Page 120 of Savagely Yours
Omar raised an eyebrow. “You know him?”
Suddenly, I felt like a kid who’d learned that college break was right around the corner, and his brother would be home for two whole weeks.
“Yeah. He’s my...” I cleared my throat. “He’s my brother. He’s really here? Gage Wolfe? He’s got tattoos, and four of them are names. Two of the names belong to?—”
“Ty and Zach, his twin brothers who passed away years ago,” Omar finished, eyeing me now with more wonder than suspicion. “Gage told me he’s been looking for his other brothers. The ones he served with for a Black Cell operation. Which one are you? If your name matches one of those names, then we can go on ahead inside, no more questions necessary.”
“Dez,” I said. “I’m Dez.”
Omar grinned. “Then, you know Julien, too.”
My knees nearly gave out. “Julien’s here? What about Ari?”
“Yeah, and their daughter, Baby Thandie.”
“Ari had the baby? Anybody else?”
“No, that’s it.”
If Mo wasn’t here and Ari was, I doubted that it would be long before Mo showed up. And if Mo showed up, Giorgio wouldn’t be far behind. Gage had warned Giorgio away from Mo, but Giorgio locked onto her like a missile the moment he first set eyes on her. If the pandemic hadn’t killed Mo’s boyfriend, now that there were no longer any guardrails, Giorgio most definitely had.
The van doors opened from the inside.
Sabine peered out, squinting against the sunlight. “Are we here? Is it safe?”
Dallas shoved me and Omar out of the way and dragged her out of the vehicle. Sabine, dazed, didn’t fight or struggle as he set her on the ground and kneeled beside her.
“Hi, my name is Dallas, and I want you. Can I have you? I’m real gentle. More gentle than my brother.”
Sabine leaned away from him, one hand on his chest. “Um, what’s happening right now?”
He looked down at the hand, then back up at her. “Memphis, look. She’s touchin’ me, and it’s all soft-like. All nice-like.”
Tamra emerged next, and he looked like he was about to die, which made me wonder whether there were no women at their camp.
“What’s going on out here?” Tamra asked. “Did we make it? It’s not another Totten, is it?”
“I don’t know what a Totten is, darlin’,” Dallas prefaced, “but I’ll lick it if you ask me to.”
Omar grumbled a short prayer underneath his breath and scrubbed at his face with both hands.
With Giorgio, it was usually up to the rest of the team to make sure that when he flew off the handle, we minimized civilian casualties. Watching these two, I got the sense that they needed a similar type of protocol, which was where Omar—and,knowing him, probably Gage—came in. These two had probably never known more than an ounce of real affection in their lives. Like me, they were the type that love needed to avoid.
I glanced at Larke, who was in the middle of explaining something to Memphis. The way he stared at her with the same slight smile and those star-gazed eyes, it was as if she was singing a love song, just for him.
But she would never.
She knew I would kill us all.
The gates opened.
“Omar, you were right. I can’t let these two stay on the welcome committee. Thought I could reform them. Dallas, give the lady some space, mate.”
Dallas backed away a few inches, but his gaze kept darting from Tamra to Sabine.
A man approached the van, and when he stepped into the light, I felt myself cracking. I felt like that kid again, watching his brother walk into the house after not seeing him for months, decked out in university paraphernalia. While I didn’t have Gage’s gut instinct, this had to be the reason why I’d felt like me and Larke were supposed to head to South Carolina.
Gage paused.
