The door slams behind me, and the first thing I see is Quinn leaning on the car I saw earlier, his eyes slanted back at me and a wry fucking smile on his face. He nods at me, flicking his head at the door someone opens for him. Dick.
“You finished with my dice?”
What? I scowl and head for him, about ready to knock his head off his shoulders for pissing me off. His hand comes out, fingers waggling. “I like my dice. Pocket.” Fuck him. I growl and slide into his car, looking straight out the window rather than dealing with geek boy who’s smirking. Fuck him, too.
“You got control of that shit now?” he says to me, chuckling as Quinn sits next to me and the car pulls off.
“Careful, Nathan. I’m in no mood for games,” I reply, gazing as we drive past my family home.
I stare at it, remembering everything—the filth of criminality, the grime, the guns, the hatred that poured out of my father for anything that dared breathe in the wrong direction. “Just get us back to my apartment.” I’ll calm down there. Think again rather than act.
Maybe.
* * *
Three hours have passed since we’ve been back. We’ve done nothing but plot and plan, using each-other’s contacts and pipelines to stow and chase information down. They’ve got a lot already, like they’ve been on this for a year or so. Quinn certainly has, and Nathan slipping the info about his woman’s brother being part of Yakuza is becoming useful.
I watch Hope as they discuss how they can leverage that, listening to Nathan’s tension rising a few notches as she looks out of the window and frowns. She’s too far away to hear anything succinctly, but she’ll be getting snippets. Storing them—maybe for me, maybe for someone else.
“But he fucked her over,” Quinn says. “Why would Gabby give a damn? She’s Cane now. Her priority is here.”
“And you’d use me as quickly in the middle of this? She’s my wife, Quinn. I'm not sending her into the middle of—”
“Fucking right I would,” he says, rising and crossing to the drinks cabinet.
“It’s not that simple, Quinn, and you know it.”
It is to me.
Once on board, it should be full tilt into that and nothing else. If you’re a part of our world, you give everything to protect the side you’re on. Fuck what feelings get in the way.
Hope glances back at us, her eyes coming to rest on mine after a few seconds. She’s still pretty, even with the makeup covering the bruises I put there. She blinks softly, come-fuck-me eyes getting in my damn head again. I snarl, unsure what I’m supposed to do with her anymore.
Trust.
I turn to stare at Quinn as he fills three glasses, frowning at the thought of trusting anyone. He’s here, though, as is the other one—in my space and talking through a fight. Seems like these three people are the only ones I do trust for some reason. My eyes find hers again as I push my chair back and walk towards her. She braces her posture, no doubt ready to take whatever I might give her.
“You look pretty,” I mutter, wandering past her to the other end of the room. The smile she gives me lights up the goddamn room, her arms finally losing their clutched grip around her stomach.
“Thank you,” she replies. She doesn’t move, though. She knows me too well for that. She’ll wait and evaluate what might happen next before she intrudes into my mind.
“We'll go out tonight. Dinner.” She nods and smiles again, her hand tucking her hair behind her ear with the same move. “Wear something nice.” The hell am I doing? I should be with the Canes all night, searching their eyes and finishing what’s starting here. I look at them, watch them knocking their own damn skulls together about whatever Andreas can or cannot do for me.
“Okay, Benjamin,” she says.
I walk back to the boys, shaking my head and trying not to react to the quiver that rides my body every time she uses my name. I don’t know why that started. It came one night after I’d held her down and taken her ass for the first time, then came again as her hair fanned across my chest later on that same night, her fingers and lips running over my ink.
It was three months into our arrangement—Christmas time. I stare at the spot where it happened, remembering the tree she put up as I swipe my drink from the table. I never had a tree here before that. Never cared for one with fucking decorations and presents underneath. She was the only present I wanted to unwrap at the time, stripping her of every other man she’d been near as I did.
“Vico?”
What? I flick my head to the sound of Nathan’s voice interrupting my thoughts. “Yeah?”
“How many in total?”
“How many what?”
“Jesus, where the fuck are you?” Quinn snaps, ire in his tone. “Guns. Men.”
