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“It’s not like we didn’t think this might happen.”
“I didn’t know you were fighting again,” Ava Jade said to Rook. “When?”
She didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised or perturbed at the new turn of events.
Rook shrugged at her. “I fight when Dies tells me to.”
“He hasn’t found an opponent for you yet,” Grey explained to Rook. “No one wants to take their shot since how badly you beat Conor Jones last month.”
“Pussies.”
Sparrow laughed at that.
Now was as good a time as any.
I tugged the slim box free of my back pocket and passed it to her.
Her laughter ceased as she took it, taken aback by the brand emblem on the cover.
“What’s this?”
“Your new phone,” I told her. “It was supposed to get here days ago, but it was late.”
When she opened the box to see the slim silver cell inside and said nothing, I continued. “You haven’t bought yourself a new one, and we need to be able to get ahold of you. I, uh, I hope you don’t mind. If you don’t like it, I can order something different.”
Jesus Christ, I sounded pathetic. I could feel my brothers watching me.
“Well?” I gritted out, trying to force a reply from her.
Despite my change in tone, she smiled up at me, shaking her head and the heat that’d been crawling up my neck died out.
“Thanks, Corv,” she said, taking the phone out to hand the box back, powering it on. “Guess this means you’re done being mad at me?”
“Depends. Are you done trying to get us all killed?”
“For now.”
A smile stained my lips to match hers, and I wasn’t sure where to put my hands. What was this girl doing to me?
“Ava Jade Mason,” a woman’s voice shrieked as the door to the main office burst open. Standing there in the doorway with a hat twice the size of Texas wrapped in a dead thing instead of a bow, was Ava Jade’s aunt. The Humphrey widow who lived across town in the big secluded mansion all alone.
Fuck if she wasn’t a terrifying creature. With a botched face lift and droopy lips painted a dark red. A cashmere coat draping all the way to the floor, baggy on her five foot nothing frame.
I could smell the mothballs from here.
“Fuck my life,” Ava Jade breathed, sighing heavily as the woman waddled over to us.
“You guys should scram,” she muttered to us.
“No way in hell I’m missing this,” Rook replied, standing up straighter as though he were a fine upstanding citizen of Thorn Valley and not a fucking shark in human skin.
In the black sweater he wore, with his tatted hands behind his back, he could almost pull it off, too.
Grey and I followed suit.
I inclined my head to the woman as she approached. “Madam Humphrey,” I said graciously, stepping between her and Ava Jade. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Corvus James.”
She balked at my extended hand, taking in my too perfect smile and towering height.
