Page 75 of Three to Fall

“She cares about people.”

“Why can’t she use some of those feelings to protect herself?” It seriously fucking killed me how she was always willing to sacrifice herself.

“Would you?” Hayden asked, so fucking sensibly I wanted to smack him in the nose. “You just said yourself we don’t haveenough men to do this safely. There is a real risk we might not come home. Is that going to stop you?”

“No.” The answer came so quickly and easily and felt so right I didn’t even have to question it.

A grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. “So the two of you are exactly the same then, aren’t you? Actually, you’re probably worse, considering you’ve never even met Jacqueline. And yet you’re willing to die for her.”

“She’s important to Kara. So she’s important to me.”

“Ditto. But all I’m saying is don’t give Kara a hard time for not wanting to sit here on the sidelines when you couldn’t either.”

I scowled at him. “Fuck, you’re annoying.”

He brushed his lips over mine. “Yeah, well, you’re an asshole.”

Couldn’t deny that.

Couldn’t deny the way my dick kicked at each brush of his mouth either. Or the way my fingers acted as if they had a mind of their own, tucking themselves into the waistband of his jeans and tugging him closer so I could fucking kiss him properly.

He kissed me back, mouths opening, tongues joining, the kiss turning hot fast.

My dick ached, straining toward him, but I pulled away with a groan. “Can’t do this right now. I need to call the Louisiana chapter. See if they can help.”

Hayden’s eyes darkened, and he stepped away as if I’d slapped him. “What the fuck? No. They’re in with Luca.”

“So are you.”

His face went cold. “That was a cheap blow, and you know it. I’m not trafficking women for Luca. The Louisiana Slayers were expecting an entire van full of them. One of their guys fucking buried Kara alive.”

“Or one of ours did. We don’t know for sure because both Ratchet and Thunder are buried six feet under.”

“Why are you standing up for them?”

I sighed. “I’m not. But we fucking need help, and I don’t know where else to get it.”

Grayson cleared his throat from the other side of the room, and both Chaos and I jumped a mile. I glared at him, feeling slightly stupid for having a lover’s tiff in front of him. “Fucking hell, you stalker. Where did you come from?”

“Been here the whole time, you were just too wrapped up in each other to notice. But that’s beside the point. How many guys do you think you need?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. The more the better.” I eyed him. “But if you think I’m letting you and your doctor buddies have guns…”

He gave me a deadpan stare. “Funny. They aren’t my only friends, you know. You know those guys you met at my apartment?”

I remembered them. Five big motherfuckers who’d had Chaos and I hovering fingers over our guns, even though one of them had been baking bread and trying to make me his gay BFF. Or something. “The ones who were joking about tying a guy up and scooping out his eyeballs?”

“Yeah. They weren’t joking about that.”

I’d seen enough thugs and psychopaths in my time. Gotten to know a few of them, like Scythe and Vincent, really well. This life attracted men who liked to kill. So Grayson’s “revelation” wasn’t really much of one. “You think they’d want to help us?”

“Is there a chance they’d get to kill someone?”

“I really fucking hope so.”

Grayson just shook his head. “They’ve been calling themselves the murder squad lately, so I think they’d be in.”

“That’s dark.”

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