit down in there.” He jerked his head to the management office where Roc, no doubt, was breaking into file cabinets. “I’ll deal with this.” And he jerked his thumb toward Josie.

“Shouldn’t that be the other way around?” Ryker asked and Layne gave him a look that Ryker read. If he went inside and caught his woman doing whatever she was doing, hell would be paid. It was going to be paid anyway, it just wouldn’t be as bad if he had to go inside and drag her ass out.

Therefore Ryker grinned, muttered, “Gotcha,” and loped off.

Layne rounded the hood of his car and approached Josie and the women and neither of the women looked his way because they were both staring at Josie who was still shouting. She did this until her eyes came to him and she didn’t let on that she knew from one look at him that her best friend had just bought herself a world of pain. Instead, she approached him.

“Tanner! I’m so glad you’re here!” she exclaimed, wrapping her fingers around his bicep and giving it a squeeze. “These women,” she flung an arm out toward the women, “say there’s no construction on The Brendel but I had no nail in my tire when I visited Rocky last night and I had one in my tire this mornin’ and it was flat! I saw it my damn self when they showed me the tire so I know it wasn’t an imaginary nail!”

She was good. He knew Josie didn’t visit Rocky last night and he knew she had no nail in her tire but even he was half-convinced she did the first and had the second.

“Josie,” Layne said but got no more out. Josie let his arm go and turned back to the women.

“The rent here is outlandish. With that kind of dough, you can at least sweep the streets. At least!” she shouted.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but The Brendel can’t take responsibility for your vehicle. We have no construction on site and you can’t prove you picked up that nail on the premises. You could have picked it up anywhere,” one of the women put in.

“But I didn’t pick it up anywhere, I picked it up here,” Josie lied and she did it loudly.

“We’re sorry for your troubles but we really can’t do anything to help,” the woman who showed Rocky her apartment stated.

“This is outrageous!” Josie shouted.

“Josie, let’s go,” Layne said and grabbed her arm, pulling her to her car.

She looked up at him giving him a swift, short shake of her head indicating she felt Rocky needed more time. Layne looked down at her, giving her a swift, short nod of his head indicting Rocky’s time was definitely up. Her eyes got big and Layne’s narrowed. Then she gave in.

“You haven’t heard the last of this!” Josie threatened as she stomped to her car, Layne’s hand still on her arm.

“I’ll meet you at Roc’s,” he murmured after he let her go and she yanked open her car door with apparent fury.

“She’s –” Josie started to whisper but Layne interrupted her.

“I’ll meet you at Roc’s,” he repeated.

Her eyes went beyond him, they got wide again and her lips parted. Layne turned to see both the women still standing on the sidewalk outside the office watching them and rounding the building was Rocky with Ryker. Ryker’s arm was draped casually around Rocky’s shoulders. Rocky was wearing a face like thunder.

When Ryker and Rocky got close to the women, they both started and stared as his woman and his… whatever, walked passed them.

“Yo,” Ryker said to them as they stared up at him.

“Uh…” one mumbled and, in the face of all that was Ryker, the blonde who showed Rocky’s apartment didn’t have it together enough to speak.

Ryker’s eyes cut to Layne. “She on the back of my bike or in your truck?”

“I’ll go with Josie,” Rocky snapped.

“Truck,” Layne clipped.

Rocky glared.

Ryker led her firmly to the passenger side of Layne’s truck. Layne bleeped the locks and looked back at Josie who was folding herself in her car. She bit her lip and looked up at him before she closed her door. Layne turned, nodded to the women who were looking back and forth between the four of them appearing both confused and slightly freaked out but Layne ignored that and walked to his SUV. Ryker was “helping” Rocky into her seat while she now glared at him. When she cleared the door, Ryker shut it, turned his head to Layne and grinned his ugly grin.

“Where do we meet?” Ryker muttered when Layne got close.

“Rocky lives here, unit E, apartment three.”

Ryker nodded, rounded the back of the Suburban and headed to his bike. Layne rounded the hood and got in the driver’s side.

“How’d you know?” Rocky snapped the minute he cleared the frame and he knew she was pissed.

He slammed his door and turned to her, resting his forearm on the wheel and locking eyes with her.

Yep, definitely pissed.

“Sweetcheeks, advice,” he stated. “Take the two minutes you got while we drive back to your place to shut down that attitude. Yeah?”

She leaned in and hissed, “Layne! You can’t just –”

“Shut it down,” Layne repeated.

“I don’t believe you!” she shot back and his hand snaked out, hooked her around the back of the neck and he pulled her to him as he leaned in.

“Shut it down,” he growled. “You do not know what you’re doin’. I do this shit for a living, I know what I’m doin’. I do not need you runnin’ wild, actin’ like a nut, gettin’ yourself into trouble. You let me handle this.”

“I was trying to help,” she bit out.

“If there’s a time you can help, I’ll tell you when that time is and what you’ll be doin’. You do not go off on your own draggin’ your best friend into this shit. You got caught, she got caught, you’d both be arrested.”

“My brother’s a cop, Layne,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, sweetcheeks, but just because your brother’s a cop doesn’t mean you have comprehensive immunity to do any fuckin’ thing you want. You do the crime, he can’t do shit for you and, by the way, breaking and entering is a crime.”