Dream Maker

by Kristen Ashley

  Straight to his room.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Special

  Mag

  Tuesday morning, Hawk sat at the head of the conference table in his offices.

  Mag sat to Hawk’s left, Jorge to his right, Aug next to Jorge, Mo next to Mag.

  “So, we got word. Cisco does not have that gun,” Hawk declared.

  Mag’s eyes moved to Jorge, seeing as Jorge was likely behind procuring this information considering he grew up on Mamá Nana’s patch, Mamá had a soft spot for him and Mamá Nana knew everything about everybody because a large part of her operation was trading information.

  “Though, it probably goes without saying, Cisco is actively looking for that gun,” Hawk went on.

  “Shit,” Auggie muttered.

  Mag just concentrated on controlling the boil in his gut because this meant there was a gun floating around out there that killed a cop.

  And the man who killed that cop was Cisco, who wasn’t that smart, case in point, the continuing existence of this gun, a gun registered to him that had, if tales being told were true, his prints on it. So he’d clawed his way to where he was because, after Benito Valenzuela was put out of commission, there was a void in the power structure of Denver crime and Cisco wasn’t squeamish about how he went about filling it.

  The longer that gun went unfound, the more chance he could get desperate.

  This meant Evie was likely still in the line of fire—Cisco’s fire—because that man would leave no stone unturned to cover his own ass.

  They’d had a seriously fucked-up Saturday.

  Their Sunday was marred only by Mag having to lay it out for Nikki.

  And yesterday, Hawk and Smithie had been in touch and told them they were still not to pitch up for work.

  This meant he and Evie spent half the day in bed and half the day on the couch with only a quick trip to the grocery store to buy steaks and stuff for loaded baked potatoes and for her to make more of her clusters breaking up these activities.

  They’d watched Anaconda.

  She’d laughed her way through it.

  Then, when she learned he hadn’t seen Harry Potter, she’d had a hilarious fit and made him watch the first two, before he begged her to let him stop.

  She’d also gone down on him on his couch, and what she lacked in finesse, she way made up for in spirit, so he knew he could totally work with that and get off on it, and he knew this because he did.

  Spectacularly.

  And they’d fucked three times, twice with her on top, once with him powering into her on his knees, her in front of him on all fours on his bed, her sweet ass in his hands.

  He’d taken a pill both nights and slept like the dead.

  Now, he had niggling pain, and in truth, he knew he should take it easy and not fuck his Evie so much.

  But he was finding it impossible to keep his hands off her.

  Because the woman crafted a mean burger.

  But she broiled a spectacular steak.

  And now, he was learning they couldn’t just get on with life.

  This being her, back at work without protection (Boone was on her now as she did her Computer Raiders gig). Getting her apartment back in order. All so she could set the new course of her life that didn’t only include the addition of him.

  The good news about that was, this meant she had to continue to stay at his pad.

  But that was all the good news to be had.

  “Mag,” Hawk called his attention.

  He gave it to the man.

  “Whatever this means, you should know, her father has been active,” Hawk shared. “He’s all over dropping it in any ear that will listen that his daughter has dick to do with this. He’s sharing wide it’s the brother’s fuckup, and Evan needs to be left alone.”

  “Yeah, he’s all over that after his daughter was kidnapped and the drugs he was hoping he’d get his hands on are gone,” Mag returned.

  Hawk did a shrug. “Yours to do with what you want. But you should know it so you can decide what to do with it.”

  Mag nodded, knowing it fucked with him, but he had to tell her that her dad was trying to look out for her.

  He was doing it too late.

  But she should know.

  “You’re on light duty,” Hawk continued.

  “Yeah,” Mag muttered.

  “And it’s now clear we’ve thrown down for Evan,” he went on. “Nightingale’s nosing around. Rush has got some of his Chaos boys doin’ rounds, asking a few questions. And none of that would be happening if Evan wasn’t part of the equation. That’s some firepower at her back that isn’t gonna be missed. But that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be covered. That said, I wanna see you further down the road to recovery before your duty changes. It’s gonna sting, but you are not at one hundred percent, so you gotta take a backseat, look after Evan in ways only you can do, and I’m assigning Jorge and Mo as leads on this.”

  That simmer in his gut roiled.

  Dr. Baldwin had told him he wanted at least two weeks, better three, with his arm in that sling, and after that, only light use, no exercise, for another week before he got into the nitty-gritty of restrengthening muscle and working his way back to normal range of motion.

  He hoped like fuck this would be all over by then.

  But in the meantime, it was going to mess with his head that he was unable to take an active role in dealing with this for Evie.

  But Hawk was right, Mag knew it, and he could think with his dick a lot of the time, but not when it put the team at a disadvantage.

  And in this case, Evie at one.

  What she needed was for him to be there when she wasn’t working so she knew she had someone who gave a shit.

  What she didn’t need was for him to go macho gung-ho in protection of his woman and maybe get hurt (worse) or fuck up and make things worse for her.

  But considering he was macho gung-ho regularly, not being that for Evie was going to suck.

  “Gotcha,” Mag said just as Hawk’s eyes went to the door.

  That meant all the men’s eyes went to the door in time to see Elvira opening it and swinging her torso in.

  “Right, well, I got me a girl calling herself Sidney Gardiner in my office,” Elvira started, and Mag’s gaze instantly shifted to the glass wall, across the suite and through the glass to Elvira’s office to see a woman standing there who had a heavy hand with facial contouring and such an artfully messy knot on the top of her head, he knew it probably took her an hour to do it. “And she’s demanding some answers from her sister’s new man.”

  “We’re done here,” Hawk declared.

  Relieved, Mag got up, as did everyone, but only he moved quickly to the door.

  Evie’s sister’s eyes were going everywhere, to him, beyond him to the other men, and back to him, but he had her full attention when he walked into Elvira’s office.

  “Sidney?” he asked, offering her a hand to shake.

  She stared up at him and breathed, “Holy crap, I’m totally going nerd.”

  When she seemed unable to get over her shock her sister could bag a guy who looked like Mag, Mag’s patience took a serious dive, and he stopped offering his hand in order to put it on his hip.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked coldly.

  She did the looking around thing, now not only to him, and beyond him, but also to his shoulder before she again gave him her eyes.

  And then, even though they had the same hair color and similar features, it was only then, for the first time, that she looked just like Evie.

  This being when she squinted her eyes at him.

  “You can explain to me why my sister is in mortal peril and no one thought to tell me about it,” she snapped.

  Well.

  Shit.

  “I think your sister should—” he began.

  She gave him The Hand, and when she did, he heard Elvira make a gulping noise behind him that sounded like she was both strangling and
laughing, and Mag stopped talking.

  “No. Nope.” Sidney shook her head. “She’s yours so you know Evie. You know she takes it all on and she doesn’t share dick. So, you’re the new guy, this once, I’ll educate you. It’s on you to clue me in when shit gets real for my sister. Even her waste-of-space ex tore himself away from his joystick in order to drop a text when Evan was up to her eyeballs in their bullshit. He did that even if he never got shot because Evan insists on enabling Mom’s crap, Dad’s crap and Mick’s garbage.”

  Mag was so surprised this was what she was there to say, he had absolutely no clue how to reply.

  Though he didn’t have to, considering Sidney wasn’t done.

  “Now I know bloodshed has caused Evie to reevaluate things. Mom’s in a snit. Rob’s left her. Dad’s in a panic and worried like fuck for Evan. And Mick’s being all dramatic talking about Evie signing his death warrant and bitching that she told him to fuck off, which she should have done,” she leaned toward Mag, “years ago. But, as you can see, in all this, the one name that doesn’t come up is,” she leaned back and jerked a thumb at herself, “mine.”

  “Mm-hmm, share your truth, sister,” Elvira encouraged as she moved to take her seat, not only for comfort, but because it was a better audience position.

  Sidney looked to her and gave a sharp, sisterhood nod.

  “Sidney,” he called, got her attention and carried on, “it’s really not up to me—”

  “Wrong,” she interrupted him.

  Okay.

  Now he was getting ticked.

  “I don’t even know you,” he bit out.

  “Did you know I exist?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “Did you know she hasn’t involved me in this?” she pushed.

  “Yeah,” he grunted, seeing where this was going and nipping it in the bud. “But it was dangerous, she didn’t want you involved, and that was her decision to make.”

  “How about this, hot guy,” she started. “Considering it was dangerous and it not only involved my sister, but my fuckup of a brother, who fucking cares what she decides? I should know.”

  It sucked to admit she was correct.

  He then said what he did not want to say because, even if it was right, it might mean headache for Evan. “You should be telling this to Evie.”

  “Well, I’m not, seeing as I’m telling it to you.”

  “Sidney—”

  He didn’t go on because she suddenly looked to her feet, the carefully arranged tendrils of hair that framed her face drifting, then she looked up and Elvira made another noise.

  But Mag braced.

  “My sister was kidnapped,” she whispered.

  “She’s fine,” Mag said softly.

  “She was kidnapped because my brother is an asshole.”

  Mag had nothing to say to that.

  “She doesn’t tell me this shit not because she wants to protect me,” she continued. “She doesn’t tell me because I wasn’t hired out by Dad to fix all of our neighbors’ computers when I was eleven. She doesn’t think a lot of me and the choices I make in my life and I’m okay with that. It’s her opinion, she’s entitled to it. Does it hurt? Yes. Can I allow that to change who I am and what I want to do with my life? No. I don’t want her stripping and not because I look down on strippers. Because that’s not Evie. But do I say anything? No. But when my sister’s boyfriend gets shot and she gets kidnapped, it doesn’t matter what choices I make in living my life, I should know.”

  “Give me your number.”

  She seemed visibly relieved.

  Mag was not, visibly or otherwise, for a variety of reasons.

  He got into one of them.

  “How did you know who I am and where to find me?”

  “Dominique, one of Smithie’s girls, is a friend of mine.”

  Well, that explained that.

  Mag pulled out his phone.

  Sidney opened her massive designer bag and pulled out hers.

  They exchanged numbers and then Mag shared a few things of his own.

  “This dramatic, or otherwise, just so you know, this kinda thing is not gonna happen to Evie in the future. She’s come to a few realizations about your family and acted on those.”

  “Yeah, Mom shouted through the phone at me for a whole half an hour about her part in those realizations and how she blames Evan for Rob leaving her.”

  Not a surprise.

  Fucked up.

  But not a surprise.

  “What I’m gettin’ at, Sidney, is Evie is coming to some realizations about your family so maybe coming here and throwing down with me shouldn’t be the only thing you do in regard to looking after your sister and your relationship with her.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Elvira hummed.

  Sidney looked to her.

  “She’s kinda bullheaded,” she told Elvira.

  “I hear that. My sister’s a nut and works my nerves regularly. My brother isn’t much better. If they got their shit together, though, I’d still be all in to listen to them,” Elvira replied.

  Now it was Sidney humming, “Mm.”

  Mag didn’t have much to do for work that day, being on light duty, which meant desk work, and that meant monitoring the screens to keep track of shit they had going on and running other shit on their systems the guys out in the field called in.

  Even so, he was done with this visit with Evan’s sister.

  “We finished?” he asked.

  Her attention returned to him and he saw right away she wasn’t.

  Fuck.

  “Rob’s a good guy and he’s worried sick about Evie,” she shared. “He also needs to look you over and,” her eyes did a sweep of him, “I’m seeing you’re the kind of guy who would understand where he’s coming from with that. So, it’d be cool you didn’t make him wait too long to do that.”

  “I’ll consider it and talk to Evan,” he muttered.

  She nodded.

  Then her gaze went to Elvira, to Mag, back to Elvira, she looked uncomfortable and Mag braced again even as he said, “Whatever it is, spit it out.”

  “Maybe we can have some privacy,” she suggested.

  “It’s my office,” Elvira pointed out.

  “She’s gonna nag my ass until I share it with her anyway, so you might as well just say it,” Mag told Sidney.

  “I don’t nag,” Elvira said to Mag.

  He looked to her. “You nag.”

  She considered that a beat before she shrugged one shoulder and owned it. “Okay, I nag.”

  Mag returned to Sidney and raised his brows.

  “Okay then, no offense, I mean, really, this is the case with about ninety percent of the population,” she said fast.

  “What’s the case?” Mag asked.

  She shared the case and she did it again fast.

  “Evan is smarter than you. Like way smarter. Like there’s gonna be times you’ll feel like Forrest Gump kind of smart.”

  Mag opened his mouth to say he already knew that, but Sidney kept going.

  “Her ex, he couldn’t deal. He’s a programmer. He was a TA in one of her classes. He thought his coder shit didn’t stink. He didn’t become one with his games because he descended into that like people do who get lost in it. He did it because he’s a loser and he’s weak and she made him feel more of both of those because she is who she is, and in the end, he didn’t have the strength to cut her loose so he made it so she’d do it.”

  “I’m not him,” Mag pointed out.

  “It’s hard on her, to, you know, relate,” Sidney said, and Mag grew tense.

  “I’m not findin’ that the case,” he said low.

  “I mean,” she threw out a hand, “yeah. She can be normal, and she can be real, but you know, she shouldn’t have to be that all the time because she’s not normal. She’s special. And there’s gonna be times you’re gonna feel that, and if you don’t get off on her being special, then you need to cut her loose because she should be wi
th someone who does.”

  She’s special.

  Well…

  Shit.

  Mag was shocked as all hell, but he was finding there might be one member of Evan’s family who he could put up with.

  “Trust me, I’m into your sister,” Mag stated.

  Sidney looked him right in the eyes.

  “She’s gonna make more money than you.”

  Mag stood still.

  “I see you got your shit tight with this operation,” she said, tipping her head to the windows behind Mag. “But, I mean, if she wanted to, Evie could figure out how to put rockets in space. Like, every one of her teachers wanted to have a sit-down with Mom and Dad to share she needed to be in different classes, maybe even go to different schools, be more challenged to even come close to meeting her potential. She’s gonna get her degree, I know it. And then everyone is gonna want her and they’re gonna pay big to have her because she turned down like, a bazillion academic scholarships because, you guessed it, Mom’s crap, Dad’s crap and Mick’s garbage.”

  She stopped talking and Mag did not start.

  That was because he was fighting the need to tear Elvira’s office apart.

  She’d turned down scholarships?

  “Mag,” Elvira said carefully.

  Mag took in a deep breath.

  “Mag, hon, keep it together.” Elvira was now talking soothingly.

  “What’s going on?” Sidney whispered.

  “Now I gotta educate you, girl, seein’ as you don’t tell a protective alpha guy who’s fixed on your sister to make her his that your parents and brother fucked up her life even more than he already knew they did without, you know, cushioning that info. Or maybe not sayin’ that shit at all unless he’s somewhere he can rip a punching bag off its chain and toss it out a window,” Elvira replied.

  “Oh,” Sidney mumbled.

  “Mag.”

  Mo was now there, probably due to Elvira giving him the signal.

  “I got it locked down,” he growled.

  He felt Mo stay close.

  Mag forced himself to focus on Sidney.

  “I know she’s special,” he stated. “I don’t know much about computers, and I don’t wanna know. She doesn’t know how to disassemble a gun, and she probably doesn’t wanna know. It doesn’t matter she could figure it out on her own. That doesn’t signify. She’s gonna have her strengths, I’m gonna have mine. That’s life. That’s a relationship. I couldn’t give a shit how much money she’s gonna make just as long as she’s happy in how she makes it. What’s gonna happen is I’m gonna teach her how to shotgun a beer and she’s eventually gonna make me watch all the Harry Potter movies. That’s not gonna blow us up, it’s what’s gonna keep us strong. Because that’s how I’m gonna make it happen.”