Page 6 of Alive and Kicking
Zane hops up from his crouched position to hold his hands out to me. “Yay! Family meeting. That’s what they call them in the cheesy sitcoms. I’m going to text them to meet us in the dining room.”
Cain
Isit down at the table when everyone else is already there. I may or may not have been avoiding the awkward tension of waiting for everyone else to arrive at the table. When I’m seated, we’re silent for a while. We’re looking at Zane because he’s the one who called this meeting, and he’s staring at Viv as usual. She leans back in her chair, and my eyes flick to her to find hers on me.
My spine suddenly stiffens, unsure of why she’s singling me out with that quirked brow of hers. “So, what exactly are your guys’ boundaries regarding crime? I’m set to inherit the position of head of the Rossi Crime Syndicate. If this is going to work, and we were to stay involved, I need to know Shadow’s limitations when it comes to my business dealings.”
Nox chokes on his saliva and Sloane just smirks at how calm and collected Viv is about this whole situation. “So, you know,” I say slowly, rubbing my thigh under the table out of everyone else’s view. I hate that the control of her knowledge has been taken out of my hands. Nox and I were supposed to be the ones to tell her.
Her eyes narrow on me, then slowly travel around the table before softening a tiny bit when they land on Zane. “No thanks toany of you. So much for trust. I told you guys everything and you all chose to leave me in the dark on this.”
I realize then, with the subtle clenching of her jaw, that she’s just portraying herself to be confident. She’s hurt. We hurt her by not telling her this. Some part of me feels guilty for the whole situation, but most of me knows we did the right thing. Viv was too trusting of us when she came clean. Not that I gave her much of a choice when I demanded to know everything.
“We were going to tell you tonight,” Nox says, gesturing between himself and me. “But then your dad showed up and I figured it wasn’t a good time. We weren’t planning to keep it from you much longer.”
Viv’s eyes soften, and the frown on her face is smoothed away. “Fine, but if I find out any of you are keeping any more secrets from me; I’ll stab you. It might not be in a fatal location, but it’ll hurt.”
The vicious look in her eyes is probably meant to scare us, so I should not be getting hard right now. I guess I’ll just have to admit I’m as fucked up as the rest of them. While I may not like my reaction to her tone and threats, since I consider myself far from submissive, Zane has no reservations at all. “You’re so fucking hot when you make threats like that.”
“No fucking on the dinner table,” Nox says as Zane starts to lean toward Viv.
The pout he receives from our resident psycho would be cute if I hadn’t seen him covered in blood more times than I care to count.
“You know you’d want to watch,” Viv tells Nox in a husky voice as she watches the blush quickly tint his cheeks.
My cock stiffens even more as I picture Zane bending Viv over the table and fucking her where we all can see. I grit my teeth and try thinking about unsexy things, like grading papers and answering emails from overreaching helicopter parents.Slowly, my cock begins to soften, and I sigh as the uncomfortable feeling of my zipper digging into me fades with it.
“Anyway… Is it too early to offer her a job?” Sloane asks with a smirk as he reaches forward to tug on a lock of her hair.
Viv swats his hand away with a curve of her lips as she tucks her hair behind her ears.
“Can she help me with my next job?” Zane asks, a manic grin spreading across his face. It always creeps me out how he somehow manages to show most of his teeth when he does that.
“Umm, I don’t know about that,” Nox says slowly, like he’s afraid of Zane’s reaction. “You’re a bit messy, and I have a feeling that would be an issue for Viv.”
Viv casts a shrewd glare at Zane. “Do I need to have Enzo teach you how to not splatter evidence all over the walls?”
Zane slumps down in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just like how pretty the splatter patterns are. Don’t you want to paint a picture with me?” He blinks at her with wide eyes that can’t even try to make what he said sound innocent.
Viv leans toward him slightly. “What do you have in mind?” She bites her bottom lip.
Zane leans in, mirroring her. “I want to paint the walls in the blood of our enemies with you before fucking you in the puddles of it on the floor.”
Did I say my boner went away? Because it’s certainly back with a vengeance.
I’m not usually one for voyeurism, but I wouldn’t mind watching that. Without me even realizing it, I’ve leaned forward, one hand gripping the edge of the table hard enough to turn my knuckles white.
“Didn’t we already kill all of our enemies during that sick game Viv’s dad put on?” Sloane asks.
Zane gives him his unhinged smile. “That’s the great thing about Don announcing that Viv is the next family head. We’ll never run out of enemies to take out.”
He says that with such a happy chipper tone, like there’s nothing wrong with what he just said. “What do you mean?” Nox, being the smart man he is, asks.
Zane shrugs and sends a quick glare Viv’s way, which has me raising my brows. I’ve never seen him even consider being upset with her, but that look screams pure malice. What the hell has him flip-flopping between happy-psycho and psycho-psycho?
“Well, I caught Viv looking at apartments on Zillow, and she informed me that she wanted to leave because worse people will be coming after her.” Yep, that would do it. His smile returns as he looks over the rest of us. “So there will be even more dangerous people trying to attack us. Isn’t that great?”
“No, that's not great, you psychologically divergent fuckwit,” I snap.
