Chapter 26
Aiden
I’m so cold standing here. I shiver nonstop as every single member of my dad’s club takes their turn, throwing dirt onto mom’s coffin with a shovel.
The rain is starting to turn the dirt to mud, covering the roses lying on top of the coffin.
I swallow as tears fill my eyes again. I’ve cried for three days, wishing it could have been someone else, not my mom.
I’m graduating elementary school in two weeks, and my mom won’t be there now.
She was so excited to see me wear the suit she picked out, saying it would serve me well to get out of my dirty jeans and the same three T-shirts I always wear.
Then she mussed up my hair and kissed the top of my head the way she always does. The way she always did.
Fuck this life.
This is all my dad’s fault. His stupid club. Last year, I lost my aunt because the feds bribed her to talk. The first chance the club had, they took her out.
Fuck this life, and fuck the cops.
My mom said it wasn’t the club’s fault, or my aunt’s, but I know it was the club. The club ruins everything. I’m almost twelve. I’m not stupid.
And now, all because my mom was at the barbecue with my dad and he was too drunk to ride home on his bike, she’s dead.
My mom drove my dad home in his enforcer’s truck, and the bullet that was meant for his head took her out instead.
My dad thinks I don’t know, but I heard him talking to his VP the night she died.
I hid on the stairs in our house and listened to it all.
My dad’s heavy hand rests on my shoulder now, his other arm in a sling, broken in two places from when my mom veered off the road and crashed into a mailbox.
My dad was passed out drunk and wasn’t wearing his seatbelt.
I sniff back my tears and straighten up.
He’ll be mad if I’m crying, I know it. He’ll call me a pussy.
“The only woman you can ever cry over is your mother, son. It’s okay,” he says gruffly. I hear the sadness in his voice, and he should be sad. If he hadn’t drank so much, she’d still be alive.
“If you take anything from this, learn from me. I didn’t listen to your grandad. Women aren’t for getting attached to.”
I look up at him. He wears dark sunglasses so I can’t see his eyes.
“In our way of life, they only end up hurt or worse, like your mother. When you lose them, a part of your soul goes with them.” My dad takes the last drag of his smoke and drops it into the wet grass. I focus on it as the cherry-red end fades to black.
Another tear falls down my cheek, and I push it away. Fuck the tears.
“You’re a Foxx, boy. Cursed just like I am and just like your grandad was when your grandma died because of this life. It runs in our blood.” He pats my shoulder. “We’re better off alone. Everything we touch in this world turns to shit.”
I unwrap my hands and flex my fists while sweat drips down my forehead and my breathing slows.
I finish my workout and focus on my battered hands, which are red and angry.
The memories have been running through my mind all night because I’m doing exactly what my father told me not to by bringing Mia here.
My fists ache from going so hard on the heavy bag, trying to push her face from my mind.
For six days, I’ve tracked her car and kept her in my home.
We found out the car was registered to a Michael Crawford back in the nineties, who I’m assuming is her father, but I haven’t got that info back yet.
I followed her myself to and from work while Archer and Stone were away with another emergency issue with our latest firearms shipment.
It seems someone is trying to fuck us over, and it’s possible it’s from the inside.
Because of this unexpected development, I’ve had to bide my time where information on Mia is concerned. And it hasn’t been easy.
Because she’s the beginning and end of my every waking thought, and if she thinks I don’t know she’s been snooping around here like a little fucking pseudo-detective, she’s wrong.
I’ve been watching her, night after night, traipse around my house in her short little fucking shorts and her phone light.
I watched as she found my box of anesthetics, and I watched as she took photos of the drugs I keep on hand for emergency use.
I wasn’t trying to hide them. Call it a reminder to her of who she’s fucking with. The moment Mia slips up, I’ll be there.
She’s stronger than I thought, but she almost has the feel of a rookie cop in training, the kind who thinks they’re tough until they have to actually hit the streets.
And the more time I spend watching her, the more I realize her “wouldn’t be the first time” line is a pile of bullshit.
In fact, looking back, I wonder if she’s ever even sucked a dick before mine.
But even her inexperience, and not knowing why she’s here, doesn’t stop me from fucking wanting her constantly, even if she’s a distraction of the worst kind.
I want her enough that it actually bothered me when I thought that maybe she was driving out to Grayson Island to meet a man.
And I’ll be checking into that story too.
The moment Stone got back from our arms deal with the Titans, I told him he’s exclusively on the case of Mia Crawford for me. He’s not to rest until he knows everything. Whatever facade she’s hiding behind, her time is almost up.
Pulling on a pair of black boxer briefs after a shower, I head to the kitchen and find Mia already there, sitting at the island in nothing but a pair of white cotton panties and a tank top, drinking my most expensive bourbon straight from the bottle.
One curvy leg is crossed over the other, her painted pink toes are perched on the rung of the stool, and her hair is high on her head in a loose bun.
It makes me think one pull of a pin could have it all tumbling down, and fuck, that does something to me.
She doesn’t look up from her phone. Even the way she ignores me turns me on.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I ask, nodding to the bourbon.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I’m drinking and watching Netflix in the only place in this house that has any Wi-Fi,” she offers without looking up, holding up her bottle like she’s toasting me, and that’s when I realize she’s tipsy as fuck.
“And you felt the need to do this half naked?” I grit out, moving into the kitchen and setting my phone on the counter.
“I haven’t been allowed to go home and get pajamas,” she deadpans, finally training those ocean-blue eyes on me. “And maybe you should take your own advice. You big, fat”—she looks at my cock in my snug briefs—“hypocrite.”
Pressing her lips to the bottle, she takes a sip, ending it with a little pop. I make a mental note to get Roz over here to take her home for some of her things tomorrow. Dagger hasn’t been around, and I can spare someone to follow them now that Stone is back.
Mia’s looking at her phone again as I take in the curves of her soft thighs and the full tits that I can see right through her thin cotton shirt.
It takes everything in me not to flip her snarky ass over right on my kitchen counter and claim her cunt with the fat cock she just pointed out until she screams.
I open my fridge wide, pulling out a coconut water and chugging it down. I can feel her eyes raking over my shirtless body as I drink, and when I turn to face her, she’s sucking back another shot of bourbon. Her gaze is hungry as an alcohol-induced truth slowly creeps up her pretty cleavage.
“Fucking hell, why do you have to look so good without clothes?” she blurts out, her eyes full of unrestrained desire, threatening to obliterate my self-control. “And why don’t you dry yourself off?”
I can’t help it. I crack a smirk.
Is my wet body bothering you, Rhiannon?
I swallow and face her. “I told you to stay in your room at night.” I set the empty bottle of coconut water on the counter, running a hand through my damp hair.
“And you also agreed this isn’t a dictatorship,” she retorts with a shrug, not missing a beat.
She shoots me a smug little grin. “Sorry I’m not your perfectly obedient little prisoner.
Please forgive me, boss,” she says, tipping the bottle back again.
Her tongue darts out to take the tiniest bit of leftover whiskey from her full lips, and she giggles. “Whoopsie.”
My mouth waters as I close the space between us and nod to the bourbon. “That’s enough of that.”
She knows exactly what she’s doing, inexperienced or not.
Her nipples are hardened to points under the thin cotton, and my fingers beg to pinch and roll them through the fabric until it hurts her just enough to make her beg for my mouth instead.
She angles herself toward me and gives me a defiant look as she takes another big drink.
Only, her eyes stay on mine, so she overshoots, taking too much from the bottle, and it dribbles down her bitable throat and then between her tits. She slides her middle finger to scoop up the liquid, then sucks the whiskey off her finger. All the while, her eyes stay on mine.
Fuck me if my briefs aren’t instantly tight.
I swivel her stool and grip it tight, yanking her close with a force that makes those tits bounce as the stool scrapes along the hardwood floor.
Mia sucks in a breath as I step between her thighs.
Closing my eyes, hands still on the stool, I tip my forehead to hers and breathe her in—a sinful blend of vanilla and bourbon.
Her quick breathing, her fear when I’m this close.
The way she pushes so hard to make me think she’s more experienced than she really is and the fear in her eyes bring forth the epiphany I should have realized long before now.
The truth practically clubs me over the head. I can’t believe I didn’t see it.
“You think I won’t fuck you because you’re a virgin, Mia?”