Page 49 of Collide

He pulled open the fridge and pulled out a can of lemonade and acan of coke and offered them both to me. I thanked him as I took the lemonade and quickly opened it. I was parched.

“Pleased to hear it, the boss will have your balls if you treat her asanything less,” Miles replied and then turned his attention back to the screen, thankfully missing the blush creeping on my cheeks at the way they were talking about me.

Danny pulled out a stool on the opposite side of the island andindicated for me to sit, which I did, before he pulled out his own stool and sat next to me.

“How’s it going?” Danny asked. It took me a second to realize hewas asking Miles.

Miles tapped at the Ipad before answering, not taking his eyes off thescreen. “Fine. The meeting with Ernie is going well, I think he’ll be a good asset. Look.”

Miles turned the Ipad to show Danny the screen and curiosity got thebetter of me, so I peeked across.

The screen showed video footage of a group of men sitting around atable clearly in deep conversation. My eyes were immediately drawn to Kai who was sitting at the head of the table, looking incredibly powerful, not to mention dangerous, with two guns strapped to a holster he wore on his body. I fidgeted on my stool and looked away when butterflies fluttered low in my belly at the sight of the man I was supposed to hate.

Danny and Miles started talking about Ernie and someone calledConroy. I didn’t have a clue what they were on about and in all honesty, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. It didn’t sound quite legit. Instead, I gazed around the kitchen.

Even this room was grand, with its sleek marble surfaces, shiny silverappliances, and an impressive view over the city. I sipped on my soda while the two of them talked.

When the two men fell silent, I braved a question that had beenrunning around my mind while I had been watching Miles tap away at the screen.

"So, Kai’s the boss, you're the enforcer," I pointed at Danny, "What doyou do in this little gangbang?" I directed to Miles while Danny let out a chortle.

"I'm the tech guy," Miles replied casually as if that was obvious. Isupposed it should have been based on how he refused to let the tablet leave his hands.

"What exactly does that entail?"

"It means I'm the brains of the organization," Miles said, a smug smirkgracing his face.

"Don't let Kai hear you say that, fuckface," Danny chimed in andclipped Miles around the back of the head with one of his giant hands, it was a playful slap which made me laugh.

"Yeah, yeah. Kai knows he wouldn't get half his shit done withoutme." Miles carried on tapping away at the screen as if whatever he was doing was far more important than this conversation.

"To be fair, he's got a point," Danny said, turning to look back at me."There isn't a database in the world Miles can't hack, or a phone conversation he can't intercept."

My mouth dropped open and I stared in awe at the man sittingopposite me.

That was pretty impressive. Scary, yes. But definitely impressive.I literally knew nothing about technology, I had a basic phone thatallowed me to text Angel. It would have made calls if I had anyone to phone, but that was all it could do. I’d heard all about social media of course, the girls at work were always bragging about how many followers they had onInstagramor how many likes they’d got on aFacebookpost, but it meant nothing to me, so I really had no experience when it came to computers.

"Wow." That was all I could say as my brain raced through a hundreddifferent government databases that Miles could allegedly hack. Eventually, I settled on believing that Danny was bragging and there was no way Miles could really hack into all the databases. "What about Hendrix then, what does he do?"

"He's in charge of logistics. You know, setting up deals, finding newimporters, making sure people pay. And if they don’t, he gives me their names and I deal with them,” Danny explained as Miles let out a big sigh.

Danny glared at him then, and a silent exchange passed betweenthem. My eyes darted between the two of them before Miles looked away and returned to his screen. I raised a questioning eyebrow at Danny.

“Miles gets nervous about outsiders knowing our business, butyou’re part of us now, Riley,” Danny said with a wink and humor in his voice.

I wanted to protest and tell them I was not part of them, norwould I ever be, but when I opened my mouth, the words just didn’t come out. I’d never been a part of anything, and while I didn’t want to be part of a criminal organization, I didn’t quite have it in me to ruin the feeling of what it felt like to hear someone say I belonged.

Call me fucked up, but there you have it.

I closed my mouth and decided to ignore Danny’s comment.

“What about Theo, what did he do before-” At the mention of Theo’sname, Miles and Danny both glared daggers at me, cutting off my words. Silence filled the room and I swallowed nervously, realizing I’d clearly said the wrong thing.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Miles said abruptly before practically launchinghimself out of his stool, grabbing his tablet from the side and storming out of the kitchen as though his ass was on fire.

“I’m…sorry. I didn’t mean to upset anyone,” I said quietly to the table,not able to make eye contact with Danny. Damn me and my nosiness.

“Don’t worry about it. Miles, he has a hard time talking about Theo.They were cousins, but they were closer than brothers, did everything together. When Theo died, he took it hard.” Danny’s tone was gentle as if coaxing down someone who was standing on a ledge about to jump.

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