Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
It was chump change for me.
It would be enough to keep his family afloat. Without he or his siblings needing to risk arrest or retribution from other local crews by stealing over and over.
“No strings?”
“Not outside of not stealing from the place anymore yourself.”
“Won’t need to,” Cormac said with a shrug.
“Alright. Starting tomorrow. You got a phone?”
He gave me a tight nod, reaching for his pre-paid cell, then taking down my number, then Bass’s number too—just in case.
“If anything at all seems suspicious, give one of us a call. If whoever is there has access to a phone, take pictures.”
“Got it,” Cormac said. “No,” he added when I reached for my wallet to hand him money. “Don’t need your pity.”
“It’s not pity,” I said, handing him a fifty. “I am not pushing that fucking thing all the way back to the club. I hope you stretched. Don’t want you pulling a muscle.”
With that, we made our way back across Brooklyn, with me stopping to grab a damn baseball cap to tuck my hair into before getting back to the club.
The cops had likely been and gone, and Soren was standing there in his stupidly nice suit that fit him in all the right ways. The jerk.
Gav was saying something to him, but broke off mid-sentence, raised a hand, and pointed toward us as we got closer.
Soren turned, eyes going wide as he looked at Bass and Cormac pushing the dumpster. Then, as his gaze slid to me, a smile was hiding in the corner of his lips.
“Guess I should call the cops back and cancel that police report, huh?”
“Don’t bother. They were never going to waste manpower looking for some stolen marble anyway. Around here, you’re better off handling that kind of thing yourself. So, here’s the marble. No harm, no foul. Sorry if you guys were looking forward to a few days off,” I called to a few of Gav’s workers who were standing around still.
“Come on, guys, let’s get this all sorted,” Gav said, moving over toward the dumpster.
“I’m going home to shower and change,” Bass said, looking sweaty and miserable.
“Cormac, be in touch,” I said, getting a nod from the teenager before he turned and walked off. He was trying to keep his gait casual, but as soon as he thought he was far enough away, he broke into a run—likely off to go buy some decent food to feed his siblings.
“Your driver is here… installing security cameras.” The suspicion was there in his tone.
“Serano is a man of many skills,” I said, shrugging. “Those cameras should have been up before we got anything delivered. This was our own fault.”
“I wasn’t expecting a delivery that fast. Gav heard I wanted a rush on this, and got a little carried away. He was sweating bricks about it. But, like you said, no harm, no foul.”
I didn’t miss the way his hungry gaze moved over me. Or the way my body immediately started to thrum with memory, with renewed need.
I had to get away from him.
Before I did something stupid. Like invite him back to my apartment to check out my sheets.
“Well, that’s all settled. So, I’m going to get going,” I said, waving off down the street.
“Saff,” he called, making me stop, but not turn back.
But he just moved up behind me, his lips near my ear, his breath warm on the shell of it.
“That drop key is an open invitation.”
“I do—”
“I know you still have it,” he cut me off.
Of course he did.
He’d probably asked the doorman about it.
Why couldn’t I have just… left the damn thing?
Even as I thought it, though, I knew the answer.
I didn’t want to.
I wanted the option.
Even if I knew it was a terrible idea.
“Use it,” he said, his lips touching my ear. “Oh, and Saff? I like the blue hair. You don’t have to hide it.”
With that, he walked off.
Leaving me all shivery.
“Fuck,” I hissed, forcing my legs to carry me away, when every cell in my body was screaming for me to turn and run to him instead.
I told myself not to look back.
But there was no stopping it.
Soren was gone.
But Serano was standing there, eyes knowing.
Great.
That was just great.
All I could do was hope his aversion to speaking in general would also apply to not telling Renzo what he’d seen.
It was all the more reason I needed to stay away from Soren.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Soren
She’d lasted a week.
I had to give her credit for that level of self-control.
I felt like I was crawling out of my skin each time we needed to interact while she tried not to talk to or look at me directly. Then shuffled off as soon as business matters were handled.
Admittedly, each time I called her down to the site had been for purely selfish reasons. There was nothing going on that I couldn’t deal with on my own. In fact, her paperwork naming her a silent partner meant I didn’t really need to involve her in any of it, unless there was something she expressly wanted to be called in on.