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Case closed.
"It's not the Grassis," I repeated, nodding, looking away from Duke and Penny, finding myself a bit too invested in their little love story. You know, from a professional standpoint. Or, at least, I was telling myself that lie.
"What makes you say that?" he pressed, making me have to turn and look at him, finding him much closer than I expected, his shoulder almost brushing mine.
Alright, so, I had never actually been into redheads before. Yes, that was a bit prejudiced of me, but what can I say, politically correct to admit it or not, it had just never been my thing. I liked darker features- dark hair, dark eyes, tanned skin. That was just my personal preference.
That being said, Renny was entirely too good looking for his, or any woman within twenty feet of him, good.
He was tall and a lithe kind of strong. You might even say skinny as a descriptor if you hadn't seen him shirtless. I had. On multiple occasions. And, well, sometimes a lean strong was just as hot as a thick strong. Because he had an eight-pack. Yes, eight. And he had the deepest Adonis belt I had ever seen in my life. Given that I lived half my life at Hailstorm around a ton of fit and often shirtless men, that was saying something. He was also covered in tattoos. They were across his chest, his back, his arms, his hands.
Then of course, there was the money maker.
He had a fantastic face. I was a sucker for some good bone structure and he had it in spades. He had a somewhat thin, but strong face with proportionate features, high and strong cheekbones, inviting lips, and striking light blue eyes.
He was whatever the male equivalent of gorgeous was.
So, despite it being my first time being into his particular brand of copper hotness, I was into it.
As such, I tried to keep as much distance as possible between us at all times. It was no easy task given how he was dead set on getting in my pants. So whenever possible, he scooted in beside me, he found reasons to be alone with me, he casually touched me.
Just like he was doing right then, scooting in close when there was no reason to be almost touching me.
"Because it doesn't fit. If they would stop ranting and raving for five seconds and think about it, they would come to the same conclusions. The Grassis are into some dark stuff, but they don't beat up women. They don't wage war on other organizations around here. For all intents and purposes, they are a peaceful little criminal enterprise. The only people they put their hands on are people who screw them over or threaten them. They do imports. You guys are no threat to them. Hell, they even import the freaking guns for you at times. Why would they step to you now? Why would they break a three-generation pattern of not involving families, in not hurting women, now?"
"They wouldn't," he said with a shrug. "But there's no talking to the rest of them until they burn through this. We lost a lot of fucking men; they're angry and they've been sitting on their hands. They need to burn through this for a few before you try to reason with them."
"You're sure it was the Grassis you all saw?" I pressed, it finally being the chance to get a calm, rational response out of someone.
"Oh, it was the fucking Grassis, alright. Luca and Antony. Matteo wasn't there. Thing is, when Penny told the story, she didn't say shit about any of them being older, graying like Antony. Luca could maybe fit the description. But aside from knowing they just aren't the type to beat women for no fucking reason or even if they had a reason, her eyewitness account from the attack was off because she was either too traumatized or wasn't seeing right, or her ID today was just off. We were in a moving car. She couldn't have gotten a great look."
"Why didn't you..."
"We did," he cut me off.
"But by the time you circled back," I started.
"They were already gone."
The finishing each other's sentences thing was only cute in movies and TV. In real life, it was annoying. Just in case you were wondering about that. Annoying.
I exhaled a breath and looked back toward the group- what was left of The Henchmen- Reign, Cash, Repo, Duke, and Renny beside me. And Wolf in the hospital.
I couldn't imagine having your numbers decimated like that.
Hailstorm was a massive operation. But when we lost someone, there was a noticeable shift in energy for a good couple of weeks. There was a solemnness to the walls. Everyone was more on-edge. I think only twice had we ever lost more than one person at a time.
