He chuckled. “The Ministry has always wanted to move into the Quarter, into Deacons territory. The question is why did they wait so long? Why now? There’s a lot about this that doesn’t fucking make any sense.”
“But it’s the evidence you were looking for?” She gulped, realizing that if this Blade guy had killed Priest, then Ajax, Travis and Co. would enact their revenge and once they were done, there’d be nothing keeping Travis here anymore. Her knees quivered and she pulled out a chair to sit down. It was too soon. Despite knowing this time was coming, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet. Not by a long shot. Suddenly the fact that Travis’s departure might also mean the demise of her business meant nothing alongside the thought of losing him.
“It’s a start,” he said, sounding distracted.
“What will you do now?”
“I’m going to try and follow this trail a little more, check out a few things, and then I’m going to take it to Ajax.”
—
Once Travis found that first little nugget of evidence, it didn’t take him long to confirm. The money had come from one of Blade’s personal accounts rather than a Ministry account, which was why he’d almost missed it. It was a mammoth amount of cash—the type only exchanged in drug deals, contract killings or the like—and he guessed the recipient was also a member of the Ministry. There was a remote possibility this could be a freaky coincidence, that Blade had done some other dodgy deal around the same time Priest died, but something in Travis’s gut told him that wasn’t the case.
Anger curled tightly in his stomach at the thought of Blade, of the motherfucking Ministry, taking Priest’s life, making it look like he’d had a road accident. Although he’d thought he didn’t want to get his hands dirty again, he wasn’t sure he was ready to hand over this information to Ajax and Blue and simply walk away. So much for living life on the straight and narrow, so much for believing in legal justice—right now he wanted to be at the front line when his brothers confronted the Ministry president. His fists curled in anticipation. After what felt like hours sitting in this same position, Travis pushed back his seat and stood.
At the sound of his chair scraping on the floor, Billie looked up from where she’d been sketching on her pad across the other side of the table. “You going out?”
He nodded and grabbed his cut from the back of the seat. “I’m going to see Ajax and Blue.”
“At The Priory?”
“Yep.”
“Can I come with you?”
He paused halfway to the door, surprised by her question. “I didn’t think The Priory was your kind of place.”
Billie cocked her head to one side and hit him with a “really?” look. “And most people would say you’re not my kinda guy, but I think we’ve proved the opposites attract theory by now, don’t you?”
Travis deliberated only a moment. Ajax wouldn’t like him bringing an outsider into their club business, but Travis didn’t give a fuck. He wanted to have Billie with him as much as he could during the time they had left. “Okay, let’s go.”
Billie blinked as if she couldn’t believe he’d agreed, but then she put down her sketch pad and smiled. She ran her hands through her hair and then smoothed them over her jeans. “Should I get changed?”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “You’re perfect the way you are.”
Billie crossed the room to the fridge, took out a bone for Baxter and then tossed it down to where he was sleeping on the floor. Even before his eyes opened the dog was sniffing at the treat, his muzzle moving before his body. Travis and Billie crept out of the house so as not to alert Baxter to their departure.
“He’s besotted with you, you know that?” Billie said as Travis pulled the door shut behind them.
“What can I say?” He shrugged. “Do you blame him?”
Billie shook her head. “You’re so damn arrogant.” But the way she said it sounded like a compliment. “He’ll miss you when you’re gone.”
It suddenly struck Travis what tonight’s discovery meant. Unless this Blade thing turned out to be a dead end, he’d soon be free. Free to leave town, to leave the Deacons and the French Quarter behind once and for all. That was what he wanted. Wasn’t it? He’d been harping on about leaving since the moment he returned. His life was no longer in dirty, crazy New Orleans. It was in Tallahassee, where he had a cool apartment, where he wore suits more than he did leather and where he was respected, not because people were scared of him but because of his expertise and knowledge.
“I’ll miss him, too,” he said. But not half as much as his drop-dead sexy, feisty little owner. Travis got a funny tightening, painful feeling in his chest and reached out to take Billie’s hand as they walked through the dimly lit courtyard, passing his bike, the piano and all the artwork he’d at first turned up his nose at but that now reminded him of Billie. As they closed the gate behind them, they hardly heard its creak over the din coming from The Priory right next door.
Travis nodded at the bouncers out front and pulled Billie close to his side as they gave her the once-over. Neither of them said a word, but he could read their minds—they wondered what the fuck someone as lovely as her was doing with the likes of him.
Don’t worry—she won’t be with me long. They were on borrowed time now, and he intended to make the most of every last second with her.
Inside, they walked toward the bar, Travis surveying the scene as they strode through the throng of people—most of them already well on the way to being wrecked. He recognized a few folks, but there were plenty he didn’t. Plenty of men obviously out on the prowl for a good time. He’d been planning to deposit Billie with Sophie at the bar and then go talk business with Ajax and Blue, but he found he couldn’t leave her on her own. She was too damn gorgeous and there were too many men here who would try to move in on her the moment he was out of sight. He didn’t like that thought one bit.
Tightening his hold on her hand, he approached Sophie. She looked at Billie and then raised her eyebrows at him, but he ignored her obvious curiosity. “Where’s Ajax?”
“Out back. Working on Blue’s bike.”
Without another word, Travis led Sophie around the bar and out through the door that had a PRIVATE sign hanging on it. In the shadows he saw two easily recognizable figures tinkering over Blue’s Harley. Both men looked up as the door clunked shut behind Travis and Billie.
“Evening,” Travis said with a nod of his head.
“Hi.” Billie smiled beside him.
For a moment Blue and Ajax just stared at them. “Is this a social call?” Ajax finally asked, raising his eyebrows at Billie in much the same manner as Sophie had earlier.
“Not exactly. I’ve found something.”
Ajax and Blue straightened and gave him their full attention. “About?” Ajax asked.
“Priest, of course.”
Ajax’s expression darkened and he gestured to Billie. “What’s she doing here? This is club business.”
Of course it was. Why the hell had he brought her here? He wasn’t thinking straight. Again. But Ajax wouldn’t take that excuse.
“Billie’s my…” He was about to say girlfriend, but Ajax and Blue wouldn’t be able to relate to that. “She’s my property.”
Billie made a choking sound beside him and he squeezed her hand hard, telling her to shut it. He wouldn’t let Ajax or Blue lay a finger on her and they wouldn’t if they believed she was his old lady.
“She knows the score with Priest, the Ministry, with everything. I trust her,” he told them, and surprised himself when he realized he meant it. After the way his mom had betrayed him and Priest had banished him, he didn’t think he had it in him ever to trust another person, but how else could he explain why he’d opened his soul to Billie? Why he’d told her things about himself he’d never shared with anyone outside the club and why he’d confessed his reason for being back in the Quarter?