Page 17 of Used

I don’t answer.

“Got your message, Trick. Seems like she runs with a different crowd than we do.”

Again I don’t answer. We both know he’s right. I should already have bounced her out on her pretty pink ass. Taking girls that would piss off Frank Palermo was different. We were already in a war with him. And he wasn’t the fucking FBI, who has hundreds of East Coast agents, unlimited time to investigate, and access to data even the government isn’t supposed to have.

Though in truth, I’ve got pretty much unlimited access too, courtesy of the best hackers money can buy on the dark web. Still, I know the risk of kicking the hornet’s nest. But they sent a really pretty queen bee to sting me. And that pisses me off because this one isn’t supposed to take anyone’s side against me. I plan to remind her of that. So no, I’m not ready to give her back.

“Trick?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t play too long.”

“Nope.”

There’s a beat where I expect him to end the call, but he doesn’t.

“What else, C?”

“You should come home. Anvil and I want to hear about that party in the basement. Didn’t expect to find you drinking Bloody Marys.”

“I’m a popular guy these days. Everyone wants to dance with me.”

“Yeah, seems like. People must be confused though. Inviting just you? Like you’re the only one of us who likes to dance.”

I smirk. Where C Crue business is concerned, the three of us are Cerberus, the three-headed dog at the gates of Hades, working as one body and therefore never alone.

Maybe Enzo realizes I pulled the trigger on Frank, but he also knows any of us could’ve. Hell, Anvil shot him too, for good measure, while Frank was trying to get off a few last shots while dying.

So if Enzo plans to kill me, he’d better have a good plan to kill C and Anvil immediately too, as in all three bodies better hit the ground at the same time. Otherwise, my crue will come at him so hard his odds of survival will be less than five percent at the outside.

“I’ll come by soon, so we can talk poker.”

“All right,” he says, and the phone goes dead.

I run my fingers over the cut in my scalp. Enzo’s a rash idiot for drawing on me with witnesses watching. And smacking me in the head just to annoy me? If you do shit like that, you’d better have a sniper’s aim.

Like I do.

* * *

Laurel

I lie awake in the sinister guest bed after putting the restraints back into their slots in the head and footboards. I have to be on my stomach because I can’t stand any pressure on my wounded ass. And it throbs so much I can’t get back to sleep.

“Come sleep in my bed,” Trick says from the doorway.

“You’re unbelievable,” I say without looking at him.

“The sooner you let me have a taste, the sooner you’ll get out of my apartment.”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Very.”

I roll onto my side, so I can look at him. “That’s not how things work. You don’t do what you did and then expect to flirt and—”

“You started it,” he says, cutting me off. “Right?”