Page 46 of Tide of Treason
I exhaled a stream of smoke. “You let me worry about that.”
From somewhere behind me, Dominguez scoffed. “Since when do you worry about anything?”
Fair point.
I flicked ash to the pavement, thinking about how I could’ve been buried under some Jersey landfill by now if I hadn’t known how to navigate the Feds, the rats, and the inevitable backstabbing that came with this life. But if I was honest, that shit was background noise to what’d really been stuck in my head for the last forty-eight hours.
Two sleepless, blood-throbbing days obsessing over the way Kayla’s mouth felt around me like it was the goddamn World Cup of blowjobs and she was hellbent on bringinghome the trophy. I took another drag and exhaled slowly, watching the smoke curl and dissipate. For the first time in my life, I’d almost blacked out from a blowjob. There was no instruction manual for that kind of humiliation.
And that’s exactly when I saw it.
Right when she shifted, when she leaned in at a new angle, my free hand sliding under her dress to palm her ass because I’m a greedy motherfucker. The car shifted lanes, nearly took out a curb, but fuck if I cared. My attention snagged on the swirl of ink teasing me from beneath the edge of silk, begging me to tug it lower. When I did, the sight nearly sent me veering straight into oncoming traffic.
Absolutely whore fucking branded.
The kind of ink that made a man stop mid-thrust, grip a woman’s hips a little harder, and reevaluate everything he thought he knew about her. The kind designed for when she was on all fours, ass up, arms shaking as she braced herself on the mattress, helpless to do anything buttake it.
Not new ink, either. Which meant some other bastard had seen it before me. Had put his hands there. Had spread her apart and fucked her senseless while that tattoo stared back at him, smug and knowing. My blood ran hot and possessive, a slow simmer of rage-tinged lust. An uncontrollable urge of mine had me wanting to track down every last man who’d laid eyes on it and gouge them out one by one.
For that, the ring had been a calculated decision. A little “fuck you” wrapped in polished platinum, courtesy of Maya and Amara’s high-end money-laundering operation. I’d walkedinto their showroom, flicked through a case of bands until I found the biggest, gaudiest, most obnoxiously expensive piece of metal. The girls had taken one look at my face; hadn’t needed to ask. Just slid the ring across the glass with twin smirks.
The moment Kayla’s gaze snagged on it the next morning, dark and sharp and just a little unhinged, it was worth every shady, laundered cent.
Petty?
Yeah.
So what?
But I couldn’t touch her again.
Not until I figured out what the fuck she was doing to me.
Because something addictively destructive was happening in the marrow of my bones.
“Yo, boss.”
I turned my head. Dominguez had caught onto my momentary distraction.
“You thinking about her again?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
He grinned. “You are. Jesus, you got it bad. I bet if I—”
One dark glance from me was enough to slice the words right out of his throat.
The driver finished sealing up the back of the truck, clamping the locks shut with a metallic snap. Across the alley, one of the younger guys—new blood, barely out of his teens—was getting shoved around by a Fed who hadn’t gotten thememo that we owned him now. The kid took it for a beat before snapping something sharp and stupid back.
The Fed grabbed him by the collar.
I pushed off the truck.
Vargas wiped his hands on a rag, shot me a look. “Boss?”
“Dominguez, deal with this dumbass before he gets himself shot.”
He peeled off with the enthusiasm of a wolf let off his chain. I relaxed against the vehicle again, shoulder to metal, heat from the engine warming my back. One last drag of the cigarette and I flicked it to the pavement, watched the ember skitter and die in the dust. Felt like a metaphor for something, but I didn’t have the patience to figure it out.
