Page 63 of Murder & Mayhem
His eyes narrowed. “Whose is it then?”
“Jamie’s.”
Flame grinned, and he was fucking lucky I didn’t smash his face in, too, especially after he wiggled his eyebrows at me. “Figures it was a pretty thing that got your panties in a twist.”
I dropped Jamie’s blade onto the tray and picked up the one next to it. Before the fucker finished laughing, the knife left my hand and embedded in the wall inches away from his face.
Flame raised his arms in surrender, barely flinching. “Easy there. I ain’t touching the boy. I gave you my word, and I don’t break my promises. Besides, I’m smart enough to know who to mess with and who to leave the fuck alone, and anyone with connections to Il Fortunato falls in the second category.”
I grumbled under my breath but trusted him enough to dig my phone out of my pocket and pull up my thread with Jamie.
The last message was the one I’d sent him this morning, when we’d taken a break from O’Malley. All it said was I hope you’re feeling better, sweetheart. I was left on read.
Still, I knew he was looking, so I typed.
Me:
We’re tying up loose ends. Do you want to see?
I hoped he understood what I meant.
They’d ended up keeping Jamie another day, but he and Bailey had been discharged from the hospital earlier this morning. I knew this not because Jamie had told me, but Ari, who was keeping abreast of all the moving pieces in this shit show. He was also how I’d found out that Jamie had no signs of lasting damage and he hadn’t vomited or passed out in over twelve hours, which was why they’d allowed him to go home. He had been coherent, no slurring or confusion. He had a really bad headache and light sensitivity that they’d given him painkillers for. Ari had told me that Skye had picked them up and brought them to one of Luca’s safe houses. I couldn’t easily go check on Jamie and make sure he was okay since it wasn’t one of ours. It made my skin crawl.Logically, I knew they were perfectly safe and being protected by Luca’s men, but ugh. I hated it.
Three dots showed up on my screen. Then disappeared. Then?—
Beautiful:
Pirate pervert?
Me:
Yeah. It’s time to end it. Do you want to be here for it?
The next pause was so long, I thought he was going to ignore me again.
Eventually, Jamie started typing. I could feel Flame’s eyes on me, but I ignored him. He could wait, or he could leave. I didn’t give a fuck either way.
The text came in.
Beautiful:
Yeah. I wanna see.
My hands shook as I typed my response. His answer shouldn’t matter that much to me, but it did.
Me:
I can pick you up?
Beautiful:
No, that’s okay. Brooks is here. He’ll drop me off. I’ll be there in 20 minutes.
Brooks was there? Why the fuck was Brooks there? Didn’t he have enough fucking boyfriends?It’s Luca’s safe house, so of course he has his guys there,the logical part of my brain told me, but logic could fuck off.
“Boy problems?” Flame snarked.
“Give me a good reason why I don’t just kill you now?”
