Page 52 of Savage Rule

Or you could fuck him on it too.

With that wicked thought in mind, I head back to my place in Brooklyn. I won’t have the real deal, but his scent will be there.

It takes half an hour to get home. The street is quiet, almost eerily so. If this were any other night, perhaps that would make me pause.

Instead, I park the bike in my garage and go into my apartment. And I freeze.

It’s dark and silent, as I expected it to be. However, I feel something. A presence.

With my right hand, I reach for the gun on my boot holster, and with my left I flick on the switch to the overhead light.

My gaze lands on the dark figure sitting at on my couch, his long legs stretched out before him, and I shiver. “How did you know about this place?”

“Better question would be, why did you keep it from me?”

I dump my keys on the small glass table by the door and go to stand across from him. “I wanted to have somewhere to go in case?—”

“You needed to hide from me,” Gideon finishes. Though his body seems relaxed, and there’s a slight upturn to his mouth, I can see the hard tension in his jaw. Not to mention how his stare has gone completely glacier. “Get me a drink.”

I stiffen at his mundane order. “Yes, sir.”

Luckily, I keep all of my homes well stocked, even the ones I don’t visit often. From one of the upper cabinets, I produce a bottle of gin and one of tonic.

I’m about to get a highball, when the devil in me decides his high handedness doesn’t deserve one. So I grab a plastic tumbler withI Like it Juicyin pink letters and serve it in that.

He narrows his eyes on the cup when I hand it to him.

“What?” I ask innocently. “It’s all I have.”

“Sit.”

I blow out a breath, but obey and sit on the tufted white chair set at an angle from him. “How did you find out…” I pause and narrow my gaze. “You’re having me followed.”

“I had no choice, Scar. You weren’t yourself. I knew something was up. But what you’ve done is beyond betrayal.”

My cheeks suddenly burn, whether from shame, anger, or fear, I’m not sure. “Who followed me?”

“Itsuki.”

I huff. “Itsuki. Of course.” It would be my own men he’d use. Usually, the tall silent killer stands guard outside my Philadelphia apartment, guarding it, and on occasion, he’ll accompany me on missions. He’s there to watch my back. But it wasn’t loyalty to me that made him do that. It was loyalty to Gideon.

Never did I imagine he’d be used against me.

“How long?” I demand.

“Long enough that I know where Sinclair lives.”

It’s as if my hair has been set on fire and every pore in my body suddenly starts producing sweat at an accelerated rate. I imagine Itsuki in his perfectly tailored suit standing outside the orphanage and the firehouse, while Gunn and I were inside completely oblivious. Stupidly oblivious.

“Explain it to me, Scarlet,” he hisses. “Explain to me why you’re rolling around in the muck with your fucking target? Why you disobeyed a direct order to kill him.”

“You never ordered me to kill Gunn!” I retort.

“I…” he trails off, his face completely morphed by his fury as he searches his memory. “I’m sure my exact words were, ‘you have a new target. Gunn Sinclair.’”

“Gideon, he hasn’t done anything to warrant death.”

His stare goes from glacier, to fucking disappointment and I’m not sure which is worse. “How long has this been going on?”

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