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"You shouldn't be out here by yourself." He sat down beside me and placed his arm over my shoulders.
"I'm not by myself," I said faintly. "You're here too."
He chuckled. "I am now, but fuck knows what might have happened before I got here."
This part of town was all but deserted, which made it perfect for Ice's workroom, and for me to sit outside for two or three minutes by myself.
I understood the reason for his warning and concern. Of course I did. I wasn't going to quickly forget what I heard inside. And what I did. I swallowed hard.
"It's always confronting the first time," he said. "I threw my guts up too, but I did it in front of everyone. It wasn't my finest hour. You become used to it after a while." He nuzzled his face into my hair. "You don't have to come back here again if you don't want to."
I shook my head slightly. "That's not it. I should have found that… disgusting, or terrifying, or something." It was all of those things, but it was more than that.
"You're surprised by how much you enjoyed it?" he guessed. "You're worried about what it says about you and what we'll think."
"Is it sick to enjoy getting revenge for those women?" I asked. "Is it even sicker that I'm not sure it was about getting revenge? I think maybe I did it because I wanted to. What does that make me?"
He kissed my temple. "It makes you one of us. Neither Ares nor I get as much of a kick out of it as Ice, so we leave him to it, but we could do all that shit too if we wanted to. If you hadn't broken his pinky finger, I would have. No one goes after my princess and gets away with it. But you know what, when we let him go, he'll go crawling back to his boss with a message from us. Don't fuck with our girl."
"What if he sends someone else?" I asked. "Like an actual assassin." From what I knew about them, I wouldn't see them coming. I'd be dead and that was it.
No thanks.
"If he does, we'll deal with it." Mannix's tone was firm, confident, reassuring. "But I don't think Samuel Bell will send an assassin after you. He'd send one after Dad. If you're going to spend that much on a hit, you go after the big dog. If not Dad, then he'd go after Daisy Lasalle, or one of her boyfriends. Or maybe even Caleb or Reuben Brantley themselves, if he's feeling like he's got bigger balls than usual."
I wasn't sure if I should be relieved or offended that I wasn't important enough to send an assassin to kill me. Maybe a bit of both. But a whole lot of the first one.
I put that aside for now. "So you don't think I'm sick for what I did?"
"Not even a little bit," he assured me. "And none of us will think you're sick if you want to go in there and pull off some of Nixon's toenails. Or cut off his balls with Ice's scalpel. Or whatever you and Ice come up with to teach him not to come after you."
None of that should have made me hot, but it all did. Every last word.
"Last night when we were dancing, you mentioned punishment for running away," I said slowly. "You didn't mean this, did you?" I jerked my head toward the building behind us.
"I meant spanking, but if you want to take it further than that, I'm game." He grinned.
"What do you have in mind?" I asked carefully.
He stood and pulled me to my feet. "Do you trust me?"
That was the second time today one of the guys asked me that and I answered him the way I answered Ice.
"I trust you."
"Excellent. Just remember, if you want to stop, you only have to say so."
Now I was somewhere between nervous and excited. Both of those built when he led me back into the building and down the stairs.
Nixon was still hanging by his wrists. Blood trickled down one arm.
Ares was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, eyes half closed. He actually managed to look bored.
Ice stood over at the sink, washing blood off the pliers.
"You're just in time for round two. I was about to start decorating him with my scalpel, for shits and giggles. And in case he has more information he'd like to share." He put the pliers aside on the edge of the sink and grabbed up the scalpel.
"I thought we might have some fun at the same time," Mannix said. He gave me a look to remind me I could opt out at any time, but took me over to the set of chains that hung parallel to the ones around Nixon's wrists.
