Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 137310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
“Don’t know how these clowns work, babe. But at least she had her own shit with her when she got away from them. Maybe that was a comfort?” he suggested.
I hoped so.
Now, for the rough part.
“They’re taking them,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Maddy, Elias and Emmylou. They’re getting everything sorted, and tomorrow morning, they’re taking them into protective custody, at the very least until this Babić situation is sorted. But maybe even longer, if Maddy has to go into WITSEC. Either way, I’ll lose contact since she can’t talk to me. That might just be for the interim, or it might be forever.”
“Di,” he murmured tenderly.
I shoved my face in his throat and burrowed into him.
“I know it’s better for her,” I said to his skin. “I know it. But I don’t want her to go. And WITSEC? Her entire life was turned upside down, now it’s gonna be turned upside down again?”
“It’s what’s best for her, what’s safest.”
“Yeah,” I grumbled.
He was right, of course.
I just hated that she’d been through so much, and now she had to go through more.
“Scott was seriously forthcoming about shit,” Hugger observed.
I pulled my face out of his throat. “He was. But I also sat in on the interviews because Maddy wanted me to.”
He stopped stroking my back in order to hold me tight, whispering, “Babe.”
“It’s okay. I’m okay. I was honored she asked.”
He got a funny look on his face before he said, “We’re gonna have to talk about your bent to sacrifice yourself to be all you need to be for other people.”
“I survived, Harlan.”
“Never forget the look of your face, and of you, curled up in here, hiding away so no one will see you lick your wounds. Yeah, you’re a survivor, but how much you gonna make yourself take before you realize how much it’s taking out of you?”
Instead of answering, I shoved my face in his throat again.
He returned to stroking my back.
So I guessed I answered him.
I decided a change of subject was in order.
“Emmylou is taking over. I’ve learned in the Texan way of doing things, there are gender differences in making sandwiches. The boys got ones with three inches of lunchmeat. Me and Maddy only had two inches.”
Hugger chuckled.
I pulled my face out of his throat again in order to look at him. “Two inches is a lot of meat, Hugger.”
He got a certain look on his face and kept chuckling.
And he said, “Not really.”
During this awful day, was I really going to laugh?
I couldn’t help it.
I laughed, even as I bossed, “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Right,” he pushed out through his continuing amusement.
“Ink, Driver, Cruise and Gash did their manly best, but I feared a wafer-thin-mint moment was going to happen.”
Hugger’s brows drew together. “Wafer-thin-mint?”
“That scene in the Monty Python movie where the guy eats so much, he explodes.”
“Haven’t seen it.”
“You must. It’s a classic.”
He slid a hand over my hip (nice). “Maybe we’ll do that our next movie night.”
Our next movie night.
Nicer.
“Also, you’ll probably be pleased to know, Emmylou is using the cubed beef we bought so I could craft my fabulous shredded-beef tacos to make beef and noodles tonight. She needs numbers of who’s coming to dinner.”
“I’ll get those for her,” he replied.
“Your turn,” I said.
He sighed before he dropped to his back and pulled me on top of him.
This wasn’t a better or worse position with Hugger.
They were all just right.
His big, long, burly frame was just so snuggly.
“I need to report all this shit to them,” he shared. “But even when I do, I don’t think their mission will change. Aces and Chaos are out, Resurrection is gonna deal with the Babićs.”
“As a law-abiding citizen, I see why this is concerning. As a person who likes you, and they’re your friends, I see why this is concerning. As a person who likes them, again with the concern. After all I heard today, I don’t have enough left in me to give a shit about the Angels of Death going after these assholes.” I tipped my head to the side and asked, “Where are you with that?”
“Goal is to defeat the enemy. Better goal is to defeat them and humiliate them,” Hugger replied. “I don’t think they’ll like what Resurrection has planned. I think they’d hate it more, rotting in a prison for the rest of their lives.”
I saw his point.
“That means?” I queried.
“That means we hope the cops pick up Esad and his bros. Also that they nab Imran, for whatever they can pin on him, and do this before Resurrection gets messy. But when they do that, we’re always out. After learning what was done to Maddy, they refuse to back down. When they find out there’s a racket going on, they’re gonna go all in until they dismantle it. So bottom line, no matter what we think of their intent, we’re out.”