Page 54 of Deadly Little Sparrow

“I need to go check out each of the locations to see how much juice we’ll need, but I should be able to have all the packages set and ready to blow by Saturday night,” Salvatore answers.

“Saturday night,” Enzo repeats, fixing his gaze back on Sparrow. “Saturday night you can do whatever you like to your bikers. Any sooner and it might start raising red flags for the club. Got it?”

Sparrow licks his lips, his stillness unsettling, like he’s the bomb that’s about to go off. I place a hand on his leg under the table and squeeze his thigh. He presses into my touch and lets out a slow breath.

“Saturday it is,” he agrees.

“Perfect,” Enzo says. “Go.” He dismisses us with a wave of his hand.

SPARROW

I feel like a can of soda that’s been spun around on a tilt-a-whirl, ready to fucking blow. Five more days. I’ve waited this long, I can wait five more days.

I snag Xaviaro’s hand before he can open the passenger door to his car. He stops in his tracks and looks at me with quiet curiosity, arching an eyebrow when I don’t explain myself right away. I don’t know what I want, actually. I just know I’m too keyed up to go back to the apartment. I could go get the rest of my shit from my old place and cancel the lease, but I don’t want to do that right now either.

I want to do something about all of the energy buzzing inside of me, making me feel like I need to scream or hit something… or kill a fucking biker. I doubt there’s another MMA fight going on in the middle of the day, so that’s out.

“Is there a shooting range around here?” I blurt, the words coming out before my brain catches up with my mouth.

“Not too far,” Xaviaro answers.

I grin and wrap my hand around his tie, pushing up onto the tips of my toes so I can brush my lips against his. “Take me to shoot?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

I steal another rough kiss, then release him so he can open the car door for me. The smell of the clean, expensive leather interior has become a familiar one, but for some reason, right now it’s a jarring reminder that justice for Benny is so close I can taste it. And, in spite of what I thought before, the death of this vendetta won’t be the death of Sparrow. I just don’t know what after looks like yet. Maybe that’s okay though.

Who the fuck knows what next week looks like anyway? People pretend to, they convince themselves they do, but deep down, we’re all just hanging on tight and hoping for the fucking best.

“Hey, you probably have connections to get me what I would need to make my new identity legit, right?”

“Like, a social security card and everything?” Xaviaro asks, pulling out of the parking lot onto the main road. “Sure. That’s easy. You want to go back to working in tech after all this or what? We can fake college transcripts too if you need us to.”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Maybe. I’m not sure what else I would do.”

“You can do anything you want. Or you can do nothing. I make more than enough to keep you in the lap of luxury.” By the way his lips twitch with a teasing smile, he’s not surprised by the growl I give him in response to that suggestion.

“If you think I’m looking for a Sugar Daddy, you need your head examined.”

He barks out a laugh. “Yeah, I didn’t actually expect you to take me up on that one. You could at least let me buy you a third pair of jeans though.”

I shove my finger into the thready hole in the knee of this pair and mutter wordlessly under my breath.

“I could come into the fitting room with you at the store,” he tacks on to sweeten the deal, dropping his voice to a suggestive rumble.

“Maybe,” I say breezily.

He was right, the shooting range isn’t far. Within a few minutes, we’re pulling into the parking lot of a large, windowless building just on the outskirts of town. I hop out of the car and head for the main door, but Xaviaro’s whistle stops me before I reach it. I turn around to find him with the trunk open, rifling around inside.

“Did you just whistle at me like I’m a dog?” I ask, hitting him with a challenging look that he doesn’t see since his head is stuck inside the trunk.

“Maybe,” he shoots back in the same breezy tone I used a few minutes ago. He closes the trunk with an echoing thunk and holds up a pair of Glocks. “I figured you might want one of these.”

The stern admonishment I was preparing evaporates and my mouth falls open in awe. They’re a hell of a lot bigger than the snub nose he keeps tucked under his jacket at all times, and now I’m wondering what other toys he has hidden in his trunk. I might need to do a thorough search at some point.

We head inside and check in at the front desk, get our safety gear, and are assigned a range. Once we’re there, Xaviaro gestures me close and places one of the pistols into my hand. It’s heavier than it looks, the weight of it sending a sense of power and foreboding vibrating down my arm and through the rest of my body.

He slides the magazine out of the one he’s holding to show me how it works, rattling off each part of the gun before demonstrating the correct grip, with one hand steadying it and the other trigger ready. I consider telling him that I actually already know all of this. Phantom did include an entire section on firearms in his Hitman 101 course. But the deep, steady sound of Xaviaro’s voice as he patiently explains every aspect is just too damn sexy to interrupt.

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