“Tonight, I want eyes all over the city. We made a grave mistake in skipping over Indigo Renegade last night and a young woman was raped because of it. Every single bar and club needs to have at least one Sinner, preferably two.Includingthe ones he’s already hit. We will take him down, and I’d prefer we do it sooner than later. Figure out who’s going where, and get there.Now,” I barked, and the Sinners sprung into action, splitting off into pairs and spouting off the locations of where they’d be. From the sounds of it, every bar and club was covered.
There was no reason to assign myself a place, or a partner for that matter. The Sinners knew exactly where Sly and I would be.
The thought of Rose being there now, alone, with this fucker on the loose, had my skin practically crawling.
“Everyone figure their shit out?” I asked, taking the time to give each and every one of my men a moment of eye contact as a sign of respect. Nods and gruff “yes’s” filled the air as I made it around the half circle before me.
“You find him, you take him out. Be safe. Be smart. Make it home.”
Some Sinners repeated the sentiment, while others simply nodded and hopped onto their bikes, bringing them back to life.
Dirt from The Bend floated up, creating a dust storm as they took off in sets of twos toward the direction of their posts. Sly hung behind, waiting for me as I watched everyone leave before climbing back on my bike. I pressed my boot against the kickstand, standing the bike up as I straddled it and gripped the handles.
He may have been a good guy, but he was still fucking my girl, and that made me like him a whole hell of a lot less. “You take outside tonight. Watch the door, see who’s coming and going. I’ll watch the inside.”
I didn’t bother waiting for him to say anything—the only response he’d have given would be agreement, so what the fuck did it matter? Instead, I cranked the ignition and hit the road.
* * *
I trailedher movements while she glided around her bar. She stopped at high-tops and greeted her regulars, checking on them and taking their empty glasses. Even while Rose concentrated on running her business, every movement this woman made was intentional. From the way she spoke to people, down to the way she constantly scanned her surroundings, making sure the bar was safe.
Although she should know better than to worry about safety when I’m around, especially hers.
Bringing the lowball glass to my lips, I took a sip of my tequila, letting the taste burn my mouth for a few moments before swallowing it down.
I hated tequila, but Rose still hadn’t fully forgiven me, and seemed to find pleasure in reminding me of it. Instead of my preferred whiskey or bourbon, or hell, even a beer, she brought me tequila on the rocks, knowing damn well that tequila is my least favorite of all.
So every time I caught her glancing in my direction, I made a point to take a sip.
It’d been almost two weeks since I told her I’d “share” her with Sly, even though I had no intention of sharing her sexually with him at all. Still, every day between us was an improvement, but knocking down her walls had been more of a challenge than I thought.
At this point, I was just grateful for the time she’d given me.
Almost every night after the bar closed, I followed her to her office after she locked up, craving the time it was just us, tucked away from the rest of the world. Some nights I sat in silence while she caught up on clerical work, while other nights we sat together and talked about everything.
Connecting on a conversational level was never an issue with us. She had a way of getting the words to flow from me, and I knew my crew would be damn surprised if anyone ever found this out, considering with them, I was a man of few words.
The urge to kiss her again had been eating me alive—the carnalneedto feel her skin against mine, to own her mouth was getting to be too much—but I held back, wanting to prove to her just how much I wanted her. She needed to see how much this time away had made me missher. I wasn’t in this for sex, and I knew if I did what I wanted and constantly kept my lips fused to hers, she’d think I only wanted her physically. And that wasn’t the message I wanted to send to her.
The topic of my brother had gone unspoken in these last two weeks, but I didn’t need to hear it to know how much he fucked with her mind over the years. I’d personally watched her withdraw and desensitize within that short year I’d been around them…I can only imagine what he did when I was gone. Still, I knew Rose would go to her grave swearing everything between them had been casual, but when you’re with someone for half a decade, it’s not just casual.
It just wasn’t.
She could deny it all she wanted, though, because it didn’t matter. As far as my brother went, I had no brother. Not anymore. My only brothers were the Sinners. The onesIchose.
Blood doesn’t make you family, loyalty does.
I took another sip of my tequila and watched from my peripheral as Sly slipped into the chair beside me and shrugged off his black leather jacket.
Tossing the jacket onto the empty chair adjacent to him, he gave me a curt nod. “Prez,” he greeted, his accent thick but his voice smooth as butter. “Any updates?”
“Not since earlier.”
Rose’s exuberant laughter echoed across the room, despite the bar being at capacity, as she leaned against the table of men. She gestured with one hand as she spoke, a wide smile pressed against her beautiful face. I recognized one of the men as that cop friend of hers, and judging by the way the other three men carried themselves, I’d guess they were also on the force.
The way they all watched her with stars in their eyes made me want to scoop them out of their heads with a rusty spoon and shove them down their throats.
“Green is not a good color on you, mio amico,” Sly mused, leaning against his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “Jealousy is a plague. It’ll eat at you until it’s destroyed everything you love.”
