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“Fuck,” Smoke curses, standing from the chair with such force it falls forward onto the ground. “You pissed off the wrong people, Frankie.”
“But hopefully I saved the right ones,” I defend. “I couldn’t stand by and NOT do anything.” I stand and face him. “Anyone in my position would have done the same.”
Smoke scoffs. “No, they wouldn’t. The people you pissed off wouldn’t. Iwouldn’t.”
“Any DECENT person in my position would have done the same,” I say, staring him down.
“Decent?” Smoke asks with a laugh.
I feel the corners of my mouth turning upward as Smoke walks up to me and cages me against the wall. He looks me in the eyes. I meet his gaze. Challenging him.
Always challenging him.
“My little hellion,” he murmurs. “But tell me something, Frankie.” He brushes his lips over mine then pulls back, teasing me. He lowers his voice to a whisper. “Do all decent people bend their dead father’s corpses like a pretzel before shoving it in the motherfucking freezer?”
“That’s unfair,” I say, talking through my teeth, barely moving my lips.
“That’s what you don’t understand,” Smoke explains. “In this dangerous game, the one you’ve decided to play alongside some of the most dangerous people in the world, there are no rules. There is no fair and unfair. There is only dead and alive. Black and white. That’s it.”
“Exactly, and a lot of women would be dead if I didn’t do what I did. Now, they’re alive.”
I push against his chest and make a move toward the stairs, but he pulls me back. A million emotions are running through my mind along with a million worst-case scenarios.
“What else you got?” Smoke asks against my neck. My pulse begins to race.
“What do you mean?” I ask, sounding breathless.
“Tell me what other secrets you’re keeping from me.” Smoke nips at my earlobe, and I can’t help the full-body shudder that erupts from within. I unwrap myself from his hold and turn to face him. “I can see there’s more.”
Smoke watches as I go back to the desk. I lean over and hit a few keys. I’ve already cued up the surveillance video. I press play, and Smoke watches as Morgan is surprised by someone before it all goes blank.
“My father was a lot of things,” I continue, reaching in my pocket I pull out the USB drive Nine gave me and plug it into the port. “But a cold-blooded murderer wasn’t one of them. At least, not in this case.” I point up to the screen at the still image that shows a very different picture than the one Smoke had showing my father walking away. I keep my cursor over the lower right-hand corner, blocking the full view of the photo. “Someone wiped the feed, then altered the photo. Do you know this man?”
“Fuck, that’s Griff,” Smoke’s face reddens as his knuckles whiten. “Are you sure it’s real? That this one isn’t the fake one?”
“I’m sure.” I say. “As I said, my father died five years ago. That I’m sure of. It couldn’t be him who killed Morgan. It wasn’t. It was Griff.”
“How sure?” Smoke yells.
I stand tall and refuse to recoil. “I’m positive.”
Smoke exhales.
“The white tux my father was wearing in your version of the picture? It was a rental that he wore once, to his own wedding to my mother years before I was born. It also happens to be the only photo that even the best hacker would ever be able to find of him.”
Smoke turns and punches his fist through the drywall. I jump at the sound, my heart breaking for him over and over again. I’m in tears as I watch him crumble before me. My chest swells with both love and despair. “All this time. All this motherfucking time! I’m gonna rip his goddamned head off!”
“Smoke!” I yell, frantically trying to get his attention.
He looks at me, but he’s not seeing me. He punches the concrete wall over and over again. His knuckles are bloodied. His arms drip with red. The skin torn but he keeps going and going.
“Stop!” I yell.
“Why?” he grinds.
“Because we need a plan,” I say, not backing down. “What happens now?”
Smoke closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again, he’s refocused. He smirks and lights a cigarette. “Now?” he chuckles wickedly. “Now, Griff and everyone he’s ever known and loved dies.”
“Smoke look at me, look at me!” I yell, getting in his face. Needing him to see me. To hear me.
He looks over my head, but I pull his face down and press my nose to his. “Smoke, calm down.”
“There’s nothing anyone can do or say to get me to calm down now.”
I step back, rip off my shirt and shove my shorts to my feet.
“That’s not a fucking good idea right now, Frankie,” Smoke warns.
“I’m a big girl. I can take it.” I step closer, pressing my body to his. He needs to feel our connection. I know sex won’t make the anger go away, but it could take it down a notch.
“Frankie,” he warns. His pupils dilate. His nostrils flare.
All I know is that I feel an overwhelming need to lift off some of the rage weighing on him so heavily, and I’ll gladly use my body to do it. I need to ground him to me. “Well, someone once told me I was dumb. Seems fitting don’t you think?”
Smoke
My hellion. My ballsy fucking hellion.
Frankie has taken away my revenge then handed it back to me all in a matter of minutes. I’m a disaster. A swirling fucking hurricane about to unleash on everyone in my path and right now it’s Frankie who’s foolishly standing in the way.
There’s no turning back. No going back to pretending that I don’t want this girl more than my next fucking breath. I don’t want to be careful with her. She’s not going to break although the thought of breaking her, breaking her IN, makes me salivate.
“I’m not going to be gentle. I don’t think I can be,” I rasp, pulling her slender body to mine. I place my hand at the delicate curve of her hip and splay my fingers out on the pert top of her high round ass. I dig my fingers into her flesh, and her mouth opens and her eyes close. “Not now. Not after what you just showed me.
Frankie doesn’t say anything. Instead, she presses her lips to my neck.
My little fucking manipulator.
“Look at me,” I demand, needing to see her face.
Frankie opens her eyes and blinks rapidly. She looks deeply into my eyes and shakes her head from side to side. “I don’t want gentle. I just want you,” she whispers. “All of you.”
I growl, and then my lips are on her. She wants all of me, so I give myself to her. All six foot three of barren soul and misguided morals. All of my broken, black heart.
All of the nothing I am is now hers.
She’s my victim, and I’m her tormentor.
She’s my prey, and I’m the predator.
She is mine to do with as I please.
And what I please right now is to make her come. Make her scream my name. Make her feel every inch of my desire for her and show her she’s always belonged to me.
