Tattlers always end up dead, but since that’s precisely the story I’m planning to run with when Demi and I leave the country, I have every intention of taking Agent Moses down with me.
Until then, nothing but ensuring Demi’s mental health and well-being is maintained is on my mind. I’ll even let her throw daggers at my brothers if it keeps her spirits up.
“He let her go, Maddox.”
“Saint didn’t let Sloane go.” I watch her trigger finger to ensure there’s no twitch before finalizing, “Heacceptedher decision as our father taught us.” I’m a prick for adding my father’s teachings into our conversation but tell me you wouldn’t do the same if it ends an argument even faster than it began. “If you don’t have to walk in the shoes of the person making the decisionafterthey’ve made it, the decision is not yours to make. Sloane wanted to go abroad—”
“Because she was scared.”
Although I’d rather not bicker about a relationship I’m not involved in, I’ll take one for team Walsh today. “Scared of who,exactly?”
As her brows pull together, Demi freezes. “My uncle. Who else would she be scared of?”
I twist my lips. “I can think of at least one more person.”
She exhales a sharp, warning breath. “I have no clue who you’re talking about.” Her diva-like attitude gains her the attention of numerous sets of eyes. “Dimitri and Rocco helped her, so she’ll forever see them as her saviors, and you, I’m not exactly sure what she thinks of you, but I’m reasonably sure she isn’t scared of you.”
The jealousy blazing through her eyes won’t stop me from nibbling at the bait she threw out. “Dem—” Her twitching trigger finger cuts me off. Not enough to keep me down for the count, but enough I hold my hands out in front of me in a non-threatening manner before taking a step closer to her. “She heard Col was going abroad. She knew he couldn’t hurt her, not just because you would have never let her out of your sight, but neither would have Saint. She left because—”
“She fell in love with a man who swore never to fall in love.” As she sucks in an angry breath, her finger taps the barrel on her gun. “Who makes a pledge like that? Even my uncle, a heartless tyrant of a man, has been in love. If he can do it, why can’t Saint?”
“I don’t know.” I lower my hand to her gun, sighing softly when she gives up her deadly weapon without too much protest. “But Saint’s inner-workings don’t interest me.” After placing her gun next to mine, I tug off her earmuffs and protective glasses before dragging my index finger down her nose. It instantly subdues her. “Yours, however, very much do.”
With the sexual chemistry between us at a pinnacle, Demi crowds in close to ensure her next set of words are only for my ears. “Stay with me tonight. Skip this shipment.” We haven’t directly spoken about what I ‘run’ for Dimitri, but her father didn’t keep her out of the family ‘business’ enough for her not to put two and two together. “We could go to the Walsh family cabin. I’ll cook for you, then we could play a board game.”
My cock immediately stiffens from the husky deliverance of her last sentence. I, however, act ignorant. “I can’t skip tonight’s run.” I don’t give a fuck that Rocco would ride my ass for weeks on end for pulling out of a shipment at the last minute. Denying Demi’s offer has nothing to do with drugs and everything to do with a surprise I’ve kept secret the past three weeks. “But I did switch up next week’s roster so I can watch you cook at Petretti’s Saturday night. Perhaps once you’ve finished there, we could go to the cabin?”
She groans instead of moaning as I was hoping. “You don’t come to Petretti’s to marvel at my culinary skills, Maddox. Admiration and stalking are two very different things.”
“I don’t stalk you.”I fucking do, at all times of the day and night.“I’m keeping an eye on you. Just because your uncle is out of town doesn’t mean it isn’t business as usual at Hopeton.”
Having no plausible defense to my accurate statement, Demi returns her earmuffs to their original position, pops back on her protective glasses, then grabs her gun off the bench at our side. The hardness I experienced earlier returns full force when she plants her feet at the width of her shoulders, holds her arms high and firm, then fires three times at the paper silhouette.
My cock should shrivel like my grandma walked in on me stroking my schlong when her third shot blows out the paper guy’s crotch. It doesn’t, though. There’s nothing sexier than a girl who can protect herself, so I won’t mention the tiny shorts she’s wearing or how she pulled her hair back in a sexy pair of pigtails, knowing it does crazy things to me. If I mention those things, I’ll walk funny for a week.
Even with us staying at my parents’ place—they’ve developed displacement issues since I went missing, so moments like today are a rarity—Demi’s sexual appetite returned to what it was before Landon flung a heap of steaming shit onto her family name. She isn’t as vocal as I’d like when she rides my face like a carousel at a fair, but with my family home having bathrooms for each bedroom and them being in opposing corners of the somewhat mansion-size house, the restraints are becoming less restrictive with each day that passes. We will go back to the cabin one day, just not until I’m as convinced as Demi that the worst is behind us.
My tongue peeks between my teeth when Demi finalizes her round by blowing on the end of her gun like smoke is pluming from the barrel. She has missed Sloane like crazy the past four weeks, but sparks of the Demi I knew before she was shipped from foster home to foster home is shining brightly. She’ll never be at full contentment—I don’t know one orphan who would—but I’m working like crazy to ensure she gets damn close to the happiness she felt when her father was still around.
“You fuckin’ love that you’ve got all the men around us mentally checking that they still have their packages, don’t you?” I stray my eyes across the men happy to gawk from a distance but way too scared to consider approaching Demi like they did her first couple of sessions here.
They said to my face that they thought it was ‘cute’ I wanted her to know how to protect herself, then straight up told Demi she wouldn’t need to know how to fire a gun if she was with them.
It’s safe to say that was when Demi’s love of making men squirm was founded. She’s taken out the nuts of every paper silhouette ever since.
While dragging her teeth over her bottom lip, Demi locks her roguish eyes with mine. “It’s more fun than making them come in their pants.”
I angle my head and arch a brow, portraying that I’m annoyed at her inability to make men come simply by looking at them. It’s all an act. Everyone can be a superhero. Some fight baddies for a living, others make people orgasm with a smile, and mine is realizing my kryptonite is also my biggest weapon. She has the ability to kill me, but instead of using her powers against me, she gives me the strength to fight with her.
I went through with Agent Moses’s suggestion because I wanted to do some good for my community. Some may believe my plans fell off the wagon when I killed a man. I don’t see it that way. My objectives haven’t changed. I am doing good for my community because if Demi can escape the carnage she was born into, perhaps her fight will encourage others to do the same.
Hopeton’s downfall isn’t because of the bad things Demi’s uncle has done to its residents. It is because of the silence of the good ones. If more people spoke out against violence and discrimination, Col wouldn’t have gotten away with as much as he has.
“Huh?” I mutter when Demi waves her hand in front of my face.
She smiles in a way that forever reminds me her smiles are by far my most favorite. “Were you daydreaming about me naked again?”
This time around, Idoinkher nose instead of running my finger down it. “Not this time around, but thanks for the reminder that I’m due for a refresher.” I nudge my head to the locker rooms not even I would shower in without shoes. “Do you want to head out back for a private lesson?”
