Vik (Shot Callers 2)

My stare must have conveyed my stance, and when he realized I wasn’t going to budge, he offered the card once more. Once it was in my grasp, I turned it over and saw Sasha had written the name Roam and a phone number on it. Nothing more.

“Who are these guys?”

And when Sasha replied, “The Disciples,” my head snapped up.

Excuse the fuck out of me?

Eyes wide, I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. “The same guys who set fire to that house?”

I didn’t need to elaborate. It was a huge story. Made the news for months. Someone had to have seen something. Cops were looking for witnesses, but no one was willing to identify the men who went around wearing their intricate skull masks and the skull-painted cronies. Their weapon choices were barbaric. These guys were fucking animals.

“Same guys” was all he offered.

Right. I didn’t know how I felt about working with the same fiends who barbecued a priest in his home in the middle of the night. But, for all I knew, he deserved it.

So, I guess that only left one question. “They pay well?”

The only thing Sasha said to that was “Talk to Roam.”

Okay.

With that, I stood and moved to exit, only pausing at the door to twist back and say, “I’d appreciate if this didn’t get out.”

Sasha’s golden eyes searched me. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but when he found it, his lips thinned, and he muttered, “You can talk to me. You know that, right?”

“Sure.”

I don’t know why I lied. I guess sometimes it was easier than the truth.

Sasha gave me another onceover before turning back to his computer. “Watch your back out there, brother,” he warned, and I don’t know why, but I felt he might have underplayed the danger I was putting myself in.

But what other options did I have?

Screw it.

For the right price, I’d dive head-first into a shark’s mouth.

15

Nastasia

We all had secrets.

I had some. But Vik had more.

I thought I knew most all of his. Like, how he told people he didn’t like horror movies because they were predictable and they bored him, when in reality, he jumped and squirmed at every scare. Or how he hummed quietly to himself when he woke in the early morning. I wasn’t sure anybody knew how desperately he wanted a German Shepherd.

Even his body had its mysteries.

I might have been the only person in the world who knew of the single tawny freckle that resided on his left hip. I had pressed my lips to that spot more times than dawn had risen.

I worshipped him, a lonely apostle pledging herself to a divine, dark god.

All I wanted in return? The devotion of a man who may not have had the capacity to give it.

Thus was my problem.

It left me asking the question of whether I wanted a man who so openly denied his feelings. Denied me. I had never given part of myself to anyone expecting the same in return, but the older I got, my stance changed. And resentment built up until it made my usually sweet nature bitter.

From my bed, I leaned over and peeked inside the bathroom where Mina sat on the vanity with her legs crossed, watching Vik work. And she was helping. “You missed a spot.”

I heard him sigh. “Listen, wifey. I don’t mind you sitting in and watching me with a hawk’s eye, but”—the frustration rolled off him in waves, making me smirk—“if you don’t stop telling me how wrong I’m doing this shit, I’m gonna put a goddamn spatula in your hand and make you do it while I sit and watch. You feel me?”

“Well, you know what they say. Anything men can do,” she muttered, “women can do bleeding.”

I choked on a laugh.

“Fuck me” was his exasperated reply.

Mina sighed to herself, then said, “If I don’t tell you how wrong you’re doing it,” she paused a moment, then added a self-assured, “then how will you know?” When he growled, my shoulders shook in silent laughter, and Mina clucked, “Now, now. No need to get touchy. You shouldn’t have assigned me your supervisor—”

And Vik cut in with an irritated, “I didn’t!”

“—if you didn’t want my help.”

At his long, groaned, “Jesus Christ,” I saw Mina’s lips twitch and found my own stretching right along with them.

I had to admit. It was fun to rile him up. It was so fun, in fact, that I decided to join in on the game.

From my bed, I called out an impatient, “How much longer?”

And when Mina gasped out a light laugh, I got that piercing feeling in my solar plexus. The one that said I might have pushed too far.

Uh oh.

Vik slowly emerged from my bathroom holding a spatula in one hand and a bucket in the other. His sweats grout-stained, his glare was lethal. “You wanna get in here and do it yourself, princess?”