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That son of a bitch isn’t happy.
What should have been a short walk through an open common room and down a narrow hallway turns into a fifteen-minute-long reunion. The older men and women in the clubhouse feel the need to wrap their arms around Sophie, and it doesn’t escape my notice that a good number of the younger men, even with scantily clad women hanging onto them, can barely keep their tongues from lolling out of their mouths at the sight of Sophie.
When we finally make it through the crowd and disappear into a sparsely furnished bedroom halfway down the hallway, she pauses right inside the door, looking around with a slight grimace.
“Stay here,” she instructs, “We’re going to need pillows— Fang doesn’t believe in them.” She turns to leave but pauses in the doorway. “Just don’t… sit on anything yet,” she wrinkles her nose more.
The room might be bare but it doesn’t exactly smell bad.
She disappears before I can ask why she’s grossed out, but she’s no sooner taken a few steps into the hallway when I hear a male voice hiss at her.
“What the fuck is that piece of shit doing here, Soph?”
Her reply is hushed and firm. “Keep your voice down, Cade. He’s my guest.”
“You know who he is, right?”
They’re both whispering but to me, their voices are clear as day.
Being trained to listen for drops of shell casings—which, many a time, makes the difference between life and death—hones your hearing. The man’s gritty voice is unlike any of the voices from outside or in the common room. Must be the tattooed chap. That fucker is really starting to irritate me now.
Sophie scoffs, “You’re seriously going to stand here, in the middle of fucking Reaper Druids’ clubhouse—the very one that was built on guns and dirty money and all the other illegal shit you can think of—and give me flak about an organized crime family?”
So, Sophie knows exactly who I am. No shock there, given Maria’s tendency to overshare when she’s anxious.
The Cade chap retorts, “You didn’t choose this life, Soph. You were born into it.”
“So was Nico,” Sophie replies.
“Oh, so you think that gives you two something in common? That it somehow makes you allies? Wake up and smell the coffee, Soph. That man in there is a different breed. He’s a cold-blooded killer. His loyalties lie solely with his family. And last I checked, you don’t wear that badge.”
“Really! Enlighten me with something I don’t already know.”
“Sophie—”
“He’s human, Cade, and he’s hurting. Unlike you and me, he doesn’t have the luxury of walking away. We managed to escape this life. Rafe didn’t, and look where it got him—and your father, too.”
It’s both jarring and humbling to hear Sophie say that. The irony of that isn’t lost on me, considering I was going to kill her. I probably still am.
Cade’s sudden derisive laughter fills the silence, “I thought you said you knew who that bastard is.”
“What do you mean?”
“You think he’s like one of those stray cats you used to drag home because you felt sorry for them? Sophie, this one is a different beast altogether. You’ve brought a tiger within mauling distance of your family.”
“Let’s not overdramatize, Cade. So he’s from the Chicago Outfit—”
“He’s not from the Outfit, Soph. He is the Outfit. Nico Vitelli is Don Vitelli. He’s entrenched in that life in ways you can’t imagine. He’s the one calling the shots, ready to pull the trigger on anyone who betrays him. And if you think he’s here simply as your ‘date,’ you’re grossly mistaken. Someone like him wouldn’t step one foot outside without an army and a hidden agenda. For all we know, there could be a few hundred snipers trained on this clubhouse as we speak.”
A few hundred snipers? What a fucking drama queen. There’s just about half a dozen.
Sophie remains quiet for a long time, apparently absorbing that bit of information, until Cade sighs. “He’s the last man you should be within fifty feet of, Soph, considering the choices you've made in the last ten years. You’re determined to leave this life behind you.”
“I know that, Cade. It’s just a casual fling.” She pauses, then adds, “But even if I wanted to be with him, it’d still be my choice to make.”
“Dammit. You’ve always been too fucking stubborn for your own good.”
“And you can’t help being a nosy jerk, can you?”
