Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57707 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57707 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
“She’s not trouble.”
“Then what is she?” It’s like he’s honestly curious. “I want the best for you, man. But from the outside, it doesn’t look great.”
“She’s different,” I snap.
“Different, how?”
“She just is,” I say, not because there isn’t a lot I could say. It’s how she smiles at the dogs and stares intently at everything, her eyes working away as she puzzles something out. It’s the shape of her legs and the taste of her and the feel of her hot, curvy body against mine.
Dammit, it’s the first time I saw her, a silhouette in the night.
“We’ve got the Mob breathing down our necks, and you’re getting sentimental?”
“Breathing down our necks,” I say. “No, Tank. I’m serving them up on a silver damn platter for you. Anyway, it’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?” he says.
I wonder if I should make up some lie and dodge the question somehow, but Tank deserves the truth. “I can’t stop thinking about her. I mean, literally, Tank. I mean, all damn day. I made an excuse to go around there, and …”
I’m not sure I know how to explain what happened during that short time at her house.
“I just don’t want this to fail,” Tank says, sounding on edge. “We need to get these guys.”
“Well, I can’t fire her, and it wouldn’t change shit about Friday anyway.”
“I’m worried about you, too. You need that place.”
I don’t say anything. He’s right. We both know it. When we bled, when I held my boy, my Odin, I knew I had to do something. “I can pay her. I’ve got the funds. As for the next few months, I don’t know. If we’re doing this thing, let’s do it. I can’t afford to think about the future.”
“So you’ll be ready for Thursday. That’s when Carlo wants to do it, right?”
“Friday,” I tell him. “I’ve got other plans on Thursday.”
“With your lady, I guess, right?” Tank sighs. “Man, I’m sorry for how I was and how I’m being. This shit’s got me on edge. I want to make some headway with these monsters. The stuff they do …”
“I know,” I tell him coldly. “I ran guns for them. I worked security. I even did some irreversible things to men who deserved it, but I ignored the rest. I pretended it made me better than them.”
“T,” Tank mutters. “You know I can’t hear this stuff.”
“You going to arrest me?” I say, laughing darkly.
“Have fun Thursday, okay?”
“Pfft. I thought she was going to be the end of me.”
“I know you. You’re not going to change your mind. Hell, what you said about thinking about her, I’ve never heard you like that. What are you doing for the date?”
Driving through the city, I drum my fingers on my knees. “I don’t even know,” I say. “I didn’t even think. I just want to see her.”
I wonder if Tank will make another buzzkill comment that will sour the whole thought, but thankfully, he keeps his mouth shut and his thoughts to himself, but he laughs. “You got to think of something. Just try to make it so it doesn’t include alcohol. We need to be fresh on Friday.”
I rarely drink, but he already knows that. Drinking was often a rite of passage in the corps, but I limited it in my civilian life. Soon, I’m back at the sanctuary, back in the regular work cycle. Carlo has agreed for me to be at the meet, but that doesn’t mean we’ll get anything.
That doesn’t mean the Mob will quit. A sick image hits me as I clean the kennel walls for the rest of the day. Men in leather jackets smoking cigarettes, pulling Maya and her mother across the front lawn of their home, toward vans and cars, nowhere pretty. But why would the Mob target them?
Dumbass, if you go on a date with her…
Right now, the Mob thinks I’m learning my lesson. I’m working with Carlo. I’m being a so-called good boy. They’ve got no reason to know I’ve asked her on a date, and even if they did, they’ve got no leverage. As far as they know, she’s just some woman I’m helping.
Yeah, that sounds lame. If they find out I’m paying her and taking her out, I’m suddenly the stoic, badass Marine with a romantic side. Fuck it. It’s too much to think about, but I have to.
Before, it was easy to avoid this issue. She was just another employee. But asking her on that date felt so natural somehow. Something must’ve gotten hold of me when I was with her, some wildness I’ve tried to tame. It’s only now, driving home, it hits me.
If Raffie or anybody else tries to hurt Maya, we wouldn’t be playing with Tank’s deck of guards anymore. It’ll be mine. I’ll club the bastards to death, slit their throats, and dig them cold holes with a spade as they bleed out.