Page 84 of Faith and Fury

I try to suppress the heat that springs to my face. “I’ll do the talking.”

“Oh yeah, ’cause you’re in such a talkative mood.”

It’s just as well Maverick is the one driving—if it were me, I would’ve pulled over by now to kick him out.

“I mean it, Mav,” I growl. “You’re shadowing me. That’s it. No need to get this guy riled up.”

Maverick just drives for another blissful couple seconds of silence, before he asks, “You tell Faith this guy Axe is out of recovery yet?”

“No.” I eye him sternly. “And you won’t, either.”

“Mm.” He nods, surprising me. “Fair enough. Screwed ankle or not, she’d get her ass down here. Probably break the guy all over again.”

My first instinct is to snarl at him—where does he get off, painting a picture of Faith like she’s some kind of monster? But then, what’s my reasoning for keeping her in the dark?

“It’s not a trust thing,” Maverick says, reading my expression. “It’s just who she is, y’know? She can’t talk, so she acts. Gets shit done.”

“She can talk,” I remind him pointedly.

“To us?” He scoffs. “Barely. Right now, the only language we have in common is violence. All we gotta do is listen.”

The way Maverick talks about Faith—so matter-of-fact, without fear of consequence—is almost refreshing. Crude, but … he’s not wrong.

The truest version of Faith is rough. Primal. I’ve only ever seen it when she’s throwing her fists, and when she’s riding my—

Maverick coughs, snapping me out of it.

“Care to share with the class?” he asks.

I grumble.

My thighs tightening in the passenger seat.

***

Most of the ringleaders have lawyered up by now. Axe, as far as we know, hasn’t thought that far ahead. I’ll have to remind him his rights, I think begrudgingly, now he’s more lucid.

“Weapons in the tub,” the reception warden tells us.

Maverick and I unholster our firearms. Reluctantly, he hands over a switchblade from his jacket pocket, then digs a dagger out of his boot. The warden eyes him warily until we’re all checked in.

“According to Faith, this guy was in charge of the whole ring guard. Probably used to be a fighter himself—until the ringleaders took him into their ranks.”

Maverick grimaces. “That’s fucked.”

“What’s more fucked is how he took to it like a goddamn fish to water.”

His shoulders tighten ever-so-slightly, striding beside me down the windowless hall. “Explains why Faith went so feral when she saw him.”

“Hey.” I stop him. “The second we get in that room, you don’t say a word about Faith. He’ll just take it as an excuse to fuck with your alpha.” And mine.

Maverick is unusually quiet, seething.

We barge into the interrogation room. The bald, buff alpha sitting there looks like he could just as easily be sitting in a hospital bed. I’m not sure whose decision it was to let him out of recovery in this state—a glossy look in his eye, stitches bandaged across his skull, blue and purple all over—but I want to give them a goddamn trophy. Can’t have been easy to convince the doctor that this guy was ready for travel.

“Morning,” I grunt.

I sit down across from him, letting Maverick hover. Axe doesn’t react. I guess he’s seen plenty of intimidating alphas in his time.

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