I got a nod from them, then dragged Luis out of the apartment. It was one of the bikers, some fuck by the name of Pagan, who kicked out a leg when Mr Johnson was stumbling down the stairs, making the guy fall, head over feet over and over. When my gaze went to Pagan, he shrugged. “Heard he hurt our girl,” he said, then turned to go into the apartment. I caught up with Luis before he could get back to his feet, half-dragging him with me into the safe room on the next floor. I locked us in there. Then, well, then I had some fucking fun. Until the walls, floor, door, ceiling, and my entire body were painted a fresh coat of bright red blood. I wanted to make it last hours. But, more than that, I wanted to get back to Naomi. The woman I loved. The one who’d told me she loved me too. It was time for us to give it a real shot. Back in our old lives. With our people in on it now. Though I was pretty sure her daddy was going to want to kick my ass for letting her get hurt. It w

You know you’re good, Naomi,” he said, shaking his head. “Yeah, I do. But do you have any idea what it is like to be browbeat by your coworkers every fucking day of your life?” I asked. “All for one mistake that I’ve been beating myself up about for years.” “Hey,” he said, exhaling hard. “When have I ever browbeat you?” he asked. My mouth opened, ready to spew a hundred examples. I mean, if we were talking about Peter, I’d have half a million examples. And even with Liam and Elijah, I could pinpoint times when they’d poked fun or piled on. But not Vane. The only person in the office who had a right to actively dislike me. “Never,” I admitted. “But you won’t even speak to me,” I reminded him. “Look. I’m not saying I haven’t been a complete fuck. I’ve got some shit to work out. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t seen how hard you’ve worked and how far you’ve come. And all that, all this shit you’ve taken, and you’re just… giving up?” “I’m not giving up. I’m giving up this office.

So while the grounds were, almost always, teeming with guards, the inside of the house was our own little sanctuary. We ate together, sometimes showered together, fucked on every surface of the house. And some nights, he would pull me onto his chest in the library and read to me. “What are you thinking about, ma?” A asked, catching me staring out the window into the backyard. “Can I ask you something without freaking you out?” “Probably,” he said, and I had to appreciate his honesty. “What are your opinions on kids?” “In general, or ones with those eyes of yours and my love of reading?” “Well, I guess the latter.” “You guess, or you want to know if I got thoughts about putting babies in you?” he asked, coming up behind me. “I know it’s really early.” “Doesn’t matter,” he said, arms going around my stomach, pulling me against his chest. “Want a couple of kids. Even if they are going to be stubborn asses like their mother. Was having dreams about our kids that night in the hos

woman named Naomi Bat’s Da was dead. The cause of her death had been officially listed as “anaphylaxis caused by severe allergic reaction.” The specific cause was shrimp. Shrimp. Naomi’s father had died of shrimp. Case closed, as far as the coroner, the police, and even Lisa’s family were concerned. She left behind a grieving husband, . Naomi’s father was a good history teacher; everyone said so, and they said it even before her tragic death, although they said it more frequently now that she was gone and no longer able to assign homework. “I don’t understand,” I told Messenger. I was grumpy because he had come to my abode—I can’t call it home, and I can barely refer to it as mine—when I was just falling asleep. My eyes were literally closing, weighed down by a long day of work with Messenger. He appeared outside my bedroom and knocked softly but insistently on my door. Softly enough that it wouldn’t make me jump, but with sufficient confidence and persistence that I knew I coul

“I think I see where this is going,” I said, curling my lip in distaste. “Yes,” Messenger agreed. We did not stay for what came next. Nor did we pursue a greater understanding of just how this illegal relationship—if you can call the seduction of a child by an adult a relationship—progressed. I was not familiar with the laws of Massachusetts, but in California we called it rape. Yes, society treats it differently when a woman is the adult, but a crime it is; and though he smirked and went very willingly, this boy was still just a boy, not a man. “They’re on a class trip,” I said, figuring it out as I spoke. “She’s one of the chaperones. I suppose things became less, um, um . . . cooperative?” That wasn’t quite the right word, but I didn’t know how to describe it. Without any sense of movement or the passage of time, we were back in Naomi’s bedroom in her home. A shirtless Jay and a barely covered Naomi were arguing. “This is bs,” Jay was saying heatedly. “It is not bs,” she sh