Page 38 of City of Salvation
My fist curled thinking about the look on Boe’s face when I’d mentioned what Jardani had said about partnering with us instead if we gave her over. The wheels were fucking turning in that slimy bastard’s mind. The whole point of an MC brotherhood was unwavering trust, but that fucker made my gut turn.
“Nikki,” I yelled again. I felt…confined, and needed out of this damn shitty apartment.
It’d been a few hours since we moved our shit in. I’d brought a few things over, mainly clothes, thankfully, since the only place I had to store my stuff was a hall closet.
A closet that was supposed to be another bedroom.
Fucking chewed Gunner’s ass for that little oversight. How did the cartel not have a safe house with two bedrooms? In their defense, the point of a safe house was to lay low. You weren’t supposed to stay in one place for too long, because if someone was watching you, constantly moving was the move.
Or killing the fuckers.
Which was the problem, in Nikki’s case. We were barely tiptoeing around an all-out war with the Reapers, so I couldn’t just take all those fuckers out for Nikki.
I rubbed at my chest, scowling at the fact that, once again, I had the urge to do just that, despite the fact that it would put my brothers in deep shit. I’d chucked up the reaction to wanting to protect a woman since I wasn’t able to save?—
“Fuck.” I slammed my palms down on the chipped formica, rattling the overmount sink riddled with watermarks. The sting helped distract me from where my thoughts were headed. I didn’t think about Kelly anymore.
I couldn’t.
Not unless I wanted to slip back into that twenty-somethingkidwho sat drunk out of his mind under the freezing stream of the shower, hoping it was enough water to drown him. Only reason I was still here was Gunner.
I was fucking babysat every minute of every day for weeks after I got the phone call from Kelly. He’d made sure I didn’t have access to a firearm, either. It was touch and go there in the beginning. Her disappearance weighed on me like a fucking pile of bricks. The self-loathing took a pretty quick turn into rage and hatred for authority figures once it became clear the fuckers weren’t going to do a goddamn thing to try and save her.
When Greyson had joined the Feds after our contracts were up it’d felt like a slap in the face. He’d said he wanted in so he could make a real difference. So others wouldn’t experience what I had.
I’d given him a black eye.
Told him he was fucking delusional to think they were anything but rats. And then we didn’t speak. He’d run off to be a white knight, and I went and became the thing he’d hated: a criminal. Then, one night I’d had to call him from a fucking cell in the middle of nowhere while a trigger-happy deputy loomed over me. Told him I needed his help, or I’d go away for attempted murder. The law didn’t fucking care that the man I’d beaten was the fucker who’d sold Kell to the Russians.
“Dex?” A soft voice cut through the chaos swirling in my mind. I blinked a few times as I looked up at her, clearing the remaining dredges of the memories. Blonde curls framed a heart-shaped fresh face. Her blue eyes were fixed on me, and I swore she looked concerned. I wanted fucking badly to be the one sucking on her berry-colored bottom lip.
Something about the way she stood there in an oversizedshirt that read, “I’m late because I don’t want to be here,” felt like a ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds threatening to close in.
“You…You okay?” she asked, looking around like she might spot what was bothering me.
I forced a smile, a skill I’d mastered over time. “Yeah, girl. Just worried about you being late for work,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the microwave’s neon numbers that read nine.
“What are you talking about?” Her nose scrunched up in the most adorable way. It was disgustingly cute, if I was being honest.
“It’s nine p.m., and you work tonight, right?” I asked, not seeing what she was confused about.
“Yeah, at like ten, that’s an hour away.”
Her response had me frowning. “And you haven’t eaten yet. When were you going to do that, huh?” I frowned when she burst into laughter, which grew louder every time she looked at me. At one point, she was full-on bent over at the waist, laughing so hard there were tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said, seeming anything but. “You just looked so much like a mother hen right there. No one’s ever asked me if I’ve eaten before.” Her humor died out in those last few words.
Fuck. We were both fucked up, weren’t we? I wasn’t ready to unpack either of our traumas tonight.
I cleared my throat, changing the subject before it got too awkward. “Well, I’m fucking starving. Get your ass dressed so we can go get food.” Something didn’t sit right with me about her going to work on an empty stomach, so I wasn’t going to give her a choice.
“Dex, do you think I travel to work with my ass and titsout? I am ready. I only take my clothes off for money,” she said, smirking.
She had to mention her ass and tits, didn’t she?
Now I was shifting uncomfortably, forcing myself to think about grandma tits and taxes so my dick could chill. It was already going to be a bitch riding with her on the back of my bike all the time and not pulling over to take her on the side of the road. She rode like a damn pro, gluing herself to me and leaning at all the appropriate times. Even fuckin’ knew to tap my leg if she wanted me to turn a certain way.
“Alright then. Well, um, I guess we should go?” I said, rubbing the back of my head with my hand when I realized I’d been standing there checking her out.