Groans, laughter, threats, someone’s hand already sliding up my thigh under the table.
My phone buzzes.
Unknown number.
One photo.
Me stepping out of Vitaly’s car tonight, lips swollen from that kiss, dress riding high enough to flash lace.
Taken from the shadows across the street.
I turn the screen around so they can all see.
“Oh, boys,” I breathe, wet and wicked, “he really does play dirty.”
Five sets of eyes go black at once.
Orion cracks his neck. “Bring him home, baby.”
Callum’s already loading a magazine with a grin that would make lesser men shit themselves.
Noah whispers, “We’re gonna need a bigger bed.”
Elliot just smiles. The rare, real one that says someone’s about to learn a very painful lesson in ownership.
And I sit there in the middle of my beautiful, broken monsters, thighs clenched around the ache Reid just gifted me.
Welcome to the family, Detective.
You just poked the hornet’s nest with your dick.
Hope you’re ready to get stung.
Chapter Fifteen
Orion
The guy we’re tailing looks like the human equivalent of unseasoned boiled chicken. Beige sedan, beige windbreaker, beige personality that probably apologizes to furniture when he bumps into it. He checks his rearview for the fourth time in two blocks. Not paranoia.
Guilt.
The man’s soul is sweating.
Callum has his size-fourteen boots on my dash like we’re picking up dry cleaning instead of about to stuff a sleazy middleman into a trunk.
“So,” he says, rolling the lollipop across his tongue. “On a scale from one to Juliet, how many pieces does this guy leave in tonight?”
“Juliet is not a unit of measurement,” I say.
Callum snorts so hard the lollipop almost flies out. “Bullshit. One Juliet is ‘I followed you home and learned your blood type for fun.’ Two Juliets is ‘you looked at my man too long, now I’m keeping your eyes in a jar.’ I’ve got a schedule to keep, mate.”
The sedan finally signals. Three feet from the turn.
Then hooks into a dark little alley behind a dying strip mall. The kind of place where the rent is cheap because nobody asks why the vans only show up after midnight.
“Juliet and a half,” I say. “We need him coherent enough to name names. Limbs stay attached. For now.”
Callum grins like I just told him Juliet texted the chocolate lube is back in stock. “So all ten fingers, but kneecaps are participation trophies?”
