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The SUV came to a stop across the street. It was a pretty busy stretch of road, with people passing. No place to have a gunfight and not get attention. He passed Pepper the pizzas and returned to the body only feet away in the alleyway. Bending down, he touched the hips of the guy that he had just killed, and found a knife. The guy must have been pretty good to have come with both items, a gun and a knife. The people who stole him as a child taught them how to make everything at their disposal a weapon. A weak person was the kind that couldn’t kill at a moment’s notice. Viper wasn’t weak.
“Stay here,” he said.
He walked over toward the SUV, smashed the window in, and plunged the blade into the first man, and holding his gun out, he aimed it at the second. “I suggest, if you want to live for the next few moments, you step on that gas and call a guy named Boss. Whatever you think you’re looking at here, she’s not the answer.”
The man wasn’t a pro. Anyone who came in an SUV didn’t know what the fuck they were doing.
Viper stepped back, and watched as the men drove away.
It was a close call.
This shit with Pepper was getting dangerous. Looking back in the alley, he didn’t know what that guy’s deal was, but they needed to get off the street and fast. He had no doubt that fucking SUV was going to come back. The only way they were safe were back at his place.
“You want to tell me why you’re not at my fucking place?” he asked, angered beyond anything.
“Are you like completely insane?” She held his cell phone. The one that had received a text message—the one he couldn’t read because that was his biggest secret. He couldn’t fucking read. Pepper was behaving as if a few moments ago men weren’t intent on taking her and killing her. She was so close to having gotten killed.
This was one of the reasons why he didn’t fuck on the job. It always ended up getting someone killed.
Gritting his teeth, he held onto her arm, and marched her all the way back to his apartment, dealing with each of the codes that was necessary before they were secure.
“Stop it, Viper. Please listen to me.”
“Do you have any fucking idea how many people want you dead? Those men in the SUV were not even fucking trained. They were just a bunch of wannabes, and you think I want to listen to you? I told you to stay fucking here!” he yelled. Viper grabbed the pizzas, shoving them under one arm before pushing her against the elevator that would take them up to the main floor of his home.
“People want you dead as well, so guess what? We’re both up shit creek. I saw those guys, and I ran, okay? I made sure I got somewhere that they couldn’t take me. They were a little shocked that I did it. I got away, no big deal.”
Viper just stared at her, teeth gritted. “You and I are not alike. What you got today was fucking lucky.”
“I know that. You went out even though there’s a massive bounty on your head. Check your cell phone. Go on, check it. See for yourself. You looked at your cell before leaving. Why did you go out? Pizza doesn’t mean anything to me, Viper. We could have made something from the stuff in your kitchen.”
She held the cell phone up, and all he saw was Maurice’s name. That was it. He’d intended to give his friend, correction, associate a call to make sure he was okay.
“You shouldn’t have been outside.” He released her arm, and she gasped, making him look back down. There was blood on her arm.
“Viper, you’re bleeding.”
“It’s not my blood.” Even as he spoke, she grabbed his hand, holding it out. “See, no cut. It’s not my cut, and the difference between the two of us is the fact I know how to handle myself. You had no consideration at all for the fact that you could have been watched.” The elevator doors pinged open, and he stepped inside.
The happy zone he’d been in moments ago had vanished, and now he was fucking pissed. He went to the bathroom sink, and washed off the blood that he’d gotten onto his ha
nd, tossing the pizza wheel in the sink as well.
“Viper,” Pepper said, standing near to him. She held the phone out. “Read the text.”
“I don’t need to read that shit. I was prepared, okay?”
“That pizza wheel is covered in blood. You had no idea of that threat or you would have taken your guns.”
Viper moved away from the sink, dried his hands on a towel, and grabbed a slice of pizza. “Are you going to eat?”
Pepper washed the blood off her arm, and then turned to look at him. He didn’t like the way she was assessing him.
“Eat some pizza. Do you like anchovies?” he asked.
“I hate them,” she said. “Back in the hotel room, you asked me to read you something. And on the cell phone, you told Boss not to text you.” She tilted her head to the side, and stared at him. “You were taken as a child, tortured, trained to kill.”
“Again with the whole information dump. As fascinating as this is, I’m bored.”
