Page 39 of Ignite

“Flirty friends. Who’ve had each other’s genitals in their mouth. Yeah. That’s what friends do.”

“Lily!”

“What? It’s true!” She laughs, arms snaking around my shoulders from behind.

“I don’t want anything else. Ben’s put me off that for a long time. Conan is just… a friend.”

“Whatever you have to tell yourself, Hallie.”

I get up and grab my coat, but not before glancing at my phone again. A familiar ache pinches my chest when I don’t see his name.

Maybe it is for the best.

Or maybe…

Me

I’m going for a drive… want to join me?

I stare at the message. Then delete it before I hit send.

The phone vibrates in my hand.

Beastie

Have a good night, darlin.

Oh.

I guess that conversation’s over.

Chapter 13

CONAN

“For the love of God, Conan. Let one of us text her!” Rowan lunges for my phone, fingers just missing as I yank it back.

Reggie doesn’t move. Just sits there with his arms crossed, unimpressed. Typical. He’s the quieter twin, but his expressions cut deeper than most people’s words.

“I said, ‘Have a good night, darlin’,” I grunt, lifting my beer to my lips.

Even Reggie’s slit eyebrow goes up at that.

“What?” I ask him, jaw tight.

I trust his judgment. The twins might be a couple years younger, but they’ve seen shit. Lived through worse. That’s why we dragged them with us from Ireland when everything went sideways.

“That was one way to kill the conversation,” he mutters, grabbing his beer and sipping like he’s already bored of this.

“Well, all she said was maybe. What the hell was I meant to say?”

The twins glance at each other. A shared look. One that says you’re a dumbass without needing the words.

Declan slides into the booth beside me like he owns the place. Of course he found us here. Inferno is our second home.

Decadence is our chocolate factory, the means to hide our other business activities. But, actually, it does pretty well across the globe. The perfect front. Behind the gates, though, that’s where the darker shit happens. Mainly in Inferno.

The sex club of the elite mafia. A gateway to Enzo and all the top mafia families across the world. The Quinn brothers? We own it and maintain order through our various Decadence Games. Mine is The Chase, which is up next. Declan’s shit show game already happened, and it ended with him landing a wife.

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