He doesn’t.
He drives into me relentlessly, hitting spots that make me see stars, one hand gripping my hip while the other slides between us to find my clit. The pleasure builds and builds until I’m sobbing with it, tears streaming down my face from the intensity.
“Come for me.” His voice is rough, strained. “Let me feel you come, Josie.”
The orgasm crashes through me—sharp and bright and overwhelming. I clench around him, screaming his name, and he follows seconds later with a groan that seems to come from somewhere deep in his chest.
We lie tangled together afterward, both of us shaking.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs against my hair. “That was—I wasn’t gentle?—”
I shift, wincing as my bruised ribs remind me they exist. “I didn’t want gentle.” I press a kiss to his chest, ignoring the stinging protest from my split lip. “I wanted you. All of you. No holding back.”
“You have all of me.” He pulls me closer. “Every broken, violent, possessive part. It’s all yours.”
“Good.” I trace patterns on his skin. “Because I’m keeping it.”
We fall asleep like that, wrapped around each other, and for the first time since the alley, I feel safe.
24
STONE
The next forty-eight hours are a blur of logistics and cleanup.
FBI agents crawl over every inch of the warehouse. Statements are given, evidence catalogued, and deals struck. Caruso’s body is shipped to the morgue, his organization crumbling without him. Summit’s leadership scatters to the wind, their dreams of developing Stoneheart dying with their cartel backing.
We won.
But I know better than to think it’s over.
“The cartel’s sending an emissary,” Agent Pilkin tells me on the second day. “They want to negotiate.”
“Negotiate what? Why aren’t you arresting them?”
“Because we can’t.” She sighs, and for the first time I see the frustration behind her professional mask. “Caruso was careful. Most of the evidence ties back to a few underlings and mostof Summit’s corporate fat cats. His lieutenants have plausible deniability, and the cartel leadership is three layers removed. We push too hard without enough to make charges stick, they lawyer up and we lose any chance of cooperation.” She shrugs. “This emissary is their attempt to cut a deal. They’re testing the waters.”
“So they get to walk?”
“Some of them. For now.” Her jaw tightens. “I don’t like it either. But sometimes you take the win you can get and live to fight another day.”
I let that sink in.
Alex leans against her car, crossing one ankle over the other. “Caruso was their point man for East Coast operations. Without him, they don’t have the infrastructure to continue here. They want out—but they want assurances.”
“What kind of assurances?”
“That you won’t come after them. That what happened here stays here. In exchange, they’re offering to leave Stoneheart territory permanently.”
It’s more than I expected. The cartel cutting their losses, ceding ground without a fight.
“Set up the meeting,” I say. “But on our terms. Our territory.”
The meeting happens at Devil’s Bar.
Neutral ground, recently rebuilt after the fire. The cartel sends a single representative—a gray-haired man in an expensive suit who introduces himself only as Mr. Reyes.
He’s smooth. Professional. The kind of man who orders deaths with the same tone he uses to order dinner.
