Page 56 of Hear Me Roar

She smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “BrieDawson.”

“Ahhh, so you’re Brie. Can’t say it’s a pleasure to meet you, cause well, it’s not,” Iadmitted.

Knox went rigid beside me and Reyna choked out a laugh that lured Brie’s eyes in her direction for a split-second.

“Gee, quite the catch you got there, Carr. Just a word of advice; youmaywanna rethink your decision to ink her name on you. Her attitude smells likeshit.”

Did this chick have a deathwish?

Keeping myself in check was no easy feat, but I stood my ground. She was gonna have to do a lot more than ruffle my feathers for me tosnap.

“What are you doing here,Brie?”

“I came to see my friend. Is that a crime?” sheretorted.

“It is when we’re not friends,” Knoxsnapped.

“Oh, please. We’ll always be friends. You know I can’t go too long without talking toyou.”

“Well, you better find a way to get usedit.”

“Yeah? Orwhat?”

This fuckingbitch…

“You don’t wanna go there, Brie,” Reynawarned.

“Why? Cause she’ll go all big, bad Lioness on me? After that royal flop back there, I don’t think I’m veryscared.”

“You should be,” I gritted out, to which she rolled hereyes.

“Give it up, Hazel. Your bravado doesn’t faze me.Anyway” – she fluttered her eyes back to Knox – “come back to the shop this week, and I’ll ink that thing on you if you really want me to, no charge. I promise I’ll be areal goodgirl.”

Breathe, Perry,breathe…

Stepping in front of my man, I looked her dead in the eye and cocked my head to one side. “What part of ‘leave my man alone’ didn’t you understand the first time he toldyou?”

“All of it, you wanna know why? Because he was mine first and if I know him the way I do, he’s gonna get tired of that frizzy mop and rugged appearance of yours real soon. Knox is all man,Lioness, and real men need real women with soft curves to devour. And guess who has that?Moi.I’ll always be here to give him what he truly craves when everything else fallsshort.”

Annnd...SNAP.

In about five seconds, I had her pinned to the wall, my hand wedged just beneath her jaw. Several people, including Knox and Reyna, gasped in surprise. Reyna tried prying me off but I flung my arm, tossing her right intomyman. Brie’s blue eyes widened in alarm, her pulse thrumming wildly against my palm, bringing me instant gratification. So much for not being afraid, huh? I inched my face as close to hers as possible, my brows furrowedtogether.

“I will nail you to the fucking wall if you don’t stay away from him,” I growledmenacingly.

“Are you threatening me?” she asked, struggling to speak around mygrip.

“Take it as you want. I’m not playing this game with you, Brie. Back the fuck off, or you’ll find that I have absolutely no problem rearranging that pretty little mug ofyours.”

She opened her mouth to fire back, but I never got to hear what she said. Reyna yanked me off of her before the words were set free. She pushed me toward the front door while Knox stayed behind, hopefully to finish what I’d started. Were my actions childish? Maybe, but the little tramp deserved way worse. This was the last fucking straw. Regardless of the fact he hadn’t been mentioning it, I knew she was still texting him. How, you ask? Because he always carried his phone around now, or sometimes he’d receive a message and his entire demeanor would go from chill from irate. It’s those little details a woman notices that shoot up the red flags. Then, of course, you have the whole tattoo shop, and now this. Three strikes and you’re out,bitch.

I was done playing nice. If she didn’t slither back into the grimy hole from which she’d emerged,I’d drag her theremyself.

Our lives had turnedinto some unofficial witness protection program. Manny had been sleeping over every night for two weeks – Kilo, too – and the outside of our building was being monitored twenty-four-seven. As promised, Manny was with the girls from sun up to sun down, and whenever they ventured out in an attempt to live life as normally as possible, Manny had two guys on their tail. He had another two outside of Karley’s office that followed her around, too. He’d insisted on sending one out with me as well, but walking into a client’s home with an FBI-looking motherfucker behind me was out of the question. I’d be fine. Besides, the initial plan started out with only four extra heads, and somehow Manny had added another four to the original count, all of which I knew he was paying out of pocket himself. I’d tried hinting I’d be more than happy to pitch in, but he was as stubborn as Hazel; at least, in this respect. There was no reasoning with him and after a few days of going back and forth about it, I dropped it. I was never going to win the uphill battle of wills, so why press my casefurther?

Besides, by the looks of it, we might’ve been on the verge of returning to our old lives. Week three post-Dimitri voicemail was quickly fading into week four, and he had yet to show his face. He hadn’t made any further contact either, and I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I had a theory that he knew we were on high alert, so he remained hidden in the shadows, waiting for us to put our guards down just enough for him to swoop in and cause mass destruction. I’d shared this little morsel of information with Manny, who agreed it was probable based on the type of man Dimitri was. Remember when he’d told us he was going to attempt to find out just what dirty shit Dimitri kept tightly under wraps? Well, it turns out that in just a few days’ time, he did. He uncovered a boatload of information even Maya was surprised to hear. Not only did this man smuggle drugs to and from Russia, he smuggled weapons and cases of counterfeit money to other parts of the globe too. He’d even brought a few spring chickens over from Russia under a work visa and forced them into elite strip clubs, deeming him owner of their passports until he saw fit. Dimitri Petrova was bad, bad news and, unfortunately for us, had connections all around the world. Now all we could do was wait and hope that perhaps he’d realized claiming what he thought was rightfully his was actually more of a hassle than he cared to dealwith.

But we didn’t have to wait forlong…

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