Ryan (Mallick Brothers 2)

"Be even sweeter for him to watch me fuck his woman until she screams."

There was a sound coming from Bry that I had never heard before. It came from deep in his chest and was a sort of rumbling, something akin to a growl. When he brought his buddy to my place, sometimes he could be a bit cooler and detached. Normally when he was around me, he was good and sweet and observant and funny. I had never really seen him truly angry.

But make no mistake, at that comment, he was pissed. His entire body felt like it was vibrating with it.

So when he spoke, he didn't mind his tone or the words he said either. "What the fuck do you want from us, Dom? You got your pills back. Don't think I don't know it was that fuck," he said, gesturing toward Ray, "and one of your other lackeys who did it either."

"Smart," Dom said, nodding. "Got word that your practices were't the ones we agreed on. What I want with you," he said, lifting a brow, "is to make an example so everyone else knows not to fuck with the rules."

"There were no mother fucking rules about where I put the goddamn supply, Dom, and you know it."

What the hell was he doing?

I looked at his profile, my eyes bugging out, giving his hand a squeeze that I hoped relayed the message I was trying to deliver with my eyes: What are you trying to piss them off? Shut the hell up!

And despite knowing each other most of our lives and being able to have nonverbal conversations like that, he was completely ignoring me.

"It's something that my other men simply understand."

"Well, now it has been clarified. I don't see how any of this could have gotten around anyway, Dom. Unless, Ray and his buddy were talking seeing as I'm the only one dealing in Navesink Bank. Can't figure out why I'm being made an example of when you got some guys with loose fucking lips which is a much bigger threat to your organization."

"Enough," Dom said, waving a hand toward Bry.

Apparently that was some sort of nonverbal cue because the next thing I knew, Ray was across the room, grabbing Bry, pulling him to the side. His hand squeezed mine, again like reassurance, before I lost it completely. When I tried to reach for him again, Ray reached out with his free hand and shoved- catching me off-guard and sending me falling to the floor.

I landed on my side with a shooting of pain from my hip to my shoulder.

But I barely registered it, all my attention focused on Bry as he was pulled away. When he tried to double back to me, seeing me fall, Ray's arm cocked back and swung, landing solidly into his center and making him fall to his knees, gasping hard for breath.

"No!" I shrieked, unable to keep it in, hysteria bubbling up like never before.

"Shut the fuck up, cunt, or it will be you next time."

I didn't hear a shuffle. I didn't hear any of the men shouting.

I didn't hear anything out of what was the ordinary.

Except the next second, a voice that hadn't been in the room before spoke, breaking through the tension like the crack of a whip.

"Care to call me a cunt too? I mean, I do have the right body parts for it."

And there was a woman.

Really, one look at her and you realized she wasn't merely a woman; she was a force to be reckoned with. It wasn't that she was overly bulky or butch or intimidating. Actually, she had a perfectly curved, feminine body with long legs, a flare of hips, and a great rack. She was dressed in somewhat military fashion with camouflage printed utility pants and a tight nude-colored tank top. She had long blonde hair and intelligent, observant warm brown eyes. But there was just something about her. There was an air of authority and strength.

She stood in the doorway with her head cocked to the side, calm as could be. Like it was every day she walked into a drug dealer's compound.

I worried momentarily that maybe that was because she was a part of their organization or something. That was until Dom stiffened in his chair. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm Lo. And this," she said, moving to the side and allowing another woman to step in. She was younger, black-haired, blue-eyed, and covered in tattoos, "is Jstorm. And this," she went on as Jstorm filed in to allow space in the doorway again, "is Ryan Mallick," she said and I felt like my belly dropped to my feet.

Ryan?

But even as I was trying to convince myself that I was hearing things, hallucinating, losing my ever-loving mind, he stepped in.

Just like when Bry walked in, he didn't look at the men on the stage. He didn't look at Bry on the ground or Ray standing over him. His eyes went and stayed on me. There seemed to be a thousand words in their light depths.