AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ugh,” she groaned, tossing her hands in the air. “I said we have to lay off the shopping after today. We spent a ton of money.”
“We did. I spread it out over several cards though. I’m good.” I pulled my wallet out and took each debit card from its designated slots, slapping them on the coffee table. “Look,” I said. “I used eight cards. We went to nine stores but purchased from eight. Nothing over fifteen hundred was spent in any one store. The alert goes off at a two thousand mark.”
“Your attention to detail regarding stealing is scary.” Jay shuddered then went to the kitchen for a snack. “Hey, Juju, who was that guy you were talking to at Starbucks? You never gave me a straight answer and you two looked pretty close.”
“What?” I curled my top lip and finger-combed the ends of my straight black hair. I liked everything black. Clothes, hair, nail polish, my soul. You get the idea. “How the hell did we look close? We don’t even know each other that well,” I snapped, shaking my head at the thought of being close to that asshole.
“Ah-ha!” Jay said popping around the corner with a small glass jar of yogurt. She was on a green kick, so everything had to be reusable or recyclable. She even had us using reusable paper towels. It was madness. “You said you two didn’t know each other that well.” Her pointer finger was outstretched as she fell onto the couch beside me. “So you know him.”
“Jay. Shut up. I don’t know him. Period.” I made a slicing motion through the air and she rolled her eyes in response.
“You know him enough to look comfortable with him. He was fine. If you don’t know him, maybe you should get to know him.” She nudged me with her elbow and popped a spoonful of yogurt in her mouth. “I can’t remember the last time you had a man, Ju.”
“Because men are weak as fuck and I can’t date someone I can run all over. Plus, the guys I attract are fucking boring and strait-laced. I need…” I let my words fall off and shrugged my shoulders.
“You need someone who can tame your wild ass and let me guess, a bad boy.”
“I’m not an animal so…not sure about the whole taming thing,” I said throwing air quotes around the word tame.
“You’re definitely an animal, Juju. A pretty, sophisticated animal but a savage nonetheless.” Jay’s phone rang and she hurried off the couch to answer it. Must have been someone from the hospital because her face immediately turned hard. Her eyebrows were two nearly straight lines on her forehead as she listened. Once I saw her tucking her loose curls behind her ear and nodding, I knew what was getting ready to happen next.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” she said before ending the call.
Bingo.
Just like that, one of the rare days off I get to spend with my sister was over.
“I gotta go to the hospital, Ju.” She told me, rushing off to her bedroom. I followed and stood in the doorway, my arms folded. “I know, I know. Sister time is over.” She sighed, pulling on her scrubs and kicking off the mismatched socks she wore around the house.
“Because you’re a work-a-holic determined to save lives and shit.” I fluttered my lashes.
“I know…” She faux pouted then hooked her skinny arm around my shoulders. “But I get to work on a gunshot wound so I’m geeked!” She kissed my cheek then pulled her long chestnut hair up into a quick top knot. “I’ll call you when I get a minute.”
“Take your fucking food with you, Jay,” I fussed after her with a frown. She always rushed off to work without food and ended up eating nasty vending machine food. My sister was too good for nasty food. Not that I was going to cook her anything spectacular because I couldn’t cook my way out of a damn paper bag but I knew how to order Hello Fresh meals and fix those.
“Got it, Ju! Thanks!” She called as she grabbed her bag and rushed out of the door.
After she left, I tried on my new shoes with giddy excitement. I tried on the shoes Jay got too because…well I have a shoe problem. Even through the happiness I felt surrounding myself with stilettos, my mind still wandered back to that asshole.
Ugh. What the fuck was he made of, Gorilla Glue? Why was he stuck in my thoughts like that? I was pissed that he found me in the middle of the day the way he did. Then he had the fucking audacity to tell me he could find me again.
Anger stiffened my spine and I walked my new YSL heels over to my computer and had a seat. He wasn’t the only person who could look people up and stalk them. Shit, as a woman, it was in my blood.
I searched tons of different keywords containing LOKs and Legion of Kings. Millions of hits turned up, most of them were news articles citing the gang for various robberies around LA but concentrated in Inglewood. The Kings must have been stationed here. Judging from the news reports and anecdotal stories found on Reddit and Twitter, their reach stretched all the way to Forest Park which was at least an hour away if traffic was good.
Damn.
It was quite impressive for a gang that was only several years old. I tapped my finger against my chin and picked up my phone to call Captain Marsh.
“Jupiter, are you ready to let me take you out to dinner yet, so we can talk?”
“That’s not how you answer a phone call, last I checked.” I side-stepped his question and focused only on what I wanted. “So, about this guy, the leader of the LOKs…” I let my words linger for a few beats.
“You remember something about the guys who robbed the bank?” He asked, his officer voice coming through strong.
“No, chill. I have a question. What did you say the head asshole’s name was?” I was poised with pen and paper so I didn’t miss a thing. I was going to do what Inglewood PD couldn’t do in all the years the Kings had been active. I was going to find their leader.
“I don’t know his real name so treat it like an alias, but they call him King,” Marsh answered reluctantly.
