AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I crossed my arms, stepping around Keira to approach the foot of the chair. “What does loyalty mean to you?” I asked him, just getting into what was bothering me instead of letting the question linger in my mind any longer.
Fresh amusement turned up the corners of his full lips. “I was wondering when you were going to stop beating around the bush and just come on out with it.”
I rolled my eyes. “That doesn’t answer my question. You’re getting Predator ink, which for most of us means Predatorloyalty. I don’t know where you stand.”
“I stand as a man who keeps his word,” he said, his eyes dark and intense as they met mine. “I told Blue y’all had my commitment, so you’ve got it.”
I scoffed, shaking my head. “I didn’t ask about your goddamncommitment. I asked about yourloyalty.”
“What’s the fucking difference?”
“Commitment is in your actions,” I explained. “Commitment is easy to come by, easy tobuy.Loyalty is scarce. Loyalty is… in your heart.”
His eyes narrowed. “Well you’re out of luck there, sweetheart. There ain’t shit but savagery ‘in myheart’. So you can hang up your ideals,” he told me. “I’m committed, and I’m a man of my word. You don’t have to trust anything else, but you can trust that I’ll do what the fuck I said I was going to do.”
“What if that’s not good enough?”
He tossed up a hand. “Sounds like a personal problem. It was good enough for your president.”
Hmph.
There wasn’t much I could say to that.
There wasn’tshitI could say to that.
He was right. It was good enough for my president, so it was good enough for me, and on a surface level… I knew I was giving this too much energy. Hell, I could probably depend on him more than I could depend on alotof other motherfuckers who wore this ink.
The difference was accessibility and insight.
This man, this virtual fucking stranger, had been let in on information plenty of otherPredatorswould give their lives to know about, shit that could make or break a whole operation.
In fact, the breaking of an operation was what we were counting on.
It’s the whole reason he was here.
“Don’t ever fucking call mesweetheartagain,” I told him, because if nothing else, I couldn’t letthatshit ride.
He smirked. “Got it.”
Ugh.
I didn’t say shit else to him while he finished getting his ink, and when Maite was done, she insisted on giving him the whole rundown on aftercare. Like he wasn’t already covered in years of scribbles. Maite wasn’t a half ass job kind of chick though.
Other times, I’d appreciated how thoroughly she made sure our members were taken care of; we had an image, a standard to uphold. Now though, she’d prolonged the time I had to spend in this dude’s presence, and I wasn’t too thrilled aboutthat.
I was relieved when it was finally time to escort him out.
“Ladies first,” he said, gesturing for Keira and me to exit Maite’s studio in front of him.
Only because I knew we’d be standing there forever if I didn’t, I accepted the offer well after Keira had already moved, keeping my eyes on him as I stepped out, then waiting for him to make the same move. I wasn’t actually concerned he’d do something to me, but I needed to make a point, so here we were.
“I need to go check on the bar. You aren’t going to kill him, are you?” Keira asked, and I shook my head.
She didn’t move.
“I won’t,” I insisted, but she still gave me alookbefore she moved on, shouting “Welcome to the club,” to Onyx over her shoulder before she disappeared down the hall ahead of us.
You’d thinkshewas the one that was damn near a decade older, and the boss.
