Page 45 of Lulu

“What’s wrong, Hellcat?”

Brody’s voice brought me back to the present. I blinked rapidly to keep the unexpected emotion from spilling down my face, and shook my head to indicate that nothing was wrong. I couldn’t talk, so I left the room like a coward. I had to pull myself together. I’d managed to remain strong since Brody had shown up at my door, but now that I had time to think about things it brought into perspective how much he meant to me.

Damn…I needed to go back to hating him.

Brody Savage wasn’t the man for me.

Chapter 18

Brody

I made sure that Lulu had taken off for work before I made my way to the closet where she’d stashed my bug out bag. I could have asked her to bring me the bag before she’d left that morning, but I’d wanted to avoid any questions she might have had about why I wanted it. I was also forcing myself to move around a lot more to build up my strength. I couldn’t deny that I’d enjoyed having Lulu take care of me, that I’d liked the softer, caring side of her, but all that ended today.

Because I needed to leave.

I sank back down on the bed and opened my bag to retrieve one of my burner phones. I needed to make contact with Sanford and let him know what had happened. I almost dreaded the call, wondering if anyone else had been taken out. It had been a week since I’d last spoken to him.

“Hello?”

“It’s Reaper.” Because there’d been a breach and we didn’t know who it had come from, I thought it best to stick with the alias I was known as.

“Where the hell have you been, Reaper? I’ve tried to reach you for three days!”

My gut clenched, because I knew what he was going to say next.

“We lost Bird three days ago.”

The name was familiar, but I couldn’t pinpoint why.

“Same fucking MO. I’ve told everyone to get to their safe houses and stay put until we know who to go after.”

I scowled. “Someone tried to take me out a week ago. I took two bullets and have been laid up since then.”

“Jesus! Why the fuck didn’t you leave—”

“I was on my way out,” I snarled. “Right after our last phone call. And the MO was different. Probably because he tried to take me out at my house and there was no way he could have gotten close enough to sneak up behind me.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” I could hear the frown in his voice. “The other three hits were carbon-copy.”

“Maybe he wanted to switch things up. Knows by now that we’re looking for someone who comes up behind us like a fucking snake in the grass and takes a head shot. Who the fuck knows?”

“Where are you now?”

I snorted. “Not going to say. After today I’ll be on the move anyway.” I didn’t want to put Lulu in danger by staying here. I’d had a long conversation with Doc, and he’d convinced me to go to the clubhouse. Said they owed me. “As far as you know I was taken out the other night. Spread the word. The shooter left before making sure I was done, and I left directly after that, so no one should question it.”

“Good idea,” Sanford said, his tone indicating that he was already mulling over something in his head. “If we find out it’s one of our guys, we’ll send you after him. He wouldn’t expect it.” There was a brief pause before he continued in a slightly uncomfortable tone, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

I grunted. Men like us didn’t do the feels. Sanford probably felt that he should at least acknowledge what had happened and recognize that I’d come close to being ended, just like the others. Hell, maybe he was glad I’d survived because his men were dropping like flies.

I hung up, thinking that the next call I made should be to Lulu. Tell her that I was leaving. But for some reason I couldn’t do that to her. Our relationship had changed over the last week. We’d spent the last couple of nights talking and watching movies on her couch, getting comfortable with each other and forgetting for a while that we weren’t supposed to like each other.

I snorted. Hell, we were almost friends. Never thought a woman I was fucking would become a friend. And speaking of fucking, I’d tried to put the moves on her the night before, but she’d kept me at arm’s length.

“Your stitches,” she’d warned, putting her small hands against my chest.

I grinned, thinking about how cute she’d been. “You shouldn’t have let me kiss you then,” I’d fired back in frustration.

Her husky laugh had done nothing to bring down the hard-on I’d been sporting. “Not all kisses need to lead to sex.”