“Killian!” he croaks as my hand clenches shut on his throat and I lift him off the ground with one arm. He scrabbles helplessly at it like a fucking kitten with a ball of yarn. “My man, what’re you?—”
“You’ve been cheating me,” I growl between gritted teeth. “Taking double, triple the fucking profit while I got only a quarter. You think I wouldn’t ever notice?”
I squeeze tighter on his larynx, and he chokes and kicks his feet. “Wait… Kill… I… I can explain.”
“Better do it fast before I decide you’ve taken your last breath.”
“The money—you’ve said it isn’t important to you!” he hacks. “I thought… I figured… I needed it more than you do!”
“You figured wrong. Tell me why I shouldn’t pummel your face like that punching bag right now.”
“I’ll give the money back. Every extra profit I took. You can have it!”
I step back and let him drop to the floor. He crawls toward me right away, locking his arms around my ankles, damn near kissing my feet.
For the next minute, he grovels. Tears mist his eyes and snot bubbles from his nose as he promises he’ll swap the cuts and won’t try shit like that ever again.
“You’ve gotta believe me, Kill baby. I’m onyourside.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say coldly. “Or maybe it’s time tolook for a new manager. Get the fuck out my face and don’t show up here again unless you’re told to.”
He scrambles to his feet, uncaring that his precious snakeskin suit has touched the filthy ground of Malone’s Gym. He scurries for the door without a look back, ignoring how other fighters in the vicinity watch on and laugh.
Serves him right.
Money doesn’t mean shit to me.
But Jhene’s right that it’s theprinciple. That’s money I’ve earned and have claim to.
Elsewhere, Ronan’s got us on high alert. We’re still in the war planning phase, conducting meetings and reconnaissance and the occasional strike against the Bratva.
It’s exhausting and deadly, but it’s necessary. We’re at war now, which means there’s only more bloodshed to come.
The one bright spot in everything is Jhene.
We’ve made it official—as official as two people in our situation can be anyway.
We’re dating, no longer pretending we can even somewhat resist each other.
She sleeps in my bed every night, steals my shirts when hers are in the wash, and gives me shit about leaving my dirty protein bottles in the sink.
It’s domestic and routine, and I fucking love it.
I never thought I’d be the type for a real relationship. Few women have interested me enough to ever want one, and the select ones who have didn’t work out. I was too clueless to know how to read their emotions and usually wound up sticking my foot in my mouth one way or another.
But Jhene’s different.
We’re both grumpy assholes. Both introverts who prefer solitude and keeping things simple.
We get each other unlike how most people tend to struggle getting us.
It doesn’t mean things are perfect—she’s still such a fucking smartass sometimes, and I’m sure my scowling ways get on her nerves too—but we make it work.
She’s been under tight protection every hour of every day. Buttonmen always stationed outside the apartment. Buttonmen always walking her to and from work (on days I’m unable to). If no one else is available, then she’s my shadow, coming with me to places like Malone’s.
I’m able to get Sean to watch her the day I’m meeting up with Lochlan and the excommunicated Russian enforcer, Aleksei Mashkov.
He demands we meet him not at Gossier’s, the usual neutral ground for criminals in the New York Underworld, but at some dingy dive bar in Brownsville.
