I chewed my lips some more.

I stopped doing that to pip a quiet, “Eek.”

Brett grinned at me.

Then he turned me toward the door to the kitchen, saying, “Bacon and eggs.”

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.”