Good idea.
Moving on.
“Uh, we have something else to discuss,” I told him.
“Yeah?”
“Well, you opened my mail. And you read my texts. I hope it goes without saying I’m extremely grateful you’re looking out for me, and I’ll find some way to repay you, I promise,” I told him as he shifted us sideways through the door so he didn’t have to disengage in order to get both of us through it. “But perhaps we should go over boundaries.”
He positioned me by the refrigerator, let me go, tossed the pictures on the counter and then opened the fridge.
“First, you don’t have to repay me,” he said into the fridge.
“I so totally do.”
He closed the door, coming out with my eggs and bacon. “Not if I say you don’t.”
“Brett—”
“Second, baby, while I’m up to bat for you, I do what I have to do. With the writing on the flap, I’m surprised you didn’t open it.”
“What writing on the flap?”
His brows came together. “You didn’t see it?”
I shook my head, my gaze going to the pictures that were upside down.
I couldn’t see the envelope.
“It says, ‘Whip you into shape,’ ” he told me.
I looked at Brett and made a face.
“Yep, this dude is fucked up,” Brett agreed to what my face was saying. “Totally making a deal with Hawk, once we find him, I get my licks in before they disappear him.”
Okay.
Hold on.
Um …
What?
“Disappear him?”
His reply to my question was offhand.
His words were not.
“Delgado doesn’t turn shit over to the police. Delgado deals, either in house, or he contracts out. But how he deals, it’s permanent.”
Delgado was Hawk, that was his last name.
And Hawk, again, was Axl’s boss.
“Permanent?” I asked.
Brett was getting out a skillet. “You don’t know what your man does?”
“My man?”
“Pantera.”
Another breath leaving me.
Whoosh.
When I got some oxygen, I drew out, “Ummm …he’s a commando?”
Brett chuckled.
Oh man.
“He’s not a commando?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s a commando all right,” Brett muttered.
“Brett!” I snapped.
Brett turned his attention from the skillet to me and he did it smiling.
Hugely.
Then he stated, “There are a variety of different types of badasses, you dig?”
I wasn’t sure I dug, but I nodded anyway.
Brett read the wasn’t-sure part and explained.
“Okay, you got your motherfuckers who you do not, under any circumstances, want to come up against in a street fight. But you get that same dude in a tactical situation, he wouldn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.”
Well then.
That made sense.
I nodded.
“Or you got your boys who are badass behind the scenes. Meaning they can plan an operation within an inch of its life, every angle covered, every scenario accounted for.”
I nodded again.
“Then you got sublevels of that, depending on terrain. Urban. Mountains. Rural. Water. Domestic. Foreign. You with me?”
More nodding.
“And then you got expertise in tech. In weapons. Then there’s more expertise in types of operations. Assault. Defense. Extraction. Reconnaissance. Undercover. That sounds military, and it is, but there are a number of cases, the majority of them, where it’s not. It’s how a lot of us do business in a number of ways.”
Oh crap.
At where this seemed to be heading, I stopped nodding and just stared.
“A man, or woman, cannot call themselves a commando unless they got expertise in all of that. And Hawk Delgado is the most expert in all of that I’ve ever seen. And he does not employ a single man who’s any less than he is.”
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
“So Pantera, and his brothers, are not badass. Adjective. He’s a bad … ass. Noun. And when you’re a badass, you get a job done, start to finish. You don’t hand shit over to anyone. So yeah, Hattie, Hawk is gonna take that on.” He stabbed a finger at the pictures. “And whoever is behind that, for the rest of his days, and it’ll be up to Hawk and the team how many of those there are, and how much ongoing pain he’ll endure through them, will regret fucking with you.”
“Maybe I should call the police,” I said quickly.
And Not Sweet Brett came out again.
“Too late,” he said softly. “’Cause if Hawk doesn’t get him, I will. And I’m no commando, but I am a motherfucker. And I know for certain one thing in this life. A man does not fuck with a woman, Hattie. This guy obviously does not know that now. But he’s gonna learn.”
Hmm …
Time to belatedly rethink.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have called you,” I whispered.
Brett held my gaze and repeated, “Too late.”
“Um—”
Brett was done.
And he communicated this by saying, “Grab a plate and cover it with paper towel. We’ll need to drain this bacon when it’s done. And warm up our joe. Think it got cold in the drama.”
Okay.
Brett was moving on, so I’d talk to him a bit later about the lessons he was intent on teaching a man who was a creep, but he’d been that creep using the postal service to deliver a threat, so he’d also committed a felony. And the cops and prosecutors could teach him that lesson.