Page 39 of Destroyed (American Street Kings 4)

Glancing at me from under his lashes, I knew whatever the fuck he was about to tell me wasn’t something I was going like.

“The name listed for the woman who gave birth to me is Cassandra.” He blew out a cloud of smoke before looking my way again. “Cassandra Blackwood.”

“Jesus.” If it was possible for my heart to tear out of my fucking ass, this would have been the moment for it to happen. “Blackwood? As in, Cassian Blackwood? Crow?”

He shrugged. “Seems like it.”

“Christ.” I pulled my palm down my face. “Is this Cassandra Blackwood related to Crow?”

He nodded, and I closed my eyes. “Please, please tell me Crow’s mother isn’t this Cassandra Blackwood you’re talking about.”

Manic straightened. “No. Crow and I aren’t brothers.”

“Thank fuck.”

“But seems like we might be cousins.”

I held up my hands, pinching my eyes closed yet again. “Just shut up for a second so my head won’t explode.” I paced a few feet away, both hands weaved through my hair. “Cassandra is Crow’s aunt?”

“His aunt, and my supposed mother who disappeared the same year I was born.”

“Then how the fuck is it possible that you have a younger brother in the system if she wasn’t even around?”

“I dunno, man. There’s a lot of shit that don’t make sense. But I figure finding out who my father is might give me some answers.”

“And Crow can help you with this, I assume.”

Manic merely nodded.

I rubbed my temples, thinking a mother fucking migraine might be less painful than the current state of mindfuck I was in due to the information overload Manic just dumped on me like a heap of fucking shit.

“Okay,” I turned to face him again, “let’s backtrack here for a second. How do you know Crow suspects we have the snake?”

“He told me.”

“Jesus fucking Christ. Are you two meeting up for tea and macaroons every fucking Tuesday now?”

“Listen, I have somewhere to be in half an hour. Just be careful. Crow’s on your ass.” He walked in the other direction, leaving me gobsmacked and confused as fuck.

“And how the fuck do you know this, exactly?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“Hey, where the fuck you going? You can’t just drop this on a brother and bolt.”

He glanced at me over his shoulder. “We’ll talk about this later.”

What in the name of ever-loving fuck was going on? “PS, you’re a fucking asshole,” I yelled after him, but he had already disappeared around the corner.

This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. If Manic and Crow really were cousins, that would create one motherfucker of a conflict of interest between us and the Sixes. And now that Manic knew I had Slither, a man Crow was determined to get his hands on, it gave me one more thing to worry about.

Would Manic betray me? When push came to shove, would he choose blood above his crew? I hated that I was questioning him, that my spine tingled with worry. If a man couldn’t trust his crew, who could he trust?

God. I needed a beer.

With my thoughts scattered all over the place, I made a beeline downstairs to the bar. Like always, I immediately found her among the crowd. She always stood out to me, as if she had a goddamn halo above her head only I could see. The second our gazes collided, I forgot all about the newly added stress Manic’s freshly fucked-up situation had put on my shoulders.

Alyx and Red sat with her, no sign of Wraith. And by the absence of our president, my guess was they were probably upstairs getting it on like fucking rabbits.

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