Fire & Dark (The Night Horde SoCal Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

kiss. Just a kiss. Gentle. When he swept his tongue lightly over her lips, she flinched backward a little.
     
    “What was that for?”
     
    He lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Just wanted to do it.”
     
    “You don’t have to let me down easy, you know. I’m done here.”
     
    He grinned. “Good. So’m I.”
     
    “Okay.”
     
    “Okay.” He nodded at the door. “We should get out of here.”
     
    She gave him a quick look that was searching, a little suspicious. And then she nodded and headed for the door. He followed her out.
     
    Once on the floor, she drew up short. “Fuck.” Her table was occupied by strangers. She’d been left behind.
     
    “You got abandoned?”
     
    “Yeah,” she sighed. “How long were we back there?”
     
    Connor didn’t wear a watch, so he pulled his phone out to check the time. “Half an hour?” That was his best guess, and once it sank in, he looked down at her and wiggled his eyebrows.
     
    Her eyes widened. “Really? So much for a quick fuck.”
     
    “What can I say? Stamina, baby.”
     
    She tossed her head back and gave that raunchy laugh that had first caught his ear.
     
    The sway of her hair drew his attention again, and he reached out and let a lock curl around his finger. “You need a ride somewhere?”
     
    “No. I’m my own ride.” She nodded at his table, where his brothers were still drinking. “I see your friends are better than mine.”
     
    “Never leave a man behind. You’re welcome to come over and drink with us.”
     
    “Thanks, but no. I’ll head out.” She turned and held her hand out to him, which was weird. “Anyway, thanks. I’ll see ya.”
     
    “Don’t thank me. That’s fucked up.” He pushed her hand away and slid his arm around her waist. “I’ll walk you out.”
     
    With a firm hand on his chest, she held him off and stepped back. “No. I’m good. Have a good night, Connor.”
     
    He let her go.
     
    When he got back to the table, Trick lifted his eyebrow at him. “I can’t tell whether you just had an epically hot fuck or an ice-cold rejection.”
     
    Connor sat down and poured himself a beer from the fresh pitcher on the table. “Both, I think.”
     
    When he put the glass to his lips, he could smell her on his hand.
     
     
    ~oOo~
     
     
    Sherlock moved his finger around on his tablet, and an image went up on the back wall of the Keep: a photograph of a man in a suit, grey hair, slightly balding. Fairly average in just about every way.
     
    “Allen Cartwright,” Hoosier said. “L.A. County District Attorney. La Zorra wants him dead, and she wants us to do it.”
     
    The men in the room who had not been privy to that information already all reacted in some way—not strongly, though. No one was exactly shocked. Almost every man in the room had killed at least once. But there was surprise, and they all looked at each other or directly at Hoosier. They were not contract assassins, as a rule.
     
    “Why?” Fargo hadn’t had a seat at the table for very long, but he’d been vocal from his first meeting. He didn’t stir shit, but he was curious and careful, and he asked deep, layered questions. He’d been a sharp Prospect with enough initiative to get his work done and enough savvy to know when not to use his initiative. He had Connor’s attention—he was a smart kid.
     
    But Connor knew Hoosier wasn’t going to answer his question. They didn’t have a clear answer to give. “Personal. She wasn’t forthcoming with more than that. We can check into it ourselves, but there’s risk there, too. So we’ll have to decide whether we care if we know why.”
     
    Connor didn’t particularly, but he knew some of his brothers, like Trick, for instance, would struggle with killing a man without some sense that there was a valid reason.
     
    But Trick didn’t push that point right away. Instead, he asked, “Why us?”
     
    “Distance,” Bart answered. “We’re not on his radar. Our routes don’t