Cavalier (Crimson Elite 1)

“Echo, hands off,” Falcon says, standing in a kitchen area with drinks around him. Creed sits opposite of him, head down as he listens to Falcon.

“He’s feisty that one, but just a word of advice, the one you should be looking out for is Creed.” He doesn’t say anything else as he walks off. Falcon waves me over and I take the spare seat next to Creed. A few girls linger on the seats behind us. They aren’t the regular girls from work, that surprises me, but the three guys are up here watching while Falcon makes drinks.

“Do you need a hand?” I ask Falcon. He smiles at me and taps my head.

“No work for you tonight, pretty one. Tonight, you get fucked up.”

I laugh at his words. He’s always tapping my head like I’m a child and saying stupid shit. Falcon’s attractive, more so than most men. But my heart only beats out of my chest and my hands only sweat while my butterflies swoon for the man sitting next to me, pretending I don’t exist.

My eyes find him, he’s lost in thought. His face is stoic and unreadable. Turning back around, I wipe my sweaty hands on my clothes and hope he doesn’t realize what he does to me.

I need to try harder to hide these feelings, they could be dangerous.13CreedIt was Falcon’s idea to bring her here. Our one place where we go to wind down. Trying to avoid her is what I’ve been attempting, telling myself that the taste of her lips isn’t as intoxicating as I thought. Maybe it’s just in my fucking head. Her fingers tap on the kitchen counter where she sits next to me, her strawberry smell almost suffocating me.

Falcon looks to me then raises one eyebrow before he quickly looks away—to him it’s a game of who can get her first. I’m not fucking playing that game this time. I push my chair back and walk away. D’s standing in the hallway, his cell glued to him as he looks up to me. His eyes look over my shoulder before he slides his cell into his pocket then nods toward the door. I know what that look means. It means it’s time to go.

“Breach,” is all he has to say. It’s as simple as that. We take our business dealings seriously. It’s how we’ve stayed in business for so long, gained the clientele we have. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be this fucking rich. A governor won’t come to our establishment and lay down thousands of dollars a night if we weren’t discreet. And to keep that in order, there are things we have to do.

Walking out the front door, we don’t say goodbye. D starts driving straight away as I shoot Echo a text telling him where we’re going. He replies with a thumbs up. Echo used to be the main man on these missions. Now we don’t even know what to do with him. We’ve all been doing his job for so long we aren’t even sure what his job is anymore.

“Falcon’s doing it to get under your skin,” D says as we drive away from his house and back to the city. My hand holds the door handle hard, squeezing it until my knuckles go red. “And obviously it’s working.” He sounds amused with himself.

“It’s nothing.”

He slows the car down as the address comes up on his cell phone. “Is that what you’re going to keep telling yourself?” he asks, glancing at me. “I like her, believe it or not. She has spunk, and she isn’t shy. Maybe she’ll bring you out of your shell.”

“She’s an employee.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Don’t bring it into work, you can do that.”

The car comes to a stop and he opens the glove compartment, pocketing his gun. Getting out, we walk straight to the front door, checking for cameras. Echo would have usually disarmed all cameras on the property. He’s in charge of security but as I said, he’s been lacking lately.

D knocks on the door then steps back. Standing in front of him, the councilman opens the door with a drink in hand. His eyes go wide at the sight of us and his drink drops to the ground, smashing into pieces as he turns, trying to escape. It won’t work. My boots crunch over the glass as I reach him, grabbing him by his shirt and pulling him backward then slamming him into the ground. He grunts then cries out loudly as D steps in, shutting the door behind him. With the blunt end of the gun, D knocks him unconscious as I drag his ass to the nearest chair. I pull him onto it, and then tie his hands and feet to it.

Once he’s tied down, I step away from him to see family photos on his wall but no sign of a family. His wife left him years ago because he liked to fuck other women and he hasn’t seen his kids in over a year. He’s the picture-perfect man covered in lies.