Who closes her eyes in longsuffering annoyance before turning away.
I should not get a semi. I shouldn't. But…I do. Just from a quick glimpse of those incredible tits of hers. Fuck, the things I want to do to them. I scrub my face, close my eyes, and think of Sister Theresa—the nun who taught calculus at the elite private Catholic academy my brothers and I attended until Sol went off to Harvard and the CIA, and Si and I ran away. She was roughly six thousand years old, had a face like a cross between a deformed pug and a pumice stone, a voice like a toad, and the personality of a cactus.
Yep, that does it—hard-on gone.
I grab a spare mag from my bag of goodies, and then another Glock and mag. Exit the car and angle for Terra.
The Manhattan summer night air is warm, a fact for which I'm grateful, seeing as I'm shirtless. I wrap my arm around Terra's waist and tuck her against my side.
"Thought I told you not to fuck with Camilla," I murmur in her ear. "Not that I'm complaining. I enjoyed the hell outta the show."
"Hers, mine, or both?" She asks, voice arch and wry.
"This a test?"
"Yes."
I laugh. "At least you're honest about it," I say. "There ain't no point in denying that Camilla's got a nice pair of tits, but honey, truthfully, they don't hold a candle to yours."
"Good answer," she says, grinning up at me. "But really, I'm not jealous. I was just fucking with you. I was just so annoyed by her little act that I couldn't help myself. I know I shouldn't provoke her, but god, she did she have to wiggle them at you like that? Hell no. I ain't takin' that shit sitting down."
"A-hem. Can we?" Camilla gestures at a door. "If we're done discussing breasts."
"Sure, let’s get this shitshow on the road," I say. "By the way, Camilla, since we're discussing boobs…did you get work done on yours?"
Camilla stops dead in her tracks, pivoting slowly to face me. "Watch yourself, Saxon, dear."
"What happened to not provoking her?" Terra stage-whispers. "I thought we were afraid of her?"
"Wary, not afraid," I answer. "And it's an honest question."
"A question a gentleman does not ask a lady," Camilla says.
"Well, then, good thing I never claimed to be a gentleman."
Camilla's expression is hard as stone, and I think I can read her well enough to know I may have hit a sore spot. "You wouldn't ask that question, even in jest, if you knew what I went through after you threw me to the wolves."
I step forward into her space. "Threw you to the wolves? The fuck are you talking about? I nearly fuckin' died protecting your ass. I fucked over the goddamn Cabal for you. Took half a dozen bullets for you. Got your ass to a hospital when I was fuckin' bleeding out myself. So fuck you and your ‘threw you to the wolves’ bullshit."
She tosses her hair back, revealing the left side of her face. I make no outward reaction, but…Jesus.
I heard they fucked her up, but goddamn.
The ricochet scar is bad enough, a wicked, keloid thing going from below her eye and beside her nose up to her temple. It nearly took her eye, and she's lucky as fuck it didn't kill her. But the scarring is hard to look at. The skin is rumpled, twisted, and shiny—burned? All over her cheek, jaw, and the side of her face.
"Take a good look, Saxon. That taxi didn't take me to a hospital, it took me to my family. My father. My brothers."
"I heard rumors."
"Whatever rumors you heard are nothing compared to what I endured."
"And I’m sorry for that, Camilla. Truly. But I was dying. Getting you into a cab was the best I could do. What your fucked up family did to you can't be put at my feet."
She stares at me. "Says you." She yanks open the door. "I'm not discussing this outside. Come in."
We follow her through the door and into a smoky, low-ceilinged room, dimly lit by battery-operated faux candle votives on small round tables, electronic dance music thudding from everywhere and nowhere. Men play cards at the tables, puff on cigars and cigarettes, throw back whiskey, and sip beer. Totally naked women parade through the room, winding between tables carrying huge trays laden with bottles of whiskey, pitchers of beer, cartons of cigarettes and wooden boxes of cigars. Occasionally, a card player will lift a hand and one of the women will go to him, bending to offer him the tray. Often as not, the man will take a bottle or a cigarette, and cop a fondle. It seems to be expected since none of the women react. Other naked women walk around the room as well, these not laden with trays. Whenever a player folds, usually with a curse and an angry toss of his cards onto the table, the nearest nude female struts over to him, pulls him to his feet and leads him to a short, narrow hallway and into a room.
"Effective way to keep 'em coming back even when they lose," I remark.
