Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
"Us?" Beast asked, looking toward the Henchmen.
"That'd be me," I said, raising a hand. "I was walking home from Chaz's."
"And let me guess," Beast said. "You two have never done anything to deserve it. You're saints and all that shit."
"I'm sure I've done many things to deserve it," I said, shrugging.
"I'm assuming your people have been all over my crime scene," Greys, Beast's partner—a short, slight, dark-skinned woman with golden-brown eyes—said, looking between us.
"They came when they heard we were in duress," I explained.
"Yeah, just to comfort you, I'm sure," Beast said, tone dry. "Alright, you two," he went on, pointing to Fallon and me. "I need to talk to you. How about you tell the rest of your crews to head out?"
"That's not happening," Reign said.
"Someone tried to kill them," Grandpa chimed in.
"Are we supposed to expect you all to protect Danny if the shooters come back?" Dutch piled on.
"This fucking town," Beast grumbled under his breath. "Fine. But back up, so we can work," he said. "Greys, tape," he demanded, waving around the general area where the shooting had taken place.
From there, Fallon and I were pulled apart to be questioned.
He went first, and my stomach was in knots at the idea of him telling them what had happened in that basement. But, no. He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't want anyone else to know he was fucking the enemy either.
No.
Not fucking.
Fucked.
Once.
Singular.
It was never going to happen again.
Chapter Four
Fallon
I'd fucked Danny.
Christ.
How had that happened?
One minute, we were bitching at each other. The next, I was buried inside her.
Maybe I would have been able to brush it aside, call it a moment of insanity, figure it had more to do with the adrenaline and fear than anything based in reality, if the sex had been shitty.
But it hadn't been.
It had been top-tier.
Especially considering the situation, the environment, the fact that we knew our men were closing in.
"Wanna talk about it?" Dezi asked, sitting off the edge of the fighting ring in my aunts' gym, swinging his legs, and blowing blueberry smoke around as I pounded the punching bag.
"What?" I asked, arm raising to wipe the sweat from my forehead that was dripping into my eyes.
"My arms are hurting just watching you, Boss Man. Figure no one gives themselves muscle failure over nothing. So, you wanna talk about it?"
"Talk about it," I repeated.
"Toxic masculinity is bad for you, yo. Didn't you hear? We can talk and feel about shit now. I mean, that's the rumor anyway."
"There's nothing to talk or feel about," I insisted.
"Nothing?" Dezi asked, brows furrowing. "I hear that when they do an autopsy, they take all your shit out—brain, kidney, liver, all that shit—and weigh it. Then they put it all back in the chest cavity. They sew your fucking brain up in your chest. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about that."
"The fuck?"
"I know, right?" he said, nodding, taking another puff off his pen.
"Hey, I told you about that fucking thing three times," Janie, my aunt, Malc's mom, said as she moved into the gym.
"And where the hell is your shirt?" Lo, my other aunt, asked, following behind Janie.
"Fallon doesn't have a shirt on," Dezi deflected.
"Fallon is working out. You're putting a permanent ass imprint on the ring mat," Janie said, but she was smiling.
"I spilled jelly on it," Dezi admitted with a shrug.
"Jelly?" Janie asked, brows knitting.
"From the fourth donut he ate this morning," Cary said, coming in from the heavy weight room in the back. It was a somewhat recent addition. We all used to hit the Mallick gym, but my aunts and uncle decided to upgrade to be all-inclusive.
"I had to eat something to wash down that poison you gave me," Dezi said, looking a little gray at the memory of it.
"It was a green juice," Cary explained, reaching up to push his wet salt-and-pepper hair off of his forehead.
"It tasted green too, let me tell you," Dezi said. "Life is too short to eat liquid spinach."
"It's much shorter if you eat four jelly donuts every day," Cary shot back.
The two were an interesting pair. What with Dezi's insatiable appetite for everything bad for him, and Cary's steadfast determination to stick to a healthy diet. I mean, the guy had been around for a while, and I'd never even seen him steal a piece of pizza when we ordered it. The only real vice he seemed to allow himself to have was alcohol. And after he drank, he felt the need to "sweat it out of" his system.
Hence the gym.
The gym was almost always Cary's idea, even if most of us did try to hit it up at least every other day too.
I'd been up to go with him, having had a night of uneven sleep thanks to intrusive thoughts about Danny and the basement, and other places I'd like to be alone with her in.