Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Muzzle sat at the kitchen table, drumming fingers on it that shone with the steel of some brass knuckles.
“So,” Core said casually. “Yeah, it’s been a minute since we checked in.”
The guy stood stock still, and no fucking joke, right there, he wet himself.
Indication this fuck knew he broke the rules.
Considering the bent of that indication, Core wondered why he did.
But they weren’t there to ask questions.
They were there to repeat a message.
“Usually,” Core went on, “we don’t have to deliver a message twice.”
“I’ll—” the guy began.
Core flipped his knife in front of him and caught it by the hilt. Another shit move he’d never normally do, but he’d practiced it after he did it in the course of a situation that was happening, and the dude they were seeing to loosened his bowels just watching him do it.
So Core added it to his catalog.
This guy watched Core’s work with the knife and made moves to make a getaway.
“Dude, you know we’ll catch you.” Muzzle entered the conversation. “And this already should be an unnecessary stop for us. It’s put me in a bad mood. I’m thinking you putting me in a worse mood won’t go too good for you.”
The guy stopped.
“Now, what did we say about you and teenage girls?” Core asked.
“She’s a neighbor,” the man said on a rush. “We were just talking. I can’t be rude to my neighbor.”
“I’m thinking we covered that,” Core returned. “Neighbor. Stranger. Girl you walk past on the street. Unless she’s behind the counter at Burger King and it’s her job to deal with you, she doesn’t exist for you.”
“It was just a conversation.”
“Yeah, and you flirting with the girls you were coaching, which included smacking their asses and taking ones you liked the best out for coffee and fucking with their heads and touching them in ways they thought were creepy because you were twenty years older than them and married, all that was innocent too, yeah?” Core asked. “They were freaked about it, but they wanted to play, and if they didn’t have conversations with you, you’d bench them. So for a long time, they kept their mouths shut. And I know we went over this before, but let’s talk about that hole you drilled with a direct line to their shower.”
The guy lost it.
“How do you fucks know this shit?” he cried.
Muzzle stood.
The man’s body jolted in terror.
“We will never, never not know when you fuck up,” Muzzle said low. “Remember that after we leave. Your life will get a fuckuva lot easier.”
Core sheathed his knife.
Muzzle advanced.
Core pulled his gloves from his back pocket.
This was something new for him, but he wasn’t going to Hellen with split knuckles.
It didn’t take them long to repeat their message.
They left him on the kitchen floor, and being environmentally conscious and all, they turned out the lights before they closed his door behind them.
Core slid beside Hellen in her bed and fitted himself to her back.
She dug her ass in his crotch.
His dick started to get hard.
Fuck.
It was late.
“Baby?” he called.
“You’re home,” she slurred.
Sleepy.
He pulled her closer. “Yeah.”
“Mm…”
And she was out.
Core curled deeper into her.
Then he was out too.
A couple weeks later, Core was behind the counter at Crooked Road’s Englewood store with Shim when she walked in with Li.
It was Saturday. For once, she wasn’t working. She was spending the day with her sis.
“I want that and I want that and I want that,” Li was chanting it out, pointing at all the jars of weed on display.
Core started chuckling.
Shim was checking Li out.
Core stopped chuckling and said low, “Brother.”
Shim shot him a grin.
Hellen made it to them at the counter.
“Pot to her is Saks shoe department to me,” she shared unnecessarily.
But it piqued his interest because his baby had some shoes that did serious things to him.
“You been shoe shopping?”
She shook her head, not quite hiding her disappointment.
He knew why.
She was being careful with money because she had Xanthia, and until she was ready to roll out more services and rake in more income, she was living lean.
They needed to talk about moving in together. They spent all their time together already, it was plain dumb she was paying rent.
He didn’t have a mortgage, and even if she insisted on paying half of the utilities (which she would), with no rent, she’d be tanking her monthly expenses, so she might be able to buy herself some new shoes.
And he wanted her to have what she wanted.
They also needed to talk about other things.
But he wasn’t finding it in himself to get around to that either.
Suddenly, a phone was in his face with the picture of a sexy-as-all hell black pump with a killer heel and a red sole on it.
“She wants these, but they don’t have any on her resale sites, so she won’t buy them,” Li told him.