Page 39 of Blood of Vengeance

I had a feeling Flinch wouldn’t like him being in the truck with me, more because it made me a bit uncomfortable than anything else, but I kept my mouth shut and slipped into the driver’s seat. We didn’t need another Hellion getting into trouble because I felt intimidated by them.

When I turned the key and the dash lit up, though, I frowned.

“What’s up?”

“This gauge has to be broken,” I said, tapping on the computer-like dash that likely wasn’t broken but couldn’t be showing what it was. “The tank always reads the same. It’s always full, even if I drove around town and know I used gas.”

The prospect huffed a laugh. “It’s not broken. Flinch takes it every night to fill it up for you.”

I whipped my head in his direction so fast, I almost wobbled in my seat. “He does?”

“Yup. He rode in about two last night and took it before heading back out with the crew.”

That made no sense. “Why?”

The leer that man sent me had me refocusing on how uncomfortable it felt to be confined to such a small space with him.

“You tell me. What do you have going on that would make a man simp out like that?”

I had no answer to that, and the stare he pinned me with only kept me feeling more uncomfortable by the minute, so I chose to ignore him.

I stared straight ahead, not giving him my attention for another second, and threw the truck in gear. “Where am I going?”

Thankfully, the prospect turned in his seat and stopped trying to see right through me as I began to drive. He even cracked a few jokes as he gave me directions to a small coffee shop in a strip of shops in town. The place looked clean but outdated, likely a perfect local joint to grab a cup of something well brewed. Inside, the menu was relatively simple—coffee, tea, and espresso-based drinks with different milk options and some standard syrups. Nothing crazy. They weren’t a coffee shop trying to get Instagram-famous or have the biggest menu in town. They seemed like a place that made a good cup of coffee all day. I liked it immediately.

“Best espresso in town,” he said before nodding toward the menu. “What will you have? My treat.”

“Oh no. I can?—”

“Flinch would kill me.” He turned to look in the pastry case. “Let me buy you a coffee so I can keep breathing.”

Well, when he put it that way…

“Cappuccino. Nothing fancy.”

The prospect bought us our drinks—Americano for him and the frothiest cappuccino I’d ever seen for me—and chose a couple of Danishes as well. I wasn’t actually hungry, but I acquiesced to the idea of at least picking at one. Once we had our food and drinks, I led the way to the front of the shop and settled into an armchair by the front window.

“This place is nice,” I said, hoping to shrug off the sense of unease that had seemed to settle like a yoke around my neck. “Local favorite?”

“Yeah. The owner supports about every local charity and kids sports team in town, so most people come here instead of hitting up the chain out by the highway. You can’t get one of those shaken upside-down frappe-happy things, but the coffee’s good, the espresso is strong, and the prices are right.”

I shrugged, sitting deeper in the chair, sipping on my mug of delicious, foamy goodness. “He’s got the equipment to do the same drinks as any chain shop. It’s all just espresso and milk, you know? The variances are in what order things go in and how you treat the milk.”

“You work at a coffee place?”

“No, but I used to. I’m a bartender back home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Detroit.”

He frowned, looking as if he didn’t believe me. “No one who says they’re from Detroit is actually from the city.”

I laughed, curling over myself and practically guffawing. “I’m a transplant, but I actually do live in the city.”

He grunted and sat a little deeper, taking a sip of his Americano before pulling out his next question. “Where are you from originally?”

I shrugged, taking a deep sip of my own drink before answering. “Here, technically. At least, I was born in Mesa. Chiggy kicked us out when I was six, so my mom just sort of started making her way east. Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan—she kept moving us around until we ended up in Philly.”

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