Page 65 of Cruel Games

I never thought I’d see the day the wild Blackwood broke down and went full-blown insane, though. Thought he was gonna jump the Surgeon when the guy started pulling bulletsout of her skin. Pretty Boy had tended to her like she was his broken little doll, carrying her up to his room as he argued with the man who’d spent half his life putting broken soldiers back together on the front lines so they could be propped up and keep shooting.

I wasn’t afraid of many people, but damned if the Commandos didn’t scare the fuck out of me sometimes.

Surgeon used to be a combat medic, and when they stationed him in the front lines hospital for POWs, he started taking the nasty ones apart, piece by piece, showing them as much mercy as they showed our men when the tables were turned in the other direction. The whole lot of them were crazy, but he was ruthless, and showed no mercy to his enemies. Then there was Ghost, who we didn’t know much about. Legends said he was a SpecOps guy, experienced in blending in and going undercover, dismantling whole cartels, syndicates, and armies from within. He wore this fucked-up Japanese demon mask, only half-covering his face. And then there was their third, the Sentry, whose precision with long-range guns was frightening. None of them were the kind of people you crossed, and they’d been in the Guild from the day Lilly founded it.

So to see someone argue with, no,threaten,the Surgeon, was quite a shock.

I didn’t stick around after they joined us, my skin itching as I fought the urge to skitter off like a scared dog. I wasn’t going to let them think I was afraid of any of them, least of all the Skeleton Crew. But I knew when my presence was unwanted, and right now?

Oh yeah, I’d overstayed my welcome.

But those fuckers owed me now. And eventually, I’d cash in. For now, holding on to that favor was the plan. I didn’t want it to go to waste.

When I got back up to the dorms, I stepped into what looked like a war zone.

Ivy stood in the center of the room, her hands on her hips as she supervised Dingo and Coyote, who were busy stripping off their boots. Her eyes cut to me, and she frowned harder, those beady eyes narrowing so much I could have sworn she closed them.

“You’re covered in blood,” she pointed out, which had to be the most pointless and obvious observation she’d ever made. And I wasn’t really in the mood for her bullshit today.

“In case you forgot, wedidjust murder a man. Or did you forget we had a job to do?”

I yanked my shirt over my head and tossed it to the side of the room, kicking my boots off as I went along, heading for my bathroom and the warm comfort of a shower to wash away the girl’s blood.

I stopped dead in the doorway as I took in the chaos created in my absence.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Littered across the counter were various face creams, makeup containers, hairbrushes, all sorts of odds and ends of the feminine persuasion. I yanked open the door to the closet to find she’d shoved all my towels to the side and installed a temporary pole to hang dresses and long tunic shirts from. Her duffle bag of unmentionables sat on one shelf, a stack of socks and other odds and ends on another.

They say when you get really,reallyangry with someone, you see red. But my vision didn’t change as I stormed out into the front room, no longer concerned with the blood I trailed along in my wake.

“Youbitch.”

Her eyes flicked up, dismissed me, and then turned back to Coyote, who had already moved on to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. “Don’t forget, you’re on dish duty tonight. That means all of them, dog.” She pinned Dingo with that laser gaze next. “And you owe me a new pair of shoes.”

“That was an accident,” he complained, rolling his eyes. “I told you I didn’t see them there when I dumped the gear.”

“Patent leather and brain matter don’t mix,” she said dryly, sitting on the couch with a huff. “Your fault.”

“Whatever,” he conceded, disappearing into his room in search of new clothes.

Coyote turned his back on us as the sink filled with water, so I simply marched up to her and grabbed her hand, dragging her behind me on the way to my bathroom. When we passed through the door, she jerked out of my grip and crossed her arms, looking for all the world like she’d done absolutely nothing wrong.

I waslivid.

“What the fuck is all this?” I seethed, swinging my arm wide to encompass all the various women's things on every surface of the room.

She flicked imaginary lint from her shoulder, leaning against the doorway. “Looks to me like it’s a bathroom.”

“You know what the fuck I mean.” When she made no move to explain, I stalked over to her, slamming a hand against the wood above her head, nearly splintering it from the force of my aggravation.

Thatgot her attention. The catty, cunning bitch looked right up at me and smiled, disarming my brain like it was a bomb and she had a pair of scissors, and had just cut the wires.

“I told you already; what’s yours is mine.” With a nod to the sink area, her smile widened, and she lifted her nose even higher in the air. “Did you think I was kidding when I told you it would happen whether you liked it or not?”

“I locked my bedroom door when I left,” I pointed out, eyes narrowing to slits.

Again with the fucking dismissive shrugs. “I can pick locks. Even rich kids need to sneak around every now and again.”

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