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CHAPTERFOUR
Lean on
“Where the fuck is she?” Carter asks the second I step into Tales without Kate. He’s in the cage, Saxon kneeling before him, his face a bloody, pulpy mess. Rodriguez is with them, a new guy who Carter brought in a couple of months back. He’s a little bit older than me, has connections to the Perez crime family that settled in North London, and not someone I’ve had much chance to spend time with. As far as I’m concerned he’s Carter’s bitch and not one ofmymen.
“I left her back at your place,” I reply, shrugging out of my jacket and tossing it over one of the chairs nearby. I roll up the sleeves of my shirt as I stride towards the cage.
“What do you mean you left her back at my place? I specifically told you to bring her here!”
“She ain’t ready,” I say, eyeing Saxon as he groans, blood oozing from a split lip and eyebrow, as well as a nasty gash to his cheek. Given the way his nose has collapsed against his face, I’d say that it was broken too. Rodriguez has certainly made a good start in my absence.
“What doyoumean she isn’t ready?” he snarls.
“What I said. She ain’t ready to see this shit yet.”
“She’s a motherfucking Davidson. She was born ready,” Carter explodes, and if the human body were capable of making steam come out of its ears in anger, I’m pretty fucking positive he’d be a human choo-choo train right now.
“I made a call. I don’t regret it.”
“You think you know my daughter better than I do?” he questions.
I know I do, I think.
“No,” I reply instead. “I think you hired me to protect what matters to you the most. She ain’t ready.”
Carter scowls, taking his measure of me. I wait for whatever it is he’s going to say, rolling my shoulders and loosening up my muscles from clenching them so tightly. Dancing with Kate has got me in fucking knots. Today I let her in more than I should’ve, and now I’ve got to deal with the consequences of that.
“You’ve been training her,” he says finally, and it’s more of an accusation than a statement.
“To protect herself. Not to kill.”
“Same difference,” he snaps, eyeing me. “You know as well as I do that in this life you’re fighting to survive. She needs to be prepared.”
“And shewillbe, just not yet,” I insist.
“I hired you as myenforcerand as her trainer,” Carter replies sharply. “Not someone to psychoanalyse my own fucking daughter.”
“And you’ve also hired me to look out for her,” I remind him. “I’m doing that now. Kateisn’tready.”
Carter’s nostrils flare, but he doesn’t pursue it. Instead he motions for me to step inside the cage. “Get in here.”
I’m not fool enough to believe that this conversation is over, Carter isn’t the type of man to let disobedience go, but for now his mind is back on Saxon.
“You got it,” I reply, flicking my gaze to Rodriguez who’s watching the exchange with interest. Too much interest. I don’t know the fucker, and right now I don’t want to know him given the way he’s smirking. “Got something to say,el cabrón?”
The smile slips from Rodriguez’s face, but he jerks his chin. “Not a thing,Beast.”
“Good because I have no issues wiping that smirk off your face… permanently.”
Climbing inside the cage, my gaze drops to the growing pool of blood spreading out over the canvas floor beneath Saxon. He mutters something as I approach but it comes out garbled as cherry-red blood drips down his chin. That’s way too much blood loss for a few missing teeth.
“I cut out his tongue,” Rodriquez says, answering my internal question as he points at a slab of bloody muscle beside Saxon’s leg.
“Youcut out his tongue?” I ask, not surprised per se, just taken aback that Rodriguez was the one who did it.
“He was spouting bullshit lies. I was tired of listening,” Carter interjects, pressing the muzzle of the gun against Saxon’s forehead. “Rodriguez got the job done.”
“What kind of lies?” I ask, ignoring his veiled dig.
