Layne looked at the clock on his dash as Ryker folded his huge frame into the passenger seat and it was eleven oh seven.

Ryker slammed the door and instantly reached between his legs to push the seat back the two centimeters it had to give and then he adjusted the seatback so it was nearly in full on recline as if he was preparing to cruise with his homies.

“You’re late,” Ryker noted on a grunt once he’d settled in and Layne accelerated to turn around in the lot.

“Needed time to say goodnight to my woman,” Layne replied.

“I’ll accept that excuse,” Ryker muttered.

It was nuts but Layne couldn’t help it. He was beginning to like this guy.

As Layne drove, Ryker gave him directions and he also gave him information. They hit the storage units in Speedway and Layne knew instantly why this was the pay point. Easy to get to at the same time off the beaten track, neighborhood not close and also not great and the lighting was shit which meant rent on the units was either low or the people who rented there were stupid. No one around to hear or see and the light was so dim, if someone was around, they couldn’t be sure what they were seeing.

Layne cut the lights, parked behind a unit, they got out and Ryker guided them to their position.

When Ryker exited his SUV, Layne had noted he had a .45 shoved in the back of his jeans and he wasn’t hiding the huge-ass knife clipped to his belt. He might be beginning to like Ryker but he still didn’t trust him so he kept to Ryker’s back.

Ryker didn’t seem to mind.

The temperature had dropped and the bitter wind had not died down. It was fucking freezing, he was in Speedway, in the dark, with a man he didn’t trust who was a little nuts, crouching beside a big garbage container and Rocky’s soft, warm body was at home, in his tee, in his bed.

Definitely he needed a new job.

They waited twenty minutes and conversation was scarce, as in non-existent, which meant it was a long twenty minutes. Then the guy walked up.

Five foot six, maybe seven, slight, he had half a head of hair, the top so bald it shone in the dim lights lighting the storage unit. Wearing a navy windbreaker that probably wasn’t doing shit to break the wind. Company logo on the chest. Chinos. Visibly nervous. Layne pegged him as I.T. or an accountant. Probably I.T.

Looking at the guy, Layne hoped he had the money. He needed Stew out of his sons’ and Gabby’s lives but he didn’t want to watch Stew working this guy over. He didn’t particularly want to watch Stew working anyone over but especially not this guy.

Stew and his crew of three arrived ten minutes later, the guy was wired by the time they got there and the minute he saw them, he became jittery.

Shit, he didn’t have the money.

Layne assessed the scene. Stew did not need a crew to deal with this guy. Especially not this crew of thugs. He brought one because he was an asshole.

Layne lifted the camera, quickly and expertly adjusted the telephoto and started shooting.

Stew no sooner made it to him than the guy handed over an envelope. Stew took it, bent his head to it, thumbed through what was inside, handed it to a lackey at his back and then turned and hammered the guy, fist to cheekbone.

There it was. The envelope was light.

Layne shoved back the instinct to move in and kept taking shots as Stew whaled on him with his fists until he was down and then kicked him in the ribs with his boot four times after he was down. The guy was curled in a ball on the pavement, whining, loudly and shrilly, “It’s all I’ve got!” when Stew stopped, bent over, said something to the guy that Layne couldn’t hear, his finger in his face, he lifted up, kicked him one more time and then stood over the guy, staring down.

It was at that point when Layne would understand why Ryker said Stew had a special flair.

The guy was down, cowed and beaten, bleeding from the face and likely had one or more broken ribs. The message had been delivered and, by the look of him, the guy would talk his grandma into selling her plasma so the next payment wouldn’t be light.

Stew still pulled a gun out of his jeans and drilled a round in the prone man’s thigh. The guy cried out in agony and curled into himself deeper, cradling his thigh.

Flesh wound, it’d bleed like a motherfucker and hurt worse, but it was way over the top.

Then Stew kicked him again, this time in the spine, turned, jerked his head at his crew and they all disappeared.

Layne tensed to move toward the guy but Ryker curled a meaty hand around Layne’s shoulder.

“Focus, bro,” he whispered. “Tonight you’re a hero for your boys, not this guy. Let’s go. Baranski’s not done.”

Layne clenched his jaw, knowing Ryker was right. It would be the right thing to do but being seen would also jeopardize the mission. People talked even if you told them to keep their traps shut. He didn’t need his and Ryker’s attendance at the festivities getting out.

Though Ryker was right and Layne was pissed about it, he still moved through the shadows with Ryker to the Suburban. Once they were in the cab, they still had eyes on the guy and Layne waited with Ryker, both of them silent, until the guy crawled to his feet, arm wrapped around his ribs, bent nearly double with his other hand at his thigh, blood oozing between his fingers, and he scuttled into the night dragging his bad leg.

When they lost sight of him, Ryker muttered, “Bet that dipshit lost the urge to visit the track anytime soon.”

Layne turned to Ryker, not in the mood for a breakdown. “Stew has another collection?”

Ryker shook his head, Layne felt his eyes on him in the dark and he didn’t get a good feeling when he saw the white of Ryker’s smile. “Nope. After he’s done a job, he gets horny.”

“Come again?” Layne asked.

“Your ex ain’t gonna like those photos you just took but he’s got her hooked deep and he knows it. You wanna be certain to get a woman to set a man out, you show her pictures of that man porkin’ another woman. Even Baranski isn’t stupid enough for you to show him those kind of shots and not know his time in Big Momma’s House o’ the Free Ride is up.”

This just got worse and worse.

Jesus.

“You know where he’ll be?” Layne asked but he knew Ryker knew.

“Yeah,” Ryker sounded like he was laughing. “Sorry bro, ‘bout to show you the only thing that’ll put you off that piece you got waitin’ for you at home.”

“Great,” Layne muttered and started the SUV through Ryker’s chuckle.

Ryker led him to a trailer park just out of the ‘burg. Negotiating it, Layne knew that Stew’s other woman might not carry extra baggage like Gabby, on her body and through two boys fathered by another man, but she wasn’t a supermodel either.

Layne cut the lights when Ryker told him they were rolling close, parked where Ryker instructed and they both walked through the cold, silent dark of the trailer park. When they got to the trailer Ryker indicated, one end was lit, the curtains opened. Ryker stayed clear and kept lookout as Layne approached the trailer.

When he got there, Layne saw that Stew was already celebrating and Ryker’s information, already proved legit, became even more so. She was naked on her hands and knees, she was absolutely no supermodel, Stew was naked behind her and he was going through the backdoor. Not pretty.

Layne’s mouth filled with saliva and he swallowed it down.

Jesus.

He definitely needed a new job.

He wasted no time and didn’t try to hide. He’d done this often enough. Even with him right at the window, they weren’t going to spot him. They were both concentrating on other things. Layne got his shots, moved from the window, crouched with his back to the trailer, scrolled through what he had viewing the screen on the back of his camera, decided he had enough at the same time deciding, once those shots were printed, he was going to destroy the memory card and the camera.

His eyes went to Ryker and he nodded, Ryker nodded back and they moved to the SUV.

When they were underway, Ryker said, “Drop me by my babe’s.”

“You got it.”

Ryker directed him to a neighborhood in the ‘burg. Lower middle class, neat but tiny houses that people took care of. Layne pulled into the drive that Ryker indicated and no sooner had he stopped when the outside light came on. There was a black flag by the door with an orange pumpkin on it and three carved jack o’ lanterns lining the front steps. Layne was mildly surprised that Ryker bagged a babe who lived in a tidy neighborhood and had a pumpkin flag flying at her door and jack o’ lanterns on her steps.

He was more surprised when the front door opened, a leggy woman with a mass of curly red hair stood in it, her thin, short robe not hiding much of her phenomenal figure but it also wasn’t putting it on show either. She was peering at the truck, looking awake but ready for bed and whatever might happen there. She’d waited up for her man.

Layne looked at Ryker and noted, “Not bad.”

At Layne’s words, Ryker turned to him and shared, “She makes pumpkin bread that should win awards and the same can be said for the way she gives head. Seriously, bro, every time she goes down on me, every single time, I swear my dick’s gonna explode. She’s that good.”

Layne shook his head. “I already got Stew goin’ at his piece burned in my brain, Ryker, now you’re just bein’ cruel.”

Ryker shot him his ugly smile, opened his door and folded out of the cab. Layne put the SUV in reverse, pulled out but caught sight of Ryker entering the house, his huge frame hiding his woman but he had an arm around her, his neck bent to look down at her, shuffling her back. Ryker kicked the door closed and Layne’s eyes went back to the road.