Page 13 of Pursued-

The murderous look on Sasha’s face should scare me. Instead it’s satisfying. So is the fact that he bought me books. The only other man who buys me things is my father, and he only gets me things to wear so I’ll look good on his precious social media account. Fancy clothes and shoes serve his own interests, not mine. He used them to make me an Instagram star and to trade me to a New York Mafia heir.

“Do you read much?” I ask.

He shrugs.

“Did you read my copies ofFight ClubandThe Coldest Girl in Coldtown?AndPaper Towns?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Why?” I ask.

“To see what was in them.”

“Did you like them?”

He shrugs. “I liked the necromancer vampire mafia ones better. I read all those.”

I laugh and find it hard to stop. The thought of him reading sex-filled urban fantasy novels full of over-the-top wisecracking characters is crazy to me.

He smirks.

It’s so rare to see him smile that I stare up at him.

“Trick calls them trash. But he reads them all too. Sometimes I buy ones where it’s all sap ‘cause I know he’ll force himself to read them to mock me.”

“Do you read the sappy ones?”

He shakes his head.

I laugh again, this time at the idea of Sasha tricking Trick, who’s known to be dangerously clever.

“Are you and Trick friends?” I ask. They hadn’t seemed like it when they worked for my father.

He shrugs. “More like brothers. Stuck with each other, forced to be together all the damn time.”

“But you’re close?”

After a moment he shrugs again. “Not close as friends. But no one can come for one of us without coming for all three of us.”

“The family you choose,” I say, nodding. “That’s Zoe and me. Can you ask C to bring her here? I want to see her.”

He looks away.

“Why not? I won’t tell her.”

“Tell her what?”

I glance at the bedroom. “I won’t tell her what you did.”

“I don’t care if you do.”

“Did you tell C that you planned to force me to have sex with you as revenge?”

“I didn’t even tell him I planned to take you.”

I stare at him. After several beats of silence, I say, “Isn’t this a C Crue operation?”

“No.”