Page 5 of One (The Towns Syndicate #2)

Boogie

L ance gave me a dirty look as I walked into the compound with King behind me, holding a sleepy Ally. He wasn’t happy when we showed up to take our girl, and he looked like he had been waiting for us.

“Is this going to be a recurring thing?” he snapped.

I raised my brow at him.

“Look, you hired me to protect her, right? So, you taking her in the middle of the night?—”

“When she is with us, you don’t have to worry about her,” I snarled, pushing him against the wall with a blade pressed against his throat.

“Boogie, he’s doing his job,” King said, walking past us.

Lance pushed me away.

“She’s ours and what we do with her is our business. She will always be protected with us, you will never have to worry about her safety,” I said, sheathing my knife.

“Understood,” Lance said, glaring at me before walking down a hallway.

I hated that he questioned our intentions, but I respected that he was looking out for Ally. That’s all I ever wanted, people who would fight for her like we did. I made my way to Ally’s room, and walked in to see King tucking her in.

He didn’t want to stay, but I wasn’t going to give him an option. It was a long drive from here and I wanted a few hours of sleep with her. King rolled his eyes at me when I took my pants off.

“We said we’d go home,” he whispered.

“And I changed my mind,” I said, sliding into bed with her.

“This is going to tack on two extra hours?—”

“Just get into the bed, King,” I snapped, pulling Ally closer to me.

He sighed. I knew he was going to eventually get into the bed with us. King could pretend he was going to deny us all he wanted, but I knew he wanted this as much as I did. Ally had us wrapped around her fingers and she didn’t even know it.

“Just pull the trigger, and I’ll let you live,” I murmured to the scared CEO.

The scumbag did it and I quickly pulled it towards him and he shot himself in the head. It was so quick he barely had enough time to register he was going to die, and that this was a gift. The poor girl in front of me had to suffer with the truth of her impending death.

“Mars didn’t think we could pull this off,” King said, laying down evidence on the floor.

“They were fucking so that made it easier,” I said, walking around the blood splatter not to disturb it. “He also had a gun registered to his name with a pregnant wife at home.”

“What a fucking idiot,” King snarled, slipping some more evidence into her purse.

“Typical,” I shrugged, walking out to the hotel’s living room. We had about two minutes before someone came to check on the gunshot.

King followed me to make sure we didn’t leave anything behind. We took off our booties, gloves and plastic suits and quietly left the corner room to walk down to the floor below. They were cleaning rooms; we put our trash in one of the cleaning bins and paid off one of the maids.

Chaos ensued as we left the hotel, and we made one last stop at the woman’s house to plant more evidence of her trying to make their affair public. It would be the catalyst to their downfall and the murder-suicide ploy.

King and I lingered as we listened to the police channel, watching the hotel and then her apartment, making sure they interpreted our evidence exactly as we wanted.

It went off smoothly and by the afternoon the news channels were already reporting about their affair and how she wanted to go public with it.

“Detour?” I asked, because I needed to make sure Ally was ok as we drove back home.

King stayed silent.

“I’ll drop you off,” I said, wondering why he didn’t want to go see her. He had been acting weird since I had found him losing control the other day.

Had he gotten tired of her already? When we claimed her, I assumed that meant this was it for us, that she would be ours like he was mine and I was his. He had killed for her, what had changed?

I wished we had been able to bring our bikes, but we had too many things to bring. Besides, bikes were too flashy for work unless we needed a fast getaway and even then, it was risky.

“If this isn't for you anymore, you need to tell me,” I said, as emotionless as I could muster.

“What do you mean?” he asked softly.

“Ally,” I clipped, reigning in my anger.

King chuckled. “Ally isn’t what I’m concerned about, it's being there when the Mayor is there. You heard her command to keep business separate.”

“We are, I just want to see how her meeting went with the Mayor,” I scoffed.

“That's not keeping business separate, Boogie, that is meddling in her business,” he sighed. “I just don’t want you to do anything that could end this before it has even begun.”

“So, this isn’t about her, but about the Mayor?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’d prefer not to get on the Mayor's bad side,” he said, shaking his head. “Aren’t you a little afraid of her?”

“Not really, I mean, could she kill me? Yeah, but I doubt she would when we run shit so well for her, and I don’t think we are getting in Ally’s business” I smirked looking over at him.

King stared at me before shaking his head at me, but I saw the small smile he was trying to hide.

“One day your lack of fear is going to get us killed,” he said, leaning his chair back.

“I have fear, I just don’t listen to it too often.” I shrugged. “I got nothing to be afraid of anymore when I’m the Boogie man.”

King grew serious quickly.

“Not even you are immune to the ugly nature of this world, Boogie,” he said, laying his hand on my thigh as he closed his eyes.

Take my cock you, Angel. You take it so well.

I shivered at the memory. If anyone knew anything about fear, it was me. I had lived a nightmare for ten years, and there was no way I would ever let myself be that afraid again. Those ten years had been the worst, nothing would ever be that bad again, so what did I have to lose?

Threading our hands together, I flipped on the cruise control, settling in for the three hour drive.

The Mayor didn’t scare me, she made me nervous.

I never knew how she was going to react, and I hated loose cannons.

If I had a choice, I would choose Ally and kill the Mayor.

I just hoped that didn’t have to happen because there was a chance I might not survive.

The drive was quiet as King slept. Last night, he tossed and turned for a few hours until he fell asleep hard. Now I knew why he was so worried, it wasn’t Ally, but the Mayor. King sometimes confused me. He always thought about the “What-if’s”, while I worried about what was right in front of me.

It was late afternoon as we pulled up to Christmas Town. It was lit up with colorful decorations that I had never understood, but was starting to see the appeal. It made you feel happy, and while I didn’t feel happy, I saw peoples’ reactions to it which made me understand it.

I parked the car as Ally’s red hair came around a corner with the Mayor next to her. Their body language was relaxed, but I tensed as I saw the twins behind them. I didn’t like that Ally was outnumbered. I jerked forward ready to get out of the car when King’s hand on my thigh tightened.

“Don’t be rash,” he whispered. “She’s not in danger.”

“She’s outnumbered,” I growled.

“If they wanted to kill her, they would have done it behind closed doors,” King said softly.

Ally and the Mayor hugged for a moment before the mayor cupped her cheek. The twins' eyes were looking around them until they locked eyes on our car.

“Fuck,” King whispered.

I stilled, wondering if they would tell the Mayor something.

They grinned, trading a look between them, and winked before walking in front of the Mayor, getting into her car.

Lance stood by Ally as the Mayor left, allowing us to see her smile.

My heart clenched to see her happy. It wasn’t an expression I was used to seeing on her face and while it was odd, I think I liked it. I was proud of her.

We waited a moment before getting out of the car. Ally saw us immediately and ran to us. She threw herself at King and he caught her as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

“I’m on a six-month probation,” she said, before kissing him deeply. “It’s mine and she will come back, but she was impressed I wasn’t dead.”

She kissed King again who kissed her back with equal fervor.

“You ready?” King asked against her lips. “Running a town is?—”

I pinched his ass before he said something stupid.

“Exhausting.” He glared at me.

“I… I think I'm ready for it, it's going to be hard, but I know I can do it,” she said as she looked over her shoulder at me with a smile. “I practically ran the show when Nic was fucking around.”

King and I locked eyes for a moment. He didn’t have to say anything for me to know what he was thinking.

The mayor was giving Ally a false sense of hope.

Running a town wasn’t easy, running a town as a woman was going to be hard, and I didn’t want to say it, but I didn't know if Ally was going to be able to do it.

I worried about her because if people found out Kris was no longer running Christmas town before she was ready, she might have war on her doorstep.

If that happened, she would be in danger.

The Mayor should have known better than to give her false hope.

Did she want her to succeed or was she punishing us?

Ally threw her arms around me as I plastered a smile on my face. I drew her in for a kiss and made a silent promise. No matter what, she had us and we were going to support her, even if that meant killing everyone that threatened her.