“Hey, I’m just saying, if it walks like a duck, fucks like a?—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Oooh. Touched a nerve?”
Touched fucking all of them.
“I’m just giving you shit. You’re one of the last to fall, and this woman’s gonna do you in. Mark my words.”
She willnot.She’s here because I forced her, not because she wants to be.
“Fuck you.”
“It’s alright,” he says, snarky as fuck. “You can do this. Be a big boy. Use your big boy words.”
I exhale through my nose. “I fucking hate you.”
“Nah, baby, youloveme. Now go take care of your girl and figure out what the fuck Cillian O’Rourke wants here.”
I hang up the phone as Anissa polishes off the last of her toast. “You men show affection so strangely,” she says, shaking her head. “Probably your bestie on the line, eh?”
I glare at her.
How’d she know?
But when she busts out laughing, I huff out a breath. “I tease, I tease,” she says, drinking from her steaming mug of tea. “I saw Rodion’s name pop up on the caller ID.” Her gaze levels with mine. “You don’t think you’re the only one who knows how to stalk, do you?”
I definitely fucking don’t.
The perpetual glint in her eyes fades a bit. “Did he say something about the Irish?” I note the way she moves without meeting my eyes, standing to rinse her dish and put it in the dishwasher. She takes out a mug and pours me a cup of coffee. “Cream? Sugar?”
I shake my head and take it black.
“Cillian O’Rourke’s in town.”
Something flickers in her gaze. “That’s strange. Why?”
“That’s a good question, isn’t it?”
She wipes crumbs off the counter and doesn’t meet my eyes. “Thought you were friends now.”
“We’re allies.”
She looks over her shoulder. “There’s a difference?”
“Yes.”
Leaning her ass up against the counter, she looks genuinely curious. “How?”
“You lay down a life for a friend. A friend calls you, you drop everything and go to them. A friend has a kid—they’re your blood. An ally means you don’t fight, doesn’t mean shit about actual loyalty.”
You take a brand for a friend.
You bury the body of a guy you fucking loved out of loyalty because he broke the code.
No. Cillian O’Rourke is no friend of mine. I don’t like that he’s sniffing around, asking questions about their missing forger.
“I love how you frame it all so generally,” she says with a sad smile. “And no, people don’t treat each other that way for friendship.Youdo.” Her gaze flickers away. “That’s you, boo. Not everyone.”
