Page 70 of Voracious

“I promise I only fucked the guy while he was fucking her.”

“Base,” I groan. “Stop.”

Sighing, he rubs his face. “Right. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Your family. The Russian side of your family.”

“Yeah?”

“I need them to kill someone for me.”

Base laughs, putting another line out for himself, but when I don’t laugh with him, he goes silent. “Wait. You’re serious?”

My leg is bouncing, and I realise his is too. “What I’m about to tell you stays between us. I mean it. This could get you murdered.”

He shivers, the joking tone gone. “Right.”

“I need them to kill Bernadette and Archie Sawyer. And their daughter. Her name is Cassie.”

My friend frowns like I’ve just asked him to fly to the moon with me on a fucking unicorn. “What? Why?”

I try to tell him as little as possible. Vague details of how they forcefully pay me to hunt people down, to fuck clients and that they’re heavily set on my marrying the daughter. If I don’t, some really bad shit is going to happen, and I don’t want to find out what.

He’s uncomfortable as I tell him more. He’s still, listening, a deep line between his brows as he bites his thumbnail.

“So you aren’t at uni?”

I shake my head. “I’ve never been to uni. I applied – that’s as far as I got.”

“The fuck have you been doing the last two and a half years?”

I tilt my head, and his eyes widen even more. “Shit, man. That’s how long you’ve been stuck with them?”

“Yeah,” I say, chewing my lip. “And there’s one more thing I need from you.”

“Anything.”

“I need to go to Russia for eight months with the Sawyers…” I hesitate, chewing my lip as I tap my finger on my thigh. “If your family can’t get the job done, I need you to watch Stacey. I need you to keep Stacey safe for me while I’m gone.”

Base rubs his face, blowing out a breath. “Are you about to tell me you’re fucking Rhodes?”

Stacey is definitely in my bed, right? I didn’t imagine everything?

I can feel the tracks of her nails on my back, so I think my mind is just going haywire again. The number of volts they shoved in me is having some annoying side effects.

“Technically, no,” I reply, pulling a cigarette out and offering him one. “She’s my ex.”

“This is too much fucking information for me. I’m not even sober, man. Can’t you write all this shit down?”

I nudge him with my shoulder, and he chuckles. “Rhodes. She wastheex?”

Taking a draw of my smoke, I nod. “Yep.”

“I can’t imagine her cheating, not gonna lie. I can’t see her fucking—” He stops, sighing. “Luciella mentioned something to Tylar about you two, but I was only eavesdropping. I thought maybe you just slept with her; I didn’t know she was the one who broke your cold little heart.”

I roll my eyes and inhale another lungful of smoke. “Will you keep an eye on her?” Maybe I’m paranoid, since my guys are also looking out for her, but so fuck. That girl in my bed is everything to me.

“Yeah. But I’ll call my grandfather in an hour and see what he can do about that family. The fuckers need dealt with.”

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