Page 18 of Full Throttle

For weeks, I’d only felt one thing: rage. I couldn’t get a handle on it. On the outside, I tried my best to appear calm, and around the guys, I usually succeeded, but around her…

Fuck, just her presence made my blood boil, and last night tipped the damn pot over.

“I’m good,” I lied, pushing my damp hair back.

Leon was staring at me as he muttered, “Must’ve been a messy favor.”

Back at the hospital, I wanted to go back into the room with Lee and Dontell, but I got a call from Jer asking me to meet him at my storage unit. Instead of going to check on the one person who was driving me insane, I left. When I got there, I half-expected Collin to be there.

He was, along with my brother.

The engine of my Silvia hummed lowly as I slowed it to a stop, my eyes on the Mafia King and his right-hand man—my older brother. Xander was everything I wasn’t. He’d made some bad choices in the past and ended up in prison, but he had his shit together, finally.

Without prison, he would’ve never met Collin, who recruited him, giving him a sense of freedom I’d never known. I envied my brother for having something I never could, and if that made me a shitty person, then so be it. It was just another thing to add to the fucking list.

Jaw tight, I pushed out all the air in my lungs through my nose as I shut off the car and folded out of it. The sun was high this morning, providing just a touch of warmth in the middle of winter. We were set to have a bad snowstorm within a few days, and there was still a lot to be done to prepare at Oasis. We needed to lock up the doors, clean out the bays, and I needed to get my engine designs back to my place.

If I was going to be snowed in, I could at least be working on something.

A gust of wind hit me as I walked over to the Mafia Don, who standing in front of his SUV dressed in a black suit with a thick, black coat hanging down from his shoulders. His hands were in his pant pockets, a cigarette hanging from his lips as his cold, blue eyes watched me.

Collin Stevens was the deadliest man on the planet.

He was a demon.

I’d seen his work and heard of his horrors long before I came to St. Louis. The title he had now was his birth-right, but he had to work for it. He single-handedly overthrew the Romano family a year ago, killing the head, Ray Romano. His soul was darker than mine.

Jer’s Challenger pulled up beside the SUV, the rumbling engine coming to a stop as he shut off the car and stepped out. “Fuck, it's cold,” he bit off, shutting the door and coming to greet his brother-in-law.

“How’s Kay?” Jer asked as I approached.

“A little shaken up, but she’s fighting,” Collin replied, referring to his wife. One of Collin’s men was decapitated on his island—while Kay was home. I watched Collin as a wicked smile spread across his face. “She’s vengeful.”

Jer scoffed. “That she fucking is,” he muttered, looking at me. He lifted his chin. “Nikki doing okay?”

Unclenching my jaw, I replied, “She’s alright. The doc is seeing her soon to go over her injuries.” My eyes snapped over my brother, noting his rigid stance. “You good?”

He nodded. “Ready for this to be over.”

“That bastard from last night gone?” I pressed. We’d left my brother alone with the dead Russian to clean up when we got word of the wreck.

Xander nodded once, chewing his gum. He always chewed gum, something he picked up during middle school.

Waiting for him to elaborate, I stared at him. He didn’t meet my eyes, and I was reminded all over again that he didn’t see me as a brother, just a man with a big brain he needed to bring in for his boss. He would never know what I'd sacrificed for him. He didn’t deserve to know the whole truth, but I was happy he still had breath in his lungs.

“Cain, I need to know something,” the Mafia King said, breaking the family tension.

Slowly, I looked over to him, taking in his black hair with an undercut, the tattoos around his neck disappearing into the collar of his shirt. “No, I didn’t recognize the fucker from last night.”

He smirked as I noticed the Oasis leader visibly stiffening beside him. “Are you certain?”

I’d been on thin ice majority of my fucking adult life because of one choice I made in The Pit in Detroit. Through gritted teeth, I assured him. “Yes. It has been over ten years, Stevens.”

He stared at me, using silence as a form of intimidation. The smoke from his shrinking cigarette swirling into the air above our heads. He brought out a single hand, taking a deep drag.

That didn’t work on me.

Fear didn’t work on me anymore. Kavi made sure of that.

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