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Excerpt
Mike
The music
was loud, and the place was packed. It definitely wasn’t my comfort zone, but
the guys wanted to blow off some steam after the last trip. So here I was,
towering over most everyone, in a dance bar. I stood in the corner and watched
people’s faces for any sign of aggression or for any sudden movement that could
possibly mean a fight would follow. I had an urge to manhandle someone, and
that wasn’t good. Maybe I’d just been spending too much time with Trigger. In
his world, the law was just a word and not something to follow.
Oh, that
reminds me.
“Cole.” I
signaled for him to follow me. I led him outside to the poorly lit patio where
a bouncer checked kids’ IDs.
“What’s
up?” He downed a bottle of water and tossed it into a can.
“I just
spent some time with Trigger.” I saw and understood Cole’s discomfort with the
topic. He knew Trigger and I had a past, and he made the effort to respect
that. It was important to me to keep my friendship with him. Cole knew Trigger
and I were a lot more alike than most realized.
“How’s he
doing?”
“Good. I
know he carries his uncle’s death on his shoulders, but he’ll bounce back.”
“Mm,” Cole
grunted. None of us were shy on the topic of death.
“He gave me
this.” I handed him the scrap of paper. “It’s the location of Salvador’s summer
house.” Cole smiled wryly at my description. Thesummer house was
where Salvador kept his drugs and where his crew cut and bagged it for
distribution.
“How legit
is this?” He pulled out his phone.
“If Trigger
gave it to me, it’s legit.”
Cole nodded
his agreement and held his phone to his ear. “Tell him thanks.” He hit my arm
and headed down the road for some privacy. “Frank, I’ve got something for you.”
I sagged
against the cool bricks and closed my eyes, needing a moment to shake off Luna’s
death. Now the hunt for her sister was that much larger. Poor Martina was a
mess when we’d left her at the safe house.
Fuck the
cartel!
My phone
vibrated in my pocket, and I thought about ignoring it. It wasn’t until the
fourth buzz that I gave in.
“Hello.”
“Hi,
Banner.” My mother greeted me with my childhood nickname. “Are you still coming
by tomorrow? You never answered my text.”
Damn! I rubbed my head and tried
to slip back into this life. It was hard to go
from scaling cliffs and scoping out a kill to doing laundry and attending your
sister’s birthday party.
“Sorry,
Mom.” I turned my back to the bar door. I had completely forgotten about my
sister’s birthday. “Yeah, I’ll be there. Four, right?”
“Okay,
good.” She paused. “What’s wrong?”
“Just a
hard week.”
“Well, you
come by and let your mama take care of you.”
I grinned
like a child. No matter how old I got, she still loved to care for me.
“Are the
rest of the boys coming?”
“Mark
mentioned about leaving a day early, but I think he just wants to find an
excuse to get out of his son’s friend’s birthday party.”
“Well, you
tell Marky he’s more than welcome. We always have extra food.”
“I will.” I
chuckled. I knew all I had to do was mention a barbecue and Mark would be game.
“Love you.”
“Love you
more, Banner. Night.”
I slipped
my phone back in my pocket and began to head inside when I heard someone softly
curse behind me. I turned slowly to find a girl on her phone. The lighting was
poor where she was standing, so I couldn’t get a good look at her face, but her
long, lean legs under her black skin-tight dress did catch my attention. Her
sexy curves had me moving closer.
“You need
to call me back, Javier.” Her Hispanic accent was there, but you could tell she
had spent a lot of time learning English. “And I want the camera back that
you stole!” She brushed at her hair like she was upset. “You just…I
need to know where you are.” She dropped her arm and swung around but jumped as
she saw me.
“Sorry.” I
raised my hands to show I wasn’t a threat. I’d learned through time that even
when I was trying to be kind, people saw me as scary. “Didn’t mean to
eavesdrop.”
Her
shoulders sagged as she sighed. “It’s fine,” she said, trying to be nice. “Just
a shitty night.”
“I hear ya
on that one.”
Her gaze
shot up to mine, and I saw the fire that smoldered behind her hazel eyes. She
squinted and seemed to really look at me for the first time. For whatever
reason, she reined herself back, and the embers faded from those eyes. I found
myself wanting to fan the flames so I could see it again, but I left the
thought alone.
“Rough
night with your mom?” She snickered.
I couldn’t
help but laugh at that. She must have spotted me when she left the bar.
“You always
listen to other people’s phone calls?”
“I could
say the same about you,” she shot back. “You were in my spot.”
“Spot?” I
stepped a little closer, feeling like it was all right to do so, before I
leaned my weight into the pole and hunkered down.
She tucked
her phone into her tiny purse and folded her arms like she was chilly. “Yes.
It’s one of the only well-lit spots around this dive of a bar. The place creeps
me out.”
I nodded.
She was right. The place did cast a lot of shadows.
“So,
imagine my surprise when I go to step outside and see you,” she dragged her
finger in the air, gesturing up the length of me, “in my spot chatting away to
your mother.” She couldn’t help but smirk again.
The look on
her face told me she was intrigued by me, and I kind of enjoyed that.
“Well,
you’re in the one percent that didn’t turn away screaming.”
“You
exaggerate, but why would I scream?” She seemed genuinely curious.
I held out
my arms so she could get a good look. “What do you see when you look at me?”
She paused
as she took me in. “I don’t know you.”
“I know,
but first impressions matter, so tell me what you see.”
“Okay.” She
stepped a little closer, which drew her into the light. My stomach twisted when
I took in her slim body, long dark-brown hair that curled to the bottom of her
back, slender legs, and a face that made my world tilt for just a moment.
“Stand,”
she commanded like she took it seriously.
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