Hawke: A Bad Boy Fighter Romance (With bonus book Sons of Flame MC) by Ashley Rhodes Page B

hard time of it from my injuries; add to that not being able to shut my brain down, and I was about as fucked as it was possible to be. Why’d she have to take me up on it? Why hadn’t she warned me I’d be screwed in the head like this afterward?
    People are idiots, that’s why. Animals. We just don’t know better. At least, I never did.
    I didn’t know what time it was when the stranger came into my room, but he wasn’t a nurse or a doctor. He was in street clothes. That meant he was either one of Valentino’s guys, or he was a cop who’d somehow gotten wind I was here and connected to the mobster. The second I saw him, scenarios started playing through my head. I was still too banged up to last long against someone fresh, so I’d go for his knees, one at a time, maybe his eyes. My room was five stories up. If I could put him through the window, we’d be over fast. I could call for help, hit the nurse call button, but that would just put someone else in the way. I could bludgeon him with the metal rod that held my periodic IV drip, but that was a strain on my ribs and I’d be slow.
    Knees, or window, then.
    “Jack Hawke?” The man asked. He was tall, clean cut. Good lookin’, I guess—straight nose, no scars, square jaw. Not a fighter. Good sign.
    “Who wants to know?” I asked.
    “I’m just being polite, Mr. Hawke. I know who you are.”
    “Alright,” I said. “So? What do you want?”
    “Don’t you want to know who I am?” He asked me.
    “Will it change what you want, how this plays out, or whether you leave me alone?”
    He raised an eyebrow, a little surprised. I guess it doesn’t. He seemed to think.
    “I’m Officer Jason Desouza,” the guy said.
    Well, it was better than one of Valentino’s guys come to finish the job. By a little bit, anyway. “I see. Well, you’re wastin’ your time. I got nothin’ to say about what happened. I didn’t see the guys, I don’t know why they grabbed me, it was a freak accident and I’m not pressin’ charges.”
    He sighed, and closed the door behind him. “That’s not why I’m here, Mr. Hawke.”
    “Call me Jack,” I said. “I’ll call you Desouza, and we can be straight with each other like that. What do you want if you’re not here on official business?”
    “Well,” Desouza said, pulling something from inside his jacket, “it’s not entirely unofficial, actually.” He handed me a small packet, a manila envelope. I opened it cautiously and tipped the contents into my hands.
    They were pictures. Of me, sometimes, and sometimes of people I was with in those pictures. I knew ‘em. Valentino’s guys, mostly, but a few others were just everyday scumbags I knew from the cage.
    “What’s this?” I asked. “You been watchin’ me? What, you want an autograph? Gimme a pen, I’ll sign it.”
    “You’re confirming those are pictures of you, then?” Officer Desouza asked.
    “Sure. That’s me. What’s your point? You got a badge, lawman?” I tossed the pictures on the bed.
    He nodded slowly, his lips curled down in an obliging frown. He pulled his badge from his back pocket and held it up. “Satisfied?”
    Could have been a fake, but it wouldn’t have mattered. “Alright, so? You got some pictures. What’s your point?”
    “All of those were taken at times when illicit exchanges were made,” he said. “Drugs, illegal arms, even people. Human trafficking is a major felony, Jack. Care to explain what you were doing there?”
    I gestured at the pictures, “You got nothing there showing me taking or giving money, drugs, weapons, and sure as hell no people. I don’t truck with that crowd.”
    “Mind if I ask what you were doing with them, then?”
    “You know how many drug dealers you probably passed on the way up here?” I said. “You can’t throw a rock in this city without hitting ten of ‘em. I come from a bad part of town, what do you want me to say?”
    “I want you to tell me what your association is with men like