NEFARIOUS: B723 SERIES BOOK THREE, page 31
He spins around, a box of Marbolo’s in his hand and a weak grin. “Name’s Kyson.”
Uh, okay.
“Hi,” I slowly reply. My palm slides up the white paint of my door, looking for the door latch.
His gold eyes flick to my not-so-subtle escape apparently, and he doesn’t falter or maybe expect that I wouldn’t be a little freaked out when he says, “I’m with Mills.”
Escape route, aborted.
“Oh.” He lights a cigarette and blows out smoke through his pink, full lips.
“You good?” I nod before he reaches over and opens my door for me, alluding that he’s not going to hurt me or continue this conversation, for that matter.
I get inside, and he closes it for me, then it occurs to me. Rolling down my window, I ask, “Are you going to tell him about this?”
He meets my stare with a blank one. “Yeah.”
“Is there a chance I could convince you otherwise?” His brows furrow, which tells me no. And that I need to start my car up and get out of here. “Thanks again.”
I’m not sure if he hears my mumble because he doesn’t acknowledge it. Then I drive home, thinking about Solange digging herself even a bigger hole.
And, honestly, I’m probably not going to stop it.
I push through Amirah’s place like I own it, already aware of what happened and how Kyson stopped it.
Solange is really pressing my motherfucking buttons, and I’ve about had it. Except, killing her would mean more possible pain for Amirah, and old me keeps stopping me from acting upon it.
I’m like pre-B723 here.
But then again, this isn’t an assigned mission. This is personal. And I can handle it however my fucking heart and head decide.
The boys have been patient with me. Emmy, on the other hand, hasn’t. Blue thinks I’m a bitch—in so many words—and I’ve told everyone and their mom, besides mine because I’d get my entire ass kicked, to leave me the fuck alone.
But Kyson.
The dude is like a fucking nun. He steps up when I need it. He’s there when I say go. He doesn’t ask me too many questions, knowing that I just need to take this as it comes because I have no idea what I’m doing. One moment, I’m in a fit of fucking rage, and another, I’m calm.
I sleep fine, but I’m not eating much.
My thoughts are consumed on Solange, then Amirah, then Odette, then Amirah, then Juliette, and right back to you know who.
I didn’t sign up to protect or babysit anyone else but myself.
However, the man my parents raised me to be, he’s calling most of the shots. I’m not Marty, Bishop, or Kyson. I’m not a man who grew up in a shithole. I didn’t want for shit. I was spoiled as hell and still have my ma cook me dinners when I’m in town like a bitch because I can.
Fuck anyone who says I can’t.
I find Amirah in one of the spare bedrooms, on her knees in front of a pale blue dress with nude-colored fabric. She’s bent over slightly, sewing something to the bottom, and completely unaware of me behind her.
With her hair pulled up in a messy bun, an overly-sized grey t-shirt, and sweats, she looks good enough to fucking eat down there.
But I’m not here for a snack.
And yeah.
“Did you put peroxide on your face?” Amirah jumps almost a foot off the ground, then bellows ouch before sitting on her knees.
“You made me prick my finger,” she gripes, putting her finger between her lips and, thank fuck, I can’t see what it looks like.
“I’m sorry.”
Amirah glances over her shoulder, and those piercing greens puncture right into why I’m not here for a snack. “You’re what now?”
Her mouth curves in a teasing smile, and I step into the room like a moth to the light. Not only am I fighting with myself with the decisions I have to make but her. What happens, and how long does this go on before I stop it all?
“Is this the dress for that thing at school you were talking about?” I point at the gown, noticing off the bat that’s she’s talented as hell.
She sighs then pushes herself up to stand. “Yeah. I’m sewing on all the flowers and some vines. I’ll be spending all weekend on it.”
She blows a piece of hair out of her face, but it doesn’t hide the cut along her left cheek when she fully faces me.
My expression must speak volumes because her pretty smile fades as quickly as it came. We stand there silently while I think of all the ways I could slice pieces of Solange’s body off.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she finally says.
“Doesn’t matter. It happened.” Amirah gives me an exasperated look before she starts around my body to go out the door, but I step in her way.
“Rus, I need you to give me permission to finish this.”
I. Can’t. Believe. I’m. Asking. For. This.
But I need it.
“Mills, haven’t you heard of a thing called karma?”
“It takes too long.”
She frowns. “Mills…”
“And it doesn’t hurt enough.” She rounds my body, and I let her because obviously, we’re not having this conversation. I’m a dumbass to think she’d ever agree to it.
I’m going to piss her off—plain and simple. There’s no going around that, and the sooner I accept it, do what I want to do, end it, and move on, the better for me.
Not her.
But it’s not like we’re going to continue seeing each other, and I don’t live in New York anymore. I moved to Pittsburgh two years ago to be closer to Emmy and the kids.
Leaving the room, I find Amirah in the small laundry room, throwing her stuff in the dryer.
“What did she say to you?” I ask, leaning against the door frame and receiving a perfect view of her ass.
“A lot of things.”
“Such as?”
“Just bitching at me for going to the cops.” She grabs a dryer sheet and throws it in. “To not do it again.”
“And she cut you for that, huh?”
Amirah slams the door shut and pivots. “Do I need to run every conversation by you? I don’t need your bodyguard either. Thank you for having him there, but it’s creepy as hell, and I’d like it to stop.”
“Not until your sisters are in the ground, Rus.”
“Stop saying that.” She pushes some loose strains away from her forehead as she looks back to me like I’m trying her patience. “Do you want to go to jail?”
I smile.
That’s not what happens to me when I kill someone.
I go home.
I act like it never happened. I’m hoping it’ll be like this too.
“I really have a lot of things to do,” she conveys, not waiting for my response. “And I really don’t want to fight with you.”
“I’m not fighting—“ I shrug. “—I’m just trying to figure out if she told you her next move. Kyson said she looked pretty pissed off.”
“She found out I was back in school, wanted to know why and how. She admitted to sending those two dudes to rape me. She wants me to stay away from you.”
“I’m the safest thing you got, baby.” Her face hardens at that prospect. Damn, she puts me in the same spectrum as her sister? Ouch.
“I think I’d like to do without both of you, thank you. Make that happen, and I’ll love you forever.”
“A disappearing act,” I muse. “No Hermes purse or Jimmy Choos?”
She gestures down the whole length of her frame with her hands. “Do I look like I give a shit about Hermes purses and Jimmy Choos with a t-shirt that says Homebody on it?” She glowers at me before pushing through me and out of the laundry room. “Keep up.”
I don’t stop her from letting her know she didn’t start the dryer as I hear her huffing something under her breath. So, I do it myself, then pull out my phone to pull up Grubhub.
Ordering a few different pizzas because I have no clue what she likes. And if I ask, she’ll more than likely tell me to shove it up my ass in her own words, I head to the veranda to smoke a blunt when I find her pacing the floor and biting on her thumb with her cell to her ear.
“Are you sure he’s okay?” she frets. “I just spoke with him today.”
More back and forth, and she rakes her hand through her hair.
“Are they moving his blood transfusion up then? Is he going tomorrow?”
Her Dad.
“Will you call me later? Are you sure you don’t need me to…okay. I will…Please don’t forget to call…Love you too, bye.”
I see her body trembling as she tries to straighten her spine to contain herself. I’m going to take a wild shot in the dark that was her brother and Dad went through something today.
“Rus.” Her nickname makes her tense, and I hate that.
I shouldn't, but I do.
Erasing some of the space between us, Amirah turns around to face me. She can’t hide the tears, and I don’t want her to. I like learning what makes her tick and that she gives a fuck.
It’s more I can say for her sisters.
“Your pops, alright?”
“Uh, yeah, he got dizzy and bumped his head. They think it’s because he was low on red blood cells again. But a head injury is bad with his condition. Anything can cause him to bleed internally if he hits it hard enough.”
“He’ll be alright.”
She bobs her head and exhales a held breath. “Yeah. I hope so. He has just a small bump on his head, nothing serious yet.”
“Good. With the new blood donor, he’ll have what he needs when he needs it. Normal blood transfusions and stuff, right?”
“Right.”
“I ordered us some pizza because I’m sure you didn’t eat. Might need to make that a regular delivery since you’ll be slaving away all weekend.”
She tips her lips. “All weekend.”
“I’d help if I could sew, but I’d bloody your dress with how many times I pricked my finger.”
She chuckles. “I have enough to deal with. And now you can tell me how you know my father has a new blood donor.” Her sweet facade doesn’t falter, but her voice sure as hell did.
Fuck.
This is what I get for trying to do a good deed.
“You don’t miss a beat, do you, Rus.” I shake my index finger at her. “I like that about you.” I begin to round her body, needing another hit of weed, but her little hand clutches tightly onto my forearm.
“And I don’t like how you keep things from me.”
I lift a brow. “And I owe you that?”
“Hell yes, you do after everything you did.” I open my mouth, but she jumps down my throat. “And don’t you dare say what I think you’re going to say. You said you forgave me, which means you can’t keep it against me for the rest of my life.”
“I did.”
“So?” She crosses her arms and shrugs. “You somehow know everything about me. I know nothing of you. How did you know about my dad? We’re getting Class-A stalker here.”
“It’s my job to know my target,” I convey solemnly. “And you were that.”
“And I’m still someone with one on my back?”
I shake my head. “Not by me. But I’m afraid it might still be there.”
“Well?”
“Rus, like I said, I know about you because I was taking you down. That’s all.”
More eaten-up space as she moves forward again. “It’s been a minute since you wanted to kill me.”
“I’ve never wanted to kill you,” I drone, and I mean it, no matter how many times I tried to fight it. Something about her stops me. It’s an invisible force that won’t allow me to put hands on her to inflict physical pain. Since day one, I’ve been on one with her. She made my whole world glitch up.
“Then you won’t pull my sister when I ask you again.” She peers up at me with hope, a little trepidation, and a whole lot of fucking beautiful. “How deep-seated are you within me?”
“Woman, not as much as I want to be right now.” I haven’t even smoked yet, and I’m already as wordy and high as fuck right now.
The closer she gets, the more that tropical smell of coconut fills my nostrils. The more my self-control begins to tear into shredded nothing because she’s something I crave in all the wrong places.
“Still doesn’t answer the question.” Her voice is barely a fucking whisper, and it brushes along my biceps and forearms. It sends a wave of thirst coursing down my throat and into the pit of my stomach.
“My people caught wind about it.”
“It just happened a few hours ago,” she counters back.
I stare at her placidly. The woman is trying to get too nail-deep in me and it’s not happening. “They’re good.”
She cocks her head, fleshing out more information with that pretty neck that she’s exposing right now. “Yeah? Bullshit.”
“Don’t know what to tell, ya.”
“Huh.” She pushes her bottom lip out with her tongue. “Didn’t peg you for a psycho and a liar.”
I scoff through my nose. Name calling isn’t going to hit dick with me. I take it on a daily basis with the boys. “As you said, you don’t know shit about me.”
“I know that you speak one sentence when you’re trying to keep shit hidden.”
“Don’t pretend to know how to read people.”
“And there we go again.” Her lips knowingly curl into a wicked smile. “I do go to college, after all, remember?”
I shrug off her bullshit interrogation of me and give her what she wants. Anything to make it stop because, at the end of the day, it changes nothing. “I’m the fucking blood donor, Rus. Happy?” Her greens bore into me with more questions, surprise, and probably a little doubt.
Why would someone who was kidnapped, raped, and assaulted still help the family that did all those things?
Well, I think I’m looking at her right now.
And I don't want a dead man on my conscience that doesn't appear to deserve it. Even though he could do a better job monitoring his fucking wife but she is a grown-ass adult. All things I've pondered, dismissed and finally decided on doing.
Call it my good deed of the year.
I never said I was a complete asshole.
Amirah continues to stare at me, and I return it, finally getting her to shut up. "We good now?"
"No," she blurts, causing my eyes to narrow, but it's quickly reversed when she's in my space. I’m taken back by how quickly she got there when she rises on her toes and presses her soft lips gently into mine. Her small palms cradling both sides of my face as an electric current jolts through my entire body.
I fight with everything in me not to move. But when she sucks gingerly on my bottom lip, I growl in warning to make her stop.
She doesn’t.
Instead, she continues her sweet assault on me. What could’ve been an innocent kiss is turning out to be what I didn’t want.
What I do want.
I want this woman like I want my next hit of weed. I suck this female in like a high I don’t want to come down from because it feels nice. It creates a feeling of me to take hold and come back to life.
Old Mills is still alive. He’s loud and clear in my head to run my hands down her ribs and rip her shirt off. To devour every inch of her beautiful and soft skin with my tongue and lips. To discover what she likes and how far I can get her to scream in pleasure at me.
She breaks the kiss the, but not the daze I'm in. My cock twitches needily, reminding me that it's there, that it likes her, that we need a good thing.
And I still wanna do bad and dirty things with and to her in the meantime. I just don’t know if old Mills can rein it in so we don’t scare her.
"Thank you," she mutters, my face still held prisoner in her light grasp. "You have no idea what you've done for me. For my brother. My dad is everything to me."
I clutch my hands tighter into fists, keeping them grounded at my sides because the moment they move, they'll be on her, and this isn't what this is about.
She's thanking me. I'm not a totally shit person in her eyes—life goes on.
Dropping her hands, she clears her throat and steps away, leaving me without anything really. Her phone is back in her hands the next moment, and she's quickly pounding away at it. I don't know who she's telling, why she needs to, but whatever.
I just want my blunt and pizza.
Fishing it out of my metal container and getting outside, I immediately light it and inhale deeply. And that's when Amirah decides to come out and fuck with me some more.
"Are you staying for dinner?" I look out over the city, the sun setting and getting ready to disappear over the horizon. Leaving purples and oranges in its wake as the night begins to set in.
"Nah, I gotta get going."
"Do you turn into a pumpkin at midnight?"
I smirk but don't turn around to let her see it. "A mouse, actually."
"Mice like pizza."
They also don’t like getting their necks snapped in a trap, too, when they're not supposed to be somewhere.
“I have some things I have to do tomorrow,” I lie. “Need to be up early.”
“I’m sorry that I kissed you,” she mutters, setting my shoulder ridged that she’d even think that she’d have to apologize for something like that.
I mean, she did do that one thing—twice.
Taking another hit of my weed to tamper down the impending irritation that’s creeping up my spin, I turn to face her, finding her already watching me and fidgeting with her nails. “Now, why would you think you’d have to apologize to me for that?”
She swallows nervously and I know why. To her, I’m a fragile doll that needs to be coddled. Amirah really has no idea who I am or what I do. I’m not normal in the sense of a nine to five job. I’m a killer with a twenty-four seven appetite for vengeance, conserving, and her.
“Because it was inappropriate,” she finally says.
“I mean, I am saving your father’s life, so I think it’s pretty valid, Rus.”
“But we’re not—“ She motions between her and I. ”—friends…or anything.”
I flick the ashes off the end of my paper and cock my head to the side. “I’m intrigued to know what you think we are.”
