Page 32 of Alliance

I scrub a hand over my face. I was in before Sam showed me this place. The promise of protection was more than enough to hook me in. All of this is just a bonus.

A really fucking good bonus.

“Of course,” I tell him. He can have seventy percent for all I care. The money I bring in here is still going to be far more than what I make now.

“Why?” I ask, the word popping from my lips before I can think better of it.

Sam shrugs, his eyes scanning over the men in the warehouse before he answers me. “Do you like her? Lana, I mean. Do you like her or was she just an easy fuck for you?” His eyes shift back to me for a moment after he asks the question.

It’s not a simple one for me to answer.

Do I like her? Yeah, but I don’t know her really. At least not as much as I’d like to. It’s hard to admit to someone’s family that you want them when you’ve only met them twice. I feel like I should know more about her before I make that statement.

When’s her birthday? Early riser or night owl? What’s her favorite color and food and thing to do? What makes her laugh? And what brings tears to her eyes?

I need to know every little detail.

All I know right now is there’s a sadness that washes over her. She carries it like a weight on her shoulders, letting it suffocate her and drag her down. She lets it go only when she’s bare before me. She has to let the control go, become vulnerable on her knees in front of me. Only then does that heaviness float away from her.

I know her eyes are intoxicating. The hazel color shifts between a green hue and brown one. I could stare at them for hours, losing myself in their grasp. I know she pants when she’s going to come, and she loves when I’m rough with her. Those eyes sparkle when I slap her ass or slam into her.

She wasn’t a quick fuck or an easy lay. Not at all. Having Lana Romano in my bed is pure ecstasy. She tastes better than any drug I’ve ever had.

“Nah.” I shake my head. “I mean, she wasn’t an easy fuck,” I tell him. “I like her.”

Sam nods his head. “It won’t be easy. Getting made. You’ll have to work your ass off. Can you do that?”

“Yeah,” I tell him. There’s no way I’d say no now.

“Good,” he says. “Stay loyal to me and only me, and when we open the books, I’ll make sure you get a button. Okay?”

He turns to me with a look that sayscapisce?My loyalty to Sam has already been solidified. It happened the day he cut the ropes from my limbs, freeing me from my almost death. “Understood,” I tell him.

“Here,” he says next, tugging a white slip of paper from his pocket and handing it to me. It’s a torn sheet of notebook paper with ten digits scribbled across it in thick black ink. “Lana’s number,” he adds. “I just had Madi drop off a burner phone. You and I are the only ones with the number.”

I stare at the thick lines of the numbers. Guys like Sam don’t do anything that doesn’t benefit them. So why would he give me his cousin’s number? How does this benefit him? “Why?” I ask.

He shrugs, nonchalant, as if this conversation isn’t life changing for him. Probably because it’s not, not like it is for me anyway.

“She needs a reason to live,” he says. “I think you may be that reason.”

I stare at the numbers forever. They burned a hole in my pocket the entire drive back to my apartment. It was like they had a life of their own. I couldn’t practically feel them vibrating.

I’ve been staring at them for hours. The second I got home, I plucked the paper from my pocket, pressing it out on the kitchen counter.

Should I call her?

What would I even say?

Hey, it’s me? That guy you slept with who almost died because of it?

Maybe a joke.Hey, yourpussy is killer. Almost literally.

No. That’s fucking stupid. I run my hands through my hair and heave a sigh. I’m being ridiculous, acting like a child over calling a girl. I’ve seen her fucking naked, it shouldn’t be that hard to call her.

I pull my cell phone from my pocket, jabbing at each of the numbers with my finger. The ringing feels like it takes forever, an endless stream of buzzing.

When it finally stops and her silky voice floats through the device, I’m paralyzed. I can’t come up with the words to speak back to her simplehello.

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