Page 77 of Merciful Lies

His blue eyes sparkle with intensity as he walks over to me and slides his hand around the back of my neck, tipping my face towards him for a kiss.

We haven’t fooled around since before my false alarm, and I miss him. I miss the intimacy. But I get it.

The doctor says no heavy physical activity, and sex with Nico is always heavy and very, very physical.

Sigh.

“Alright, you ready to rock this Cosmo quiz?” Giselle asks, pulling out one of my favorite magazines.

“They still make those?”

“Hell yeah,” she says, and I grin.

We spend the next hour laughing over who our ideal boyfriend is, and it turns out we’re both more into fictional men than actual men.

But the editors at Cosmopolitan are wrong.

Nico is a real man, and I am so into him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO-NICO

Ilisten as Luc and Angel give me their reports on our search for Sanchez.

O’Doyle isn’t taking me cutting him off and rejecting his daughter lying down. That asshole has been trying to get others to align against me.

It’s slow going for him, but it’s only a matter of time before some young punk thinks he can defeat me. So, we hit them. And we hit them hard.

But not how they expect.

I don’t send my guys to rough up theirs. I don’t burn their warehouses. Or attack their families.

Nope.

I don’t need to resort to violence.

I can do that. I am more than capable.

And I am willing.

More than.

Especially when I think of how scared my wife was when I was wasting my fucking time in Boston.

But I don’t. Because I’m not looking for a war. I’m simply making a point.

The Vipers aren’t the only game in town, but we are the motherfucking strongest.

Life is good when everyone can drink from the only water source in town.

But I control the ports. So, to get my point across, I close the gates. I let everyone feel who has the real power.

Power isn’t in how many city employees or government officials I have in my pocket. It isn’t in how many guns I have, or able-bodied soldiers.

Money is power. And whoever controls the ports controls the money.

If people can’t ship or receive their goods, legal or not, then no one makes money.

So this is my play. I’ll squeeze them until they serve Sanchez and O’Doyle to me on a fucking silver platter.

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