Riff-raff.
Sometimes she thought he was an eighty-year-old trapped in a thirty-year-old’s body. He’d been pissed when the neighbor moved in. With his motorcycle, and his penchant for Sunday afternoon barbecues with his rough-looking friends.
He’d gone on for weeks about a gang moving in, and property values going down.
Funny, how he’d claimed the opposite when she’d offered to buy out his half of the house in the divorce. Maybe she should have just sold this place. Moved on. But she loved this house.
Nope, she definitely didn’t owe her handsome-looking neighbor who’d never once even said hello to her, anything.
So why was she pushing her lawnmower next door?
* * *
Duke was in a shitty mood.
He was tired. He was hungry. He was grouchy. He should have been heade
d to work, but he couldn’t stomach being around people right now.
When he got in these moods, which didn’t happen all that often, he knew he needed to stay far away from other people. He couldn’t trust himself not to say or do something he’d regret later.
He pulled his truck into his driveway, parking in front of the single car garage.
Stepping out, he strode over to the mailbox, frowning when he saw it was empty. Shrugging, he moved into the house. Shit. It was hot as hell in here. Turning on the air, he grabbed a beer out of the fridge. All he wanted to do was sit on his porch and have a quiet drink.
Alone.
He scowled at the sound of a lawn mower as he stepped outside. He’d heard it out front, but he’d hoped it was the neighbor across the road.
He froze on his porch, eyes narrowing in on the short figure pushing a bright pink mower down his thick lawn.
What the fuck? Who was that? And why the hell was his grass so long?
The service he used should have mowed them days ago. Holy shit. . .did that mower have jewels glued onto the front of it?
He stared at the woman who had her head down, her attention on what she was doing. As she grew closer, he realized it was his next-door neighbor. Fucking awesome. He’d seen her around a few times in passing. Mousy, quiet sort of woman. Her loud, obnoxious husband had moved out months ago.
Why was she mowing his lawns? Without his permission. Duke didn’t mingle with people outside the Iron Shadows.
He didn’t give a shit about his neighbor and what she did. Unless it impacted him. Which right now, it sure fucking did.
Calm. She’s obviously just trying to do something nice.
He glanced down as his foot hit something, sending his mail flying.
Fuck. Fuck.
She’d touched his mail? He bent down and picked up the pile, spotting one that had been half-opened. Had she gone peeking? He took a look at what was inside that envelope, shock filling him as photos spilled out.
What the fuck was this? Why would someone send him photos? Unease stirred through his gut. Especially as he saw one of the photos was from last night.
When he’d been staking out the senator’s family home. Senator Jonathan Robins. Assbag extraordinaire. Sex offender. Douchebag. A man that the Iron Shadows leader, Reyes, badly wanted to take down. Duke had been doing his stint on dickhead-watch. Not that he’d seen anything of interest.
Hence his current bad mood.
But now he was even angrier. Since it seemed like someone had been watching him. Taking photos of him.
And he’d never had an inkling.