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Mia nods. “I’m not a mind reader, but he seemed pretty amped up. I swear, Lexi, I didn’t want to say anything.”
“That was quick thinking with the card.”
She smiles, looking so young, much younger than me, and innocent. “Yeah, luckily, no one else saw.”
“They were probably all staring at me when I was interrogating you.”
“Yeah, you were pretty scary.”
We’re silent for a little while. Then I clench my fists, thinking about Ralph with that sleazy, wet smile on his face, leering at Mia and her friends. “You’re right. I can be scary. I can be way scarier than that little toad.”
“What are you going to do?” Mia asks, sitting up.
“Find a way to make him pay, but I’ll do it myself. I don’t need the Family.” Silently, I think about Colt, taking the screwdriver from my hand the last time I tried to do something wild. “I don’t need anyone.”
“You might not need me,” Mia says, “but I can help. I’m here. I know about it already, so you might as well let me.”
“You don’t even know what I’ve got planned yet.”
She shakes her head. “That doesn’t matter. He’s a creep. You’re a nice person. That’s all the reason I need! Maybe we should exchange cell numbers, just in case?”
I smile. So this is what it’s like to become friends with somebody easily.
“Sure, Mia,” I say.
“Long bathroom break,” Ruby mutters when I sit beside her in the living room. Luckily, she’s got my niece in her arms, rocking her gently. She’s too consumed with love to notice me.
Across the room, Colt sits, watching football on the TV with Luca, Elio, and a few other men. He doesn’t look at me. He aims his intense eyes at the screen; his jaw’s clenched, almost like he’s pissed.
“Can I hold her?”
Ruby smiles. “You don’t have to ask.”
I take my niece, stunned at her warmth like I always am, at the love glowing from her little body. She’s so delicate. She opens her eyes, staring up at me. I think, I’m never going to let anybody hurt you.
CHAPTER 10
Colt
After the party, I sit in the gym, the lights off. Shadow’s in the corner with his eyes fixed on me. I’m waiting for Luca, giving me ample time to write and rewrite the same text.
You looked so gorgeous holding your niece, I type. You looked like a good fit. I could easily imagine you being a mother.
It’s so formal, so bland. It doesn’t connect to the burning hunger in me. I want to tell her that, on the level of my bones, I need to claim her thick hips, drive into her dripping, wet slit, fuck her deep until she’s creaming, and her body is so ready for every last drop. I am so ready for us to build a life together.
Closing my eyes, I take a breath. I can usually control myself, but after seeing her at the party…
Our last text exchange reads:
Thanks for tailing me home, Colt. I’m just going to get some rest now.
No sign of the red car. Lucky for him.
Yeah, I know. Maybe it was all in my head. Maybe we don’t need to do this.
I stared across the street at her, willing myself to climb from the car and run toward her as I watched her step into her house. My balls and my heart flooded with heat for Lexi.
I want to keep you safe. You don’t deserve to live in fear, always looking over your shoulder. It’s not fair.
But what if I was imagining things and making something out of nothing? I don’t want to take up all your time.
Just let me know if you need me again, I told her, because I’ll be there.
I wanted to add that if any other man ever wanted to be there for her, they better decide how much they like living because there’s no way I’d let that slide. Just thinking about it now makes me want to hurt somebody. Fuck. What’s wrong with me? I’m getting angry thinking about something that hasn’t even happened.
Thank you.
That’s the last message, the one she sent me. She’s got no idea there’s something urgent and primal and bubbling inside me, no idea that?—
Shadow turns, sniffing. That’s enough to tell me the door’s about to open. Luca walks in, switching the lights on. “Why are you sitting in the dark? Trying to act all broody and mysterious?”
“I need to tell you something,” I say, fighting down the scared little voice inside me, and maybe not so little—the one I can’t ever let myself listen to. “I used to work for the Serpentes a decade ago in Vegas. It’s more complicated than that, but that right there is the truth.”
Luca puts his hands in his pockets, nodding. “Okay…”
“I only did a couple of jobs before I found out some nasty shit about them. So I turned on them. I started taking those bastards out, but eventually, they caught me, the pricks. They caught me, and they kept me locked up with one of the women they’d trafficked.”
