One I don’t waste.
Moving as fast as I can, I try to dart around the massive figure clad in black in front of me. The one blocking me from Jonah. From safety.
“Jonah, run?—”
But the man behind me is faster.
He grabs me around my waist, pushing against my stomach, and my heart stops.
My baby.
An unholy scream rips from the depths of my soul.
“You fucking bitch.” His vicious voice sears into my psyche.
But I don’t have time to fear for the future, too afraid of what’s happening right now.
The hand around me lets go and a fist comes down against my cheek. Pain ricocheting through my head. I crumple. “Hurry up, man. I think she broke my knee.”
“No,” I scream. Fighting. Harder. I have to do something. But my vision is swimming as blood pools in my mouth, and I fight to breathe.
I can’t see Jonah. Just hear his muffled screams as the figure in front of me moves.
“You tell Jameson Murphy if he calls the cops—she dies.”
“Ashton—” Jonah’s scream is ear-piercing before it cuts off completely.
“Tell him to wait by the phone.”
No . . . Jamie.
It feels like a bee stings my neck as my vision darkens.
Jonah’s body crumbled on the pavement is the last thing I see before the world goes black.
JAMIE
Men don’t realize their superpower is safety.
Keep her safe. Her heart. Her body. Her soul.
Do those three things, and I’ll know I raised good men.
—Advice from Aiden Murphy to Jameson and Finn
“You’re not listening to me, Liv.” I close the folder and pass it back to my agent. “I don’t give a shit about the endorsement deal if it requires me to be fifty feet tall in a banana hammock in the middle of Times Square. I don’t need the money that bad.”
Olivia St. James has been my agent for the past three years, after my previous agent retired and Liv took over most of his roster of clients. She’s also one of my closest friend’s little sisters, so it’s fun to rile her up. Especially because this woman doesn’t rile easily.
“Everyone needs the money, Jamie, even you. There’s no such thing as too much money.” She yanks the folder out of myhand and tosses it to her desk as she pulls herself up to sit on top of it. You can take the St. James out of the gym, but you can never fully take the MMA gym she grew up in out of the St. James. Even if this one detests it. Olivia draws a line at sweating. “What if we say no billboards?”
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I silence it.
“What if we say no to anything that requires me to be without pants?” I counter. “Shirtless, fine. But I don’t want my daughter looking back at her daddy’s campaigns one day, and her friends commenting on how big my dick looks.”
Liv’s eyebrows shoot up, practically touching her hairline. “First, there is so much to unpack with that seriously fucked up sentence, Murphy.” Her eyes scan over to where Kyrie sleeps in her car seat as she shakes her head. “Starting with how I seriously hope her friends are not looking at your dick and ending with what I’ve seen of you in the locker room. It’s not that big.”
“Olivia...” I groan, and she rolls her eyes.
