Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74291 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74291 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
“They’re not innocent, Ana. They’re felons. Scum of the earth that supply drugs to—”
“They are human beings and one of them had a wife and a mother. Last I checked, our job was to protect and serve, not kill and leave lying and shrug it off.”
“If you’re done being on your high horse, I don’t have much time here.”
My stomach churns with the look on Paul’s face. Why had I never noticed this side of him before? Something about his whole attitude makes me feel like my skin is crawling. Something is just… off.
“Say it,” I tell him, just wanting him to leave. He hands me a small packet of white powder. I look at it like it’s a snake, one that’s about to bite me and pump my body full of poison. “What the fuck is this?”
“Coke.”
I blanch, physically jarred from his answer, even if I knew what it was. “Why are you giving this to me?” I whisper, that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach only getting worse.
“You need to plant that on Anthes.”
“Plant? What are you talking about?”
“The fucking weasel keeps covering his tracks and he slips through every fucking trap we set. We get him on possession, he’ll get out, but it will give us all the ammo we need to get a judge to give the okay to take a fine-tooth comb to his businesses and anything else. It will give us time to sweep in and tear apart his business piece by piece.”
“Paul, that’s … what you’re asking me to do …”
“Before you go all moral, that’s just enough to cap him for possession. It’s enough to get our fucking foot in the door. It will save your brother. The quicker we get Anthes locked up, the quicker we can find your brother.”
“But…” I try and argue, but my tongue feeling too heavy for my mouth and refuses to form words. My heart is beating erratically and I am about two steps away from a panic attack.
“Your brother is running out of time, Ana. Do you really want to be the reason for his death?” he asks, then motions to the guy with him. They leave me standing there looking like I was just in a train wreck and holding an eight ball of coke and wondering how the fuck I got here.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ana
I jerk awake in bed and reaching for the pistol I keep under my pillow. I grab the butt of the grip, wrapping my fingers around it, when a large hand clamps down making it so I can’t move.
“Jesus Christ, Ana. You keep a gun under your fucking pillow?”
I go deathly still in the dark of my bedroom. “Roman?”
“Who the fuck else would it be getting into your bed at three in the morning?” he asks, taking the gun away from me and placing it on my nightstand.
That’s a good question. “Roman? How are you in my bed? You don’t have a key. You gave me a heart attack!”
“I could tell by the way you were about to shoot me. Motherfucker, what the hell has happened to you in the past that you sleep with a gun under your pillow?”
That’s a question I’m not about to answer. “Will you tell me how you got in?” I ask instead, my eyes following his body and enjoying the view. Roman is probably the sexiest man I’ve ever met in my life. Roman without a shirt is deadly. He might be covered up too, but shivers run through me when I realize he’s probably completely naked and in my bed.
“Pet, you’ll find there’s not much I can’t do when I want it. And I think we’ve established that I want you. Now let’s get back to the question at hand. Why do you sleep with a gun under your pillow?” he asks, and I try to ignore the distraction of a naked Roman to concentrate on our conversation.
“I’m a single woman alone in the city,” I compromise. It sounds plausible? Right?
“If I get my hands on your brother, I may choke the life out of him for leaving you in the position where you think you need a gun to protect yourself.”
I listen to him and there’s a lot to think about in that one sentence. Most of all, it sounds like he hasn’t killed my brother. Maybe it’s not him that has Allen at all. Could the informant have been wrong? On the heels of that thought is the warm feeling I get inside at the fact that Roman is concerned about me. No one ever has been, except Paul … and now I wonder if he ever really was. If we had the relationship I thought we had, would he have put me in the situation I am in right now? The Paul I had created in my mind would have never done anything underhanded.