Would Hale go against his father’s commands?
The punishment for that would be… unfathomable. Hale might survive, but I’m not sure the others would. From what little I remember of him, Damian is regarded as a fair leader, but he doesn’t tolerate betrayal.
Hell, that’s the whole fucking reason I’m here.
So I ground myself in the two solid, muscled bodies that encase me as I swallow hard and throw myself off the razor’s edge.
“No.” I shake my head, and Zaid’s hand moves with the motion. “It’s not over.”
A slow smile spreads across his face, and it changes his entire appearance. For a second, I can clearly see the boy I knew six years ago, and it feels in this moment as if no time at all has passed. As if our years apart were just a strange dream that I’m finally waking up from.
As if some part of our souls have always known the truth.
That wasn’t the end of our story.
“Thank you for saving me,” I say suddenly, my throat constricting. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“Always, kitten.”
There’s a fierceness in Zaid’s tone, and his grip on my chin tightens slightly before he drops his head to claim another searing kiss.
“Whoever the fuck Brian was working for, we’ll find them, and we’ll make them fucking pay,” Lucas adds, grasping my waist possessively as his warm breath tickles my neck.
Maybe I should be afraid of the dark promise in his voice, but I’m beyond being frightened of the violence these men exude. There’s something familiar, almost comforting about it. And maybe I’ve got some of that same violence inside me, because I find myself hoping they get the
ir shot at vengeance.
“He definitely wasn’t working alone,” I murmur, leaning back into Lucas’s touch as Zaid moves forward, sandwiching me even more tightly between them. “I heard him mention the name Calvin, but I didn’t get a last name.”
“What did you just say?” Lucas stiffens, his entire body turning to a solid plank behind me.
“Calvin,” I repeat, looking at Zaid as he takes a step back from me. He’s staring down at me like he’s seen a ghost. “Brian said something about a guy named Calvin. I might’ve heard it wrong. I was in a trunk, and he was almost out of earshot.”
“No, you didn’t hear anything wrong,” Zaid says, running a hand through his hair. He takes another step away from me, meeting Lucas’s gaze over my shoulder. “We need to go.”
“What—”
The protest dies on my lips as I absorb the seriousness that’s taken over both of their expressions. Whatever I just said has deep significance, and the heat that was building between the three of us has been snuffed out like a candle. Both of them are in soldier mode now, their bodies practically bristling with agitation.
“Who’s Calvin?” I glance between them. “Do you know him?”
“No,” Lucas mutters, grabbing my hand and striding quickly toward the door with Zaid right behind us. “It’s not a person. It’s a place.”
“We need to wake Ciro and Hale.” Zaid’s voice is hard. “You need to tell them exactly what you just told us. Everything you remember about Brian’s conversation.”
I nod, nearly tripping over the stairs as we take them at a fast clip, glancing over my shoulder at Zaid. “Okay. But I don’t understand. How is Calvin a place?”
“Not Calvin. Calvin’s.” Lucas stops abruptly at the top of the stairs, turning to face me with a grim look on his face. “It’s a bar. It was a syndicate front for a couple years, but that isn’t widely known. Not even by the cops.”
I blink, my gaze shifting from him to Zaid. “But you think whoever Brian was talking to did know about it? That would mean…”
“Yeah.” Zaid’s jaw clenches. “There’s a mole in the Novak Syndicate. A traitor.”
To Be Continued…
Ruthless Knights, book two in the Dark Elite series, is coming soon! Preorder it on Amazon HERE.
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