Page 44 of Pretty Lies

The club had gone silent.

Even the music dropped off.

Cory wasn’t paying that shit any mind. Not when it felt like violence was about to bubble over right in front of him and he couldn’t afford to focus elsewhere because of it.

“You heard her,” Cory said.

Luis dropped Della’s hand, but he wasn’t even looking at her anymore. He was too busy trying to burn Cory down to the ground with his glare.

It almost made him chuckle.

“Lu,” Cory replied, the nickname coming out easy.

Like he’d used it before.

Because he had.

Only those closest to the man across from Cory would know and use that nickname.

Once, they had been that close.

“Been a while,” Luis said.

Cory shrugged. “Some years, yeah. How’s it been?”

“Getting better.”

Della’s dark eyes darted between the two men, clearly realizing she’d missed something. Cory wanted to laugh at that, too, because damn … he’d been missing a lot, it seemed. Welcome to his current fucking life.

Luis cleared his throat, and his jaw flexed with a shudder that Cory recognized all too well when he said, “I heard she had a babysitter lately—you know how it works out there. Word always travels fast. Common goals mean when we don’t have a problem with another gang, they’ll probably help a guy out. Dirks says hey, Della, but you know … priorities.”

That had Della jerking forward a bit. Not noticeable enough, though, because Cory tightening his arm on her had brought her closer. There was no hiding the way her body molded into his side. He didn’t miss how Luis’s gaze stung, either.

Cory’s mouth grazed the side of Della’s ear when he told her, “Chill, we’re not mad, babe. We’re all walking out of here the same way we walked in, and Luis knows it.”

The man didn’t want to fuck with the mob. Cory was sure of that.

The two of them already had history—they both grew up on the streets, just in different ways. Luis didn’t come from the privilege Cory had, but somehow, they ran with the same crew of truant, delinquent teenage boys for years. Luis, like a lot of guys, never gained an in to some of the things Cory had been because of who he was and his family’s connection to the mob. Luis never forgot it. Well, that was part of it.

“Babe?” Luis asked, directing the question and a cocked brow at Cory.

It felt like a challenge. Cory might welcome that.

That stare; the man’s tone. It told Cory everything. Luis was jealous as fuck. It might be a problem.

That was fine because all Cory cared about at that moment was getting Della the hell away from the guy and then he could deal with everything else, too.

Della opened her mouth to speak. Cory was quick to jump in before she could with, “Yeah, babe. See, you don’t expect the chick you sent someone to beat with a bat is gonna stick around and wait for you to come back, did you? How’s it feel to be an afterthought, Lu?”

“Cory.”

Della’s hiss barely registered.

Luis’s nostrils flared, and his fists tightened into balls at his sides. Cory didn’t move, but he was quick to step back, slide his jacket off, and pass it to Della’s shoulders. He pointed at the door—two of Luis’s men stood at either side.

“We’ll head that way, and you’ll go yours,” Cory told the man. “And shit is not gonna start while we do it, yeah?”

Luis’s lips flattened in a grim line. “Things have changed, huh?”