Page 35 of Root

She seems sweet and innocent.

But then she has that steel in her.

I cast a glance at Rush, but those clever, flirty eyes are shuttered and the sexy mouth straight. His expression is unreadable.

Him…I’m not a fan of that expression, that battening down, but him? I can take him and what he serves. Rush, I don’t think, will kill me.

His cousin?

A whole other story.

“Don’t fucking look at him,” Nikolai says. “He won’t fucking help you. He’s loyal to me. Not you. You’re a piece of fucking cheap ass.”

I flinch and my hands curl. But before I can say anything, Rush jumps in.

“Dude—Nikolai, not cool, man. Not cool at all.”

“Which part?” Nikolai asks, a total cold-blooded predator.

Rush steps up, waves a hand. “All of it. Most of it. Some.” He pauses, casts me a look and then looks at his cousin. “The bit about her being a fucking cheap piece of ass?”

I’m so touched.

The big mafia boss tilts his head. “She’s expensive?”

“Nikolai.”

“Calling it how I see it, Rush,” Nikolai says silkily.

Oh, fuck is it hard keeping my mouth shut.

“I didn’t sign up to get insulted,” I snap.

Yeah, too hard.

Nikolai’s gaze hits me. “You didn’t sign up to get dead either, but that could fucking happen.” Then he waits a beat. “Signed up?”

My mouth’s too big. And I didn’t sign up. “Figure of speech.”

“Or Freudian slip.”

“Nikolai, she got stabbed for me.” Rush steps in front of me like he’s my conquering hero.

I gently move him out of the way.

He’s harder to move than I thought, and the only reason gentle works is he does it himself.

“I’m aware.” Nikolai keeps his gaze on me. “Who owns Bunny Munroe?”

I think fast. I can’t say the Ten64. They’re new here, but I don’t know his history with the gang. All I know is that their reputation’s unsavory.

And they have a lot of strength now. Numbers. Ask me, which no one ever does, going against someone like the Wilder crime family’s an utterly foolhardy thing.

They haven’t said they’re doing that, just that they want information on the family from whoever ventures into the bar.

Things like that can be seen as acts of war.

But digging up information and muscling into the Queenstown territories to carve a piece for themselves is stupid without permission.

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