I looked over my shoulder, peering into her bedroom. My eyes landed on her ink-colored hair, her bare back in the afternoon sunlight. When I confirmed that she was still asleep, I turned to Joey, jerked my chin and stepped out into the cold.
“What is it?” I demanded to know, my eyes scanning the back alley and side parking lot.
“Gordon called me,” Joey said, running a hand over his thinning hair. “Not the fucking bar phone—my phone! This is a new number; I don’t know how he got this.”
Fuck.
I held out my hand. “Let me see that.”
He handed me the device and continued his rambling. “I don’t know why the fuck I answered. I never answer. But it was a local number, so I thought…fuck!”
I pulled up his call log, memorizing the phone number and noting the time. “You were on the phone with him for three minutes.”
He nodded. “He did most of the talking.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked about Margo. I told him exactly what you and your boys told me to say: that I didn’t know any Margo.”
A heavy sigh left me as I pulled my phone out of my jeans and muttered, “Give me a minute, Joey.”
He nodded rapidly; his eyes filled with panic as he stepped back and leaned against the railing. It was just after two in the afternoon. After staying up all night while Jake searched everything he could find on Margo’s ex, Margo had invited me into her bed. It was an invitation I’d accepted with greed, and when she gave herself to me, everything changed.
There was no going back now.
I was never letting her go again.
I pulled up Gray’s contact and put the phone to my ear as I stared out toward the water, watching the seagulls fly, searching for lunch as a few of the boats that left around five in the morning found their way back to their slips, the crews on them loud and tired. I could hear the soft traffic of Main Street and the rumblings of the locals. There was a sense of comfort that Astoria provided, a sense of home I’d never felt before.
Gray finally answered on the fifth ring. “Sorry, I was in a client meeting.”
“Joey is here. Gordon called him.”
Gray grunted. “Was he asking about Margo or demanding?”
My eyes flicked over to Margo’s second boss. He was in a pair of dirty jeans and a stained bar tee. It looked like he hadn’t had a wink of sleep. I watched in silence as he brought the balls of his hands to his eyes, pressing in and dropping his head. “I’m going to need Jake to pull the transcripts.”
“Shoot the info over to him and he’ll get it done.”
I turned away from Joey, focusing on the ocean now as a cold breeze hit me. “Need Ash or Dom to come install security at Rossy’s and the Buoy. Margo has shifts to work, and I don’t need her life being interrupted anymore because of his bastard,” I said, voice firm.
“Rossy’s?”
“Yes, full specs,” I confirmed and lowered my voice. “No offense, Gray. I’m not in the mood to let her or anyone she cares about get hurt on our watch. Not again.” He knew what I was referring to, and I was glad I didn’t have to spell it out for him. When Sarah, Margo, and Carrie were kidnapped at gunpoint last year, I had been gone, and Red Snake had been careless. We’d all foolishly assumed that Carrie and her friends were safe because I had eyes on Carrie’s largest threat. I couldn’t afford for things to go sideways.
Not again.
Not with Margo.
The image of her covered in dirt, sitting on a damp floor with her hands and feet bound flashed in my mind. My jaw tightened as a sense of unease settled on my shoulders. Margo may have had her money back in her account, but we weren’t done with this. Not by a long shot.
“I’ll set everything up at the Buoy in an hour. I’m on my way back from the office. I only have enough supplies here for the bar.”
“I’ll shoot the boys a text and see who is free.”
“Jake is chained to his desk. Says he isn’t stopping until he’s found Gordon.”
“He needs to expand his search. He could be in Astoria.”