Page 122 of Dangerous Men
I can’t keep the smile off my face all day. I’m grinning like an idiot all day at work.
Even with the increase in customers, the usual post-lunch lull arrives, and the crowd begins to thin. I help Jade clean up, surprised at how empty the bakery case is—wiped clean by wave after wave of customers eager for her tasty treats—and then take a much-needed coffee break.
When I’m caffeinated and energized, I finally finish the restocking I started yesterday. A new Stephanie Kong thriller just came out, and I’m pleased I thought ahead and ordered extra copies of her earlier works. Every time she comes out with a new bestseller, her old work just flies off the shelf.
I feel happier than I have in years as I step out the side entrance of the building into the alley. It’s a creepy, unsettling place, weirdly thin because the buildings on this block are built too close together, and even in the daylight, it’s always a little dark here, but it keeps the trash and recycling bins out of sight, so who am I to complain?
There’s someone out there leaning against the building next door, smoking, when I drag a pile of broken-down cardboard boxes outside. I don’t mind if people use the alley, so long as they aren’t bothering anyone, and this man certainly isn’t.
He’s a massive thing, though. Almost as big as Ashton, which is saying something. I nod politely to him as I pass, but he doesn’t return the gesture. He just watches me, tilting his head to the side like I’m a puzzle he’s trying to solve.
He’s not unattractive. In fact, he’s rather sexy, even with the scar above his eye and his short, buzzed hair. He looks wild. Feral.
But I don’t give him much thought as I open the recycling bin and toss my boxes inside.
After a few seconds, I’m not even thinking about him at all.
Not until he grabs me, shoving me hard against the brick wall of the alley, and puts a knife to my throat.
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VIPER
I’m notupset that my brothers lied to me.
But isn’t it sointerestingthat they tried?
Anthony has been a low-level pain in Alec’s ass for over a year now, and there’s no reason at all he’d suddenly jump to the front of the queue and need my attention. No reason at all unless thereasonwas to keep me occupied.
So very interesting.
It took me a day to find Anthony. And even less time than that to break him and dispose of the body.
Now Anthony is at the bottom of the Fortune City River, weighed down with concrete, and I have all the time in the world to find out why my brothers wanted meoccupied.
The answer is a surprise. She’s not what I expected to find.
For all his paranoia and perception, Sebastian is an easy mark to follow. When you think you’re untouchable, you let yourself relax, let your guard down. Doc should know better than that, but it’s okay. Maybe this is just what he needs to learn that little lesson.
No one’s untouchable.
Not Alec. Not Sebastian.
And not the woman they tried to keep from me.
“So very interesting,” I murmur, pressing her against the brick wall of the alley with my body. She trembles like a rabbit as she stares up at me, eyes blown wide with fear.
I take a moment to appreciate how she looks, with her soft brown curls and her big brown eyes. She wants to run, run far away, my little rabbit, but she’s frozen in place, trapped in her fear. Frozen at the sight of a predator.
“What do they see in you, little rabbit?” I ask, pressing the blade of my knife against her neck. Not enough to cut her, oh no. But she flinches away as if it hurts.
She doesn’t know real pain. Not yet.
The rabbit doesn’t answer me, so I drag the knife tip up to her chin, forcing her head up. She’s pretty, so very pretty, but who gives a shit about pretty?
She’s soft.
I run my other hand up her leg and grab her hip, gripping hard enough to make her cry out. So very soft.
