Page 4 of Shamelessly Loyal
That worried me even more.
Wherever we were going was where I needed to be.
I wanted answers, and I wanted my best friend back.
I was damn well going to get both.
The drive took longer than I liked, although it passed more swiftly than it seemed.
Once in the city itself, our destination proved to be nearer the ports than the suburbs. Right in the heart of a poorer area littered with condemned buildings, struggling businesses, and the vagaries of slow but steady urban redevelopment. The kind that would gentrify the area.
Most saw that as a boon, but the current populace would be pushed out. The deeper we went, the more obvious it became. Some of these storefronts were decades old. Then we were suddenly pulling up to a warehouse.
They lived in a warehouse?
Surprise fluttered through me even as my curiosity pricked me. Why a warehouse? What were the benefits? The drawbacks? Tactically, was this even safe? The roll-up door confirmed my supposition and then my stoic driver pulled in. Freddie shot a glance over his shoulder.
“Give me five minutes to smooth the way.”
He bounced out of the car before the roll door behind us even closed. I didn’t reach for the door handle. Rome, the driver, had engaged the child-proof locks—like that wasn’t a little humiliating—so I had to wait for him to open the door for me. He didn’t wait five minutes, though.
“Cooperate,” he said, though it sounded more like a suggestion than an order.
“Or?” I challenged him as I stepped out of the car.
“Or this will take longer than it needs, and Starling doesn’t have time for that, correct?”
Rebellion died a swift and silent death. “Correct.”
With a nod, he closed the door and I glanced around the warehouse. “You live here?” Assuming control offered me a measure of comfort. I was here bymychoice. Not theirs. I was here as anally, not to just hand off responsibility. The men who clustered together, and suddenly seemed very focused on me, needed to understand this sooner rather than later.
“Rome?” one of the men asked.
“She’s a friend of Starling’s.” Well, that was succinct. The name Starling seemed almost ethereal and rather precious for Emersyn. However, she was not that fragile.
“Why thefuckis she here?” That voice.
I knew that voice. I searched the faces of the men glowering at me.
“Because I want to be,” I snapped in response, closing the distance between us. Frankly, I needed the walk and the stretch. But I wanted to find him. What the hell was Pretty Boy doinghere? “These idiots didn’t tell me we were a two-day drive from where we needed to be. I could have gotten us here a lot faster, not to mention we’ll need to move faster if this is going to work at all.”
I studied each of them in turn, but it wasn’t until I found his face that the recognition not only struck me but truly registered.
What she’d said about the group. What she’d described. The words I’d managed to squeeze out of my escort. Pretty Boy was here. More… “You’reher brother?”’
No one said a word, yet the man smoking a cigarette cut his gaze past me and the “brother” I stared at. “Freddie, what the fuck did you two do?”
“We’re working on getting Boo-Boo back. She has information. She’s kind of bitchy if you interrupt her, so just let her talk.”
“Freddie,” Pretty Boy snapped. “We don’t kidnap women.”
“No, we just kidnap Boo-Boo.”
That was almost entertaining.
“We didn’t kidnap her.” The stoic one only parted with a few words at a time.
“They didn’tkidnapme.” We really didn’t have time for this, or my shock. How and why Pretty Boy was here would have to wait for later. If he was her brother, his presence in Florida years earlier made sense. But still…