AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I nod. Slowly. I’m still too struck by so much of what Smokey’s said that finding my voice for any more questions is an impossibility. Smokey’s eyes go to Rook, who I can feel is close enough we may as well get the introductions over with and dispel any doubts Smokey might have about speaking freely.
“Smokey, that’s Rook. He’s a friendly.” I tap the cut I’m wearing, the patch, and then gesture to Rook’s cut, which is hanging from a chair on the other side of the garage. “A brother, too.”
“How’d you get the name Smokey?” Rook says, eyes narrowing. “You earn it the right way, or did you just draw it out of a hat?”
“Does this weirdo have a thing for names, Owen?”
“Maybe. He’s also just kind of an asshole.”
Smokey nods, grunts; Rook agrees by silence — we all know he is.
“Earned it saving Striker’s life. We were escorting a resupply convoy through enemy territory. Got attacked. An ambush. Striker got hit and was forced to take cover. He was isolated, trapped, a goner. We’d all got ourselves pinned down by these militants who had fortified this freaking cave and set up these traps all thorough this canyon. It was fucking medieval. I looted the resupply, improvised an incendiary device, and incinerated the problem.”
Rook grunts. It’s an approving grunt. Probably as much approval as anyone except Eliza will ever get from him. “He’s acceptable.”
“Nice to know you love me so much,” Smokey retorts. “Shall we kiss?”
“That’s as close to friendliness as you’re ever going to get to from Rook,” I say. “He might as well have put a ring on your finger. Except for Eliza, we’re all about the same level as dogshit to him.”
Rook’s face lights up at even the mention of Eliza’s name. Well, relatively lights up for the grumpy man; he goes from looking like he wants to kill us all, to looking like he would rather throw us into the dumpster. Alive, at least.
I decide to move on before Rook opens his mouth again.
“Explain why you’re interrupting my job, Smokey.”
“Sure, let’s get down to business. You need to be free to date Danielle next Friday and all the way through the weekend. Maybe into the week after.”
Some time passes. Ten seconds, thirty seconds, a minute, maybe.
“Why?”
“There’s a wedding. It’s vital you’re there by her side.”
“You need to give me details, because it sounds a lot like you’re trying to get me to a shotgun wedding with your sister.”
Rook chuckles at the simple suggestion of me being trapped in a shotgun marriage. Because he’s an asshole.
Joke’s on him, though. Because, what no one else knows, is that if there were one person to ever get me to settle down, it’d be Danielle Green, the little sister of my best friend and the man who saved my life. She’s the one woman I know I can never have, because then the same man who saved my life would do everything he could to reverse that fact. There have been more than a few busted noses and broken bones dispensed around town by Dixon ‘Smokey’ Green on account of his sister.
“She’s not pregnant. And it’s not her wedding. Her best friend’s got a sister, and this sister’s marrying into a family that’s more like a Family mixed with a little bit of clan, but not the clan with a ‘k’ as far as I know. The Vertucci family.”
I wince.
I’ve heard of them. Everyone has.
They’re just big time enough to make the major families in Costa Oscura walk on eggshells around them. They may not be large, but they bury as many bodies as even the biggest criminal organizations in the city. Their head, Michael Vertucci, is a known psychopath.
“Why the fuck are you letting her go to this thing?”
Smokey shakes his head. “Danielle’s trying to be supportive; she’s a bridesmaid and her best friend’s the maid of honor. She’s stuck on going, despite everything I’ve tried. But I’m not letting my sister go in there without an escort because I know what type of men — to be really fucking loose with the definition of that word — are likely to be at the party. So I need you to be her date. Be her bodyguard and guard her body from all creeps on the premises.”
I take in a breath, let it out, realize that I’ve got my jaw clenched so tight it’s a fucking wonder my teeth haven’t split into pieces.
“Why me? Why not ask some of the others, like Hawk or Ghost?”
He laughs. “Already tried. She hates them. Literally threw a book at me when I suggested Ghost. It hit me right in the head. It was an enormous book, too. Hardcover. Dropped me right on my ass because she’s still got her pitching arm from when she played softball. Figure her speed’s only improved. Made a sniper’s bullet seem slow.”
My eyes go to the ceiling, hunting, seeking an answer. An escape.
