27. Bay
TWENTY-SEVEN
bay
“You’re fucking kidding me…” I stare back at the man who tried to burn me alive inside The Stowaway, and then at my best friend seething daggers at me from his side.
I’ll get to him later.
My current concern is the newly attached black bracelet to my Levi’s ankle that’s blinking with a red light.
“You think I’m going to let him walk away with a fuckin’ bomb strapped to his ankle?”
Juice’s fingers grip the back of my tee shirt, trying to keep me a safe distance away, but I don’t move, and he doesn’t begin to tug on me yet.
I’m face to face with these Forsaken Crew fucks, and Levi lied about joining a gang, hence why I’m sorta here.
The idiot.
“Unless you want me to take him back,” Cairo drones, a piece of his jet-black hair curling down his forehead and giving him a bad boy 50s vibe. He has it equipped with black jeans and a white plain tee, and I’m ticking down the seconds to when my temper is going to bust and make it red.
Though, I’ve never killed anyone. However, shit can change.
Shit’s about to change.
If they thought I was fucking around before, they got me all fucked up now.
“So, that means I get to put a bullet into Torin then?”
Cairo doesn’t change his composed expression, built and bred to not let your enemy see you sweat.
It’s smart, however, it’s not a deal-saver. And he’s the hardest one yet to crack.
His hatred for me is as pure as it gets. Even more than Torin, who has every right to question my side of things. How a girl who comes out of nowhere and threatens his space is going to either rock or destroy his world.
This is getting a little too messy for me, and I’m spiraling out of control with it.
“Let’s go, Bay,” Levi commands authoritatively at Cairo’s side. “I’m dying over here with the smell of too much aftershave from the twelve-year-old over here.”
Reeve scoffs, but doesn’t rip his hardcore focus off me. “I’d fuck your mom if she was alive, so shut the hell up.”
“Juice,” I order for all to hear. “Take Torin back?—”
“I brought Wallace,” Cairo sneers and, even though his expression doesn’t change, his voice dips into an almost inhumane growl. “Deal’s a deal.”
“However, it’s not a fair deal,” I retort. “And since you’re sending my man back with a ticking time bomb attached to his body, I wanna know when it’s either going to come off or?—”
“Whenever you get it off,” Cairo retorts back.
Motherfucker…
“Looks like you made the Italian stallion mad,” Torin mutters the moment Reeve steps up and nods at Cairo’s side.
It speaks this is as good as it’s gonna get. Take it.
“Shut up and let the grown-ups talk, Pretty Boy.”
He shifts, stepping in front of me and blocking my view of my best friend and his. “What did you say?”
Is he serious?
“I said shut up ,” I repeat. “The grown-ups are talking.”
“Can I go now?” he asks. “Or did I need to bow down to the queen first?”
“Aw, you thought you were gonna leave without me giving something back to you?” He lifts a brow, and I jerk my head back, asking Juice and Hot Rod to give me some space.
I’m surprised they do, and I’m putting myself out there, but shooting Torin in the foot might shatter bones, the thigh, an artery and if I don’t have to kill one of the head honchos from the Forsaken Crew, I’m not going to.
However, I can leave him with something else.
Looking down at the front of his body, I slowly inspect my victim in the only bloodless way I know how.
“I want this to end,” I tell him honestly through a low mutter. “I want you to keep you and yours out of South Shore.”
His brows furrow. “You want me to what?”
“ Stay out of fucking South Shore,” I bark out louder.
Geezus Christ.
“And what do I get in return?”
“Isn’t that enough? Peace?”
“No,” he deadpans. “I want revenge.”
“On who?” He averts his eyes and silently tells me that he’s not going to budge with my answer. “I want the bomb off my best friend.”
“And, again, what do I get in return?”
My nostrils flare at his entitled ass. “Your life?”
He shakes his head as if that’s not good enough. “There’re two of me left if I die, but only one Levi Wallace.”
Cairo and Reeve.
“Why don’t we all just have a Wild West shootout and see if I can get all of you taken out.”
Torin smiles at me, but it’s not a friendly I love it when you’re near kinda smile, but a you’re stupid as hell right now . “Is this how you planned your untimely death? In the middle of a street?”
“Never thought too much into—” He moves forward, causing me to stop speaking altogether. Torin annoyingly has that effect on me.
I hate it.
But it’s there.
“You’re mumbling,” he grounds out. “And I planned a whole scene's worth of material for you, Wildfire. It involved a whole lot of really messy ass shit for me and you.”
I don’t need to read between the lines to understand that he hasn’t given up his weird obsession with me.
“What do you want?”
“What do I want?” I press my lips together, but give him a curt nod. “I want you bent over on your knees while I slide my cock inside that tight pussy. I want to feel Levi Wallace’s woman wrapped around me so I can say I fucked over South Shore, literally.”
That would’ve been semi-cute if he would’ve lost the fucking South Shore bit.
“I’m not into rape,” I convey. “But thanks anyway.”
“You don’t want me anymore, Wildfire?” His light eyes don’t falter off mine, looking for any sort of discomfort riding through my blues, and my skin immediately ignites at the way he looks at me. He’s playing with fire, and I’m messing with ice from a man who really doesn’t care about me but wants to own me for bragging rights. “Because I’d love to have you…screaming my name, thrusting into you until you can’t breathe. Until I can’t breathe.”
“Sounds like it’s going to be just you and your hand tonight. Because?—”
“ Bay !” Levi’s voice booms out. “Let’s go.”
His voice poses no argument or to make him wait another second longer. He’s probably been through one hell of a couple of days and I’m only prolonging it.
“Don’t do this.”
My face scrunches in confusion. I’m not doing anything. I’m not sure why it’s so hard for Torin to understand. “Don’t do what?”
“Have a relationship with Emilio. Whatever you and Wallace are planning to take him out, it can’t be done. He’ll see it a mile away. And I…” He stops then, clamping his mouth shut and leaving me wondering about the rest.
“You what?” I press. “I’m not looking to develop any kind of relationship with Emilio. Do you understand me?”
“I hear you,” he confirms. “I just don’t believe you. You wouldn’t tell me what you were trying to do, even if I asked.”
“I’m trying to get away from him. Isn’t that clear enough?”
Torin lifts his bound hands and lifts my head by my chin. “Baby…I tried to protect you once. Listen to me this time.”
“ Wildes ,” Cairo barks out now. “Today, asshole.”
“You better get back to your folks,” I urge before stepping away and rounding his frame to get back to business. If I stand underneath those amber eyes for another second longer, I’m going to fall under his bullshit. “Let’s go.”
“He’s not going to stop until you either kill him or he kills you,” Torin retorts. “And the latter is promising to him, if you become a problem.”
I pivot and look up at him. And I’ve never seen Torin so damn overwhelmed before. All over a silly-ass seat. “You think he’s going to kill his daughter? The only blood he has on this Earth?”
I highly doubt it.
Emilio is desperate to have me within his clutches, and I know there’s more to the story.
“Does the King of South Shore know your little secret?” Torin taunts, and this guy really doesn’t know when to stop while he’s ahead. “It doesn’t look or sound like he does. And I’m sure he wouldn’t like his girlfriend being linked to his enemy.”
“Wanna tell him?” I slice my eyes up to his. “I’d love to see the outcome of how that’d work out for you when you do.”
“Finally gonna use those newly found balls of yours and off me?”
I slowly shake my head, a tease of a smile illuminating my face. “Nah, Torin Wildes, I’m going to fuck you. And you’re gonna fall madly in love with me to the point where you’ll just off Daddy for me.”
Torin’s face turns lethal, and it looks very good on him.
I’m not gonna lie and say that I wouldn’t mind if he did it right now. Behind all his pretty-boy features, his temper gives him an edge.
I just don’t think I’ve fully seen it yet.
I bet he’s vicious as well as good in bed and screwing over Emilio’s stepkids would be the perfect revenge.
“You think your pussy holds that much power, Wildfire?”
“I know it does,” I state, coming almost chest-to-chest with him. I raise my chin, finding him already looking at me with the same hunger in his eyes that I saw earlier in that dressing room.
“We gonna do this in front of your boyfriend, or…”
“You wish, baby .” I smack his cheek twice with my palm. “I’ll let the anticipation kill you.”
He snorts as movement from my peripheral catches my eye, finding Cairo moving forward with a gun pointed at Levi’s head.
“C’mon, Torin,” he commands sharply, and my blood boils that he’s holding anything to my best friend’s skull.
“Take the bomb off,” I command. “Right now.”
“Can’t.”
Reeve steps forward then, closing the distance, and I hate that his presence begins to sway the dread filling my veins. That he calms me in any way, shape, or form, because I don’t know him like I know anyone of importance.
“Lookin’ good, McQueen,” he greets with a smile, as though we’re not doing anything but hanging out here. This guy…this guy is going to get himself killed if he doesn’t take this more seriously. “Soooo Emilio…”
“The agreement was to hand them off,” I clip out through clenched teeth. “You want to send my bes— boyfriend back with a ticking time bomb.”
“Baby, we didn’t put the bomb on.” He stops a few feet from me. “I’m here with a message from the prick.”
The prick…
“Emilio,” Reeve fills in through my silence, careful to keep his voice down. “He wants you to text him back.”
I gape at him and swallow the lump forming in my throat. “Are you…serious?”
“Dude is desperate, what can I say?”
There’s no way.
Emilio is off his shit, apparently. Strapping a bomb to my best friend is going to make me move?
It got your full attention, didn’t it?
“He says he’ll see you Friday,” he continues, bringing his hazel eyes to latch back onto me. “And, he hopes you figure out the bomb.”
My nostrils flare, even though it’s not Reeve’s doing. “Do you see where I’d have a problem with that?”
“I do.”
“Juice.” He immediately comes to my side, and I love that I didn’t have to beg or plead for some damn help. “Where do you see fit?”
I feel his eyes on me, understanding exactly what I’m implying. “Thigh.”
Without double-thinking or talking myself out of it, I aim across and yank on the trigger, sending a bullet into Torin’s leg and disregarding the consequences.
Torin curses profusely, his body falling forward, but Juice catches him to keep from faceplanting into the dirt road.
“Are you fucking stupid?” Cairo barks out yards away, but why should he be so surprised?
An eye for an eye, right?
“Are you?” I shoot back. “I have to get a fucking bomb I have to get off him. At least your boy’s shit is fixable. You can thank Emilio for me.”
Because ever since he blabbed about who I was, these boys are going to see me as a looming threat they have to get rid of.
Their town, gang, and inheritance rest on offing me.
“Get him the fuck out of here,” I compel with a wave of my gun to one of my guys. “Give Emilio my best.”
Cairo shoves Levi closer as Reeve helps Torin back to his boys.
I may have just entered the war, but Emilio Wildes started it.