Page 72 of Break Out

The thought of Raff becoming a Devil Lancer made me cringe as much as it made me smile. Part of me thought it would be fitting for him to join that club. A vision hit me of Aunt Trixie when she found out and I snickered.

“What’s so funny?” Steel asked.

“The thought of Aunt Trixie if you convinced Raff to join your ranks. You really know how to stir a hornet’s nest.”

“Not me stirring anything, Jade. It’s up to him. Not my fault if I can spot leadership potential at a glance.”

“Leadership?” I blurted.

“Potentially. Character is what you do when nobody’s watching. He didn’t know we’d be right out and approached those assholes anyway. It could have gone wrong for him, but it didn’t.”

It struck me with razor sharp clarity that if there were a Steel and me, this would be my life. Feeling like I sat in the middle all the time.

“Do you have a concealed carry permit?” he asked.

“Sure do.”

“How often do you practice?”

“I’m due, but I usually go once a month at least.”

He shifted in his seat. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t carry your weapon.”

I glanced at him and back to the road. “Do you expect me to say yes to that?”

“It’d be nice.”

A small smile crossed my face. “Yeah, well, I can’t do that.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw him give me a hard look. “Either of those fuckwits could have taken that gun from you.”

“What about Rafferty?”

Steel faced forward. “He’s not the subject here.”

I stopped at a traffic light and looked at him. “They could have taken Raff’s gun, too. Or is it because I’m female?”

He met my gaze with earnest brown eyes. “Rafferty isn’t carrying my child. He probably has ten pounds on Pump, where you’re at a forty or fifty pound disadvantage.”

My eyes went back to the road as traffic flowed forward. “I held the gun. He’d have to be a huge moron to come for it in close quarters like that.”

Steel nodded. “There’s a reason Scar did all the talking, sweetheart. Pump is a moron. May have just met him, but it rolls off him like an odor.”

I swallowed down my sigh. “How am I supposed to take care of myself without a weapon? You know, considering that fifty-pound weight difference?”

“I was there, Simone, and I would have handled it.”

My temper flared. “Is this a blow to your ego? I pulled the weapon and what? You got embarrassed? I kept that fuckwit from getting the upper hand, tough guy.”

He leaned his head back on the seat. “I love that you’re a firecracker, but you gotta dial it down right now.”

A rueful laugh bubbled out of me. “Oh, I’ll dial it back when you give me the honesty.”

His head came forward and twisted my way. “The honesty is that you’re the one on security footage holding a weapon on those assholes. Not me – you. That pisses me off.”

I scoffed. “They aren’t going to report it.”

“Not the point. That mom could have screamed bloody murder. Hell, security footage gets reviewed at stores like that; you’re lucky they didn’t see you when it was going down.”

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