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Oh, and when the Angels got to the parts of our investigations that might include blood and guns and direct run-ins with bad guys (not to mention the police), the NI&S team stepped in.
But before that, Javi had been a Shadow Soldier.
Nope.
The Shadow Soldier. He’d been the first and he recruited all the rest.
In other words, a vigilante, like the Angels, except they were all men, they had matching tattoos, and two of them sadly got dead not too long ago, so the NI&S team snapped the rest of them up and absorbed them into their operations.
As previously mentioned, Javi was also a man I had a huge crush on, and not just because he was incredible to look at, he had a deep, rough voice that did things to my heart (and other places as well), the most unusual, beautiful eyes I’d ever seen and an amazing body.
No, it was because he had a finely honed sense of right and wrong, and the drive to do something about it, he loved his mom a whole lot, and he treated his men like brothers and grieved the ones he lost like he’d lost his own blood…
And again, as mentioned, the very first time we met, sparks flew. So many of them, I was singed, and the burn felt awesome.
Since then…nothing.
He made no moves.
He made no plays.
None of either, even if he’d had ample opportunity. He was a member of our group. So I couldn’t say I saw Javi every day, but we all hung out together a lot.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe those sparks weren’t what I thought they were, firing from us both.
Maybe they only fired from me.
Or at least, all evidence was suggesting that.
But now, he was there, messing up our carefully crafted plan to put a stop to Kev’s (and now Trev’s) shenanigans, and that was not okay.
I was also not okay being in this classy, romantically lit restaurant with the most gorgeous man I’d ever laid eyes on sitting across the table from where I stood, looking like he was my guy.
My man.
My soulmate.
Therefore, I snatched up my bag and started to flounce away.
And yes, I flounced when I was angry. It came naturally. It was how I moved. I’d tried not to flounce, and it was like trying not to breathe.
I was just a girl who flounced.
I got five feet before my hand was seized in one much larger and stronger than mine, and I wasn’t flouncing anymore.
I was being dragged, discreetly, but being dragged nonetheless.
“Holy shit.” (Luna)
“Oh my God.” (Raye)
“What the fuck?” (Jessie)
“Okay, he’s being an asshole. But it’s still hot.” (Shanti)
In order not to make a scene, I decided to let Javi pull me out of the restaurant and continue to do it even as he nodded to the valet outside who tossed him a set of keys, and then Javi walked us to a big, shiny, granite Toyota Tundra that was parked close to the front doors.
But, let’s face it, I allowed this mostly because he was holding my hand.