Page 5 of Lovely Venom

She remembered me from the trailer and thought I worked security. She said she was trying to kick the hard stuff, but no one trying to kick the powder would have thrown back all the whiskey she was drinking that night. I didn’t care. She was utterly perfect in her imperfections.The most beautiful goddamn hot mess I’d ever seen.

And fucked. Over and over. All night.

I just never got her name. I told myself it didn’t matter when she walked out with the rising sun, and that I’d never see her again.

But I was lying. I’ve been going insane trying to find her again.

She’s the only woman who’s ever made me thinkmaybe. Maybe I could have something real. Something more from a woman than an anonymous fuck. She seemed as crazy and unhinged as me.

Then she disappeared. Wasn’t showing up in the usual places. I’d been worried that Havok, a known ruthless drug dealer, fucked her up or killed her. I can’t get her out of my mind. I crave her and the way she made me feel.

Shane has a spy network that could have found El Chapo, but I’m terrified to ask him for help on this one. In case she’s as venomous as she looks.

I keep my speech short, not that anyone cares. They’re restless and hungry. They’ve been sitting too long in banquet chairs here at The Orchid.

I give my father a salute with his favorite whiskey in a glass. “You’re one of a kind, Da.” I take a sip and want to gag because this drink tastes like piss, if I’m being honest.

Running my tongue over my teeth, I notice my cousin Rhys slip out of the room with his phone pressed to one ear. But seconds later, Quinlan Empire’s lead assassin is back, his sharp gaze scanning the crowd. Not for his brother, Trace, our enforcer. For me.

Something’s up.

As soon as I’m off this damn dais, hating all the eyes on me, I make my way to Rhys.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Noel Tahiri,” Rhys deadpans, tucking a strand of long brown hair behind his ear. “Blade tracked him down to a seedy club on the border between our territory and the Italians.”

My body goes stiff at the sound of the new Albaniankyre’sname. Shane killed his predecessor Levin Berisha when he and his henchmen stormed Lennox’s nightclub, and thekyrehimself tried to rape her.

The Albanians are a cancer on the stability of our reign.

If my venomous one-night stand is some kind of PI or undercover cop, then she and I have a common nemesis. The Albanian Brotherhood is a problem that needs solving. By solving, I mean destroying. And I’m the solution.

“Anything special about that club?” I ask Rhys. “Is Tahiri just having a happy hour cocktail?”

“He owns the building and is running guns and drugs out of the stockroom. Surveillance shows an apartment above,” he murmurs. “And DEA is about to move in.”

“DEA?” I scrub a hand down the back of my neck. Crap. Tahiri is toast.

“Their High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Unit team is the most aggressive I’ve seen,” Rhys informs me.

And why we’re not trafficking narcotics.

Griffin sees us talking and hikes up to Rhys and me, looking less than pleased. “This is Da’s final fucking tribute. Can you two take one damn day off?”

“I will when the Albanians are history,” I say.

And I need to put down every last one of them like the rabid dogs they are. Drag them to my torture chamber and dump their bloody bodies to remind everyone of the kind of brutality they’re fucking with.

“Your obsession with the Albanians will be your undoing,” Griffin rouses me.

No, not finding that sexy bird I fucked will be my undoing, but I don’t voice that.

“They put their hands on Lennox,” I remind Griffin. “They destroyed her club.”

“DEA is on the scene,” Rhys adds, helping my argument.

“We can help Tahiri,” I strongly suggest. “Make himoweus.”