Storm (Sex and Bullets 1)

Raylin gives me a wide-eyed stare.

“Hawk’s girlfriend is a stuck-up bitch,” I explain, and Hawk grins. “But Hawk won’t give her up.”

“She’s a sweet fuck, dude.” He taps his cell on his thigh to some inner rhythm. “She’s hot. That’s all I need right now. A hot body. No complications, no relationship shit. Not like Rook and his girl drama.”

I never could understand this side of Hawk. Sometimes I wonder if he doesn’t get lonely. Even with hot bod there, it must be cold.

As for Rook… He’s been in love—or lust?—with a girl since forever and won’t give up, even if she has never as much as glanced his way.

Weird.

Evening is gathering. I turn to Raylin, who’s staring down at the lights of the city below, and my pulse jumps, thumping in my ears. Every time I look at her, a vein of heat opens inside me. My tongue remembers her sweetness. My mind her kindness.

She makes me feel happy.

I frown at that, because it’s a new concept. I’ve been angry, sad, frustrated, and flaming pissed. I’ve been cornered and let down and accustomed to a lot of shit. I’ve been okay. But never good. Never happy. Never hopeful. Not until I met her.

“Where are we going?” she asks, and I blink.

“One of my country estates.” Hawk laces his hands behind his head. Even in his expensive suit he’s every inch the badass biker, with his tats, scruff and longish hair, and the attitude. He used to be the greatest rebel of us three.

Until I skipped town, telling nobody where I was heading, and won the prize.

“What about the lawyers? The money?” Fever tangles up my tongue, trips it up. “How we gonna arrange it?”

“When we land, you will call them. Talk to Shin. That guy has the power in the law firm. They should have the cash ready, and tomorrow, when we go back to town for the meeting with the fucking triad, we only need to pass by and get it.”

He makes it sound easy. Hell, he makes it easy.

“Thanks, man.”

“Don’t mention it.”

It’s dark when we land on a helipad in a huge yard flanked by trees. Lights mark the helipad, and the trees and decorative bushes. Hawk’s country mansion, which is lit up like a Christmas tree, is so far I think we may need a car to drive us there.

In fact, there’s a white Club Car waiting for us, and I snort. Come to think of it, I also own a country estate now, somewhere south from here. I think I visited there once, when I was a teenager, with Uncle Tony. Can barely remember.

I barely know what I own.

Now that’s a scary thought. I really need to sit down with those lawyers, have everything explained to me. Decide what to do with all the illegal business my family has been running. What to give back, what to fix.

How to make it up to those wronged and cut the ties with the Organization and any other illegal group. How can you enjoy money knowing it’s stolen? Knowing it’s money steeped in blood? I’ll never understand that.

My uncle once told me I’m too chicken for business. He was wrong. I’m not afraid. What I am is disgusted and fucking pissed with what I found out today.

And sad. So damn sad that they died for the fucking money. That I may die for it, even if I don’t want it. That Raylin and Rook almost died for it.

I rub my hands over my face. What a goddamn mess.

And it’s about to get worse. I know it the minute Hawk’s phone dings. He glances at it, scrolls down, reads. His face goes red, then white.

Christ. Hawk never gets rattled like that. He’s the epitome of cool and collected.

We’ve landed, but we still haven’t made a move to get out of the chopper, waiting for Hawk to say something.

Finally he does.

“This is fucked up, man.” He throws his cell on the empty seat next to him and kicks at the metal frame of the chopper door. “Really fucked up.”