Damn we were bad for each other.
Like an addiction we couldn’t quit. I wanted to put her on the shelf and walk away, but that’s the thing about perfection. The sinner in you wants it so desperately, hoping it will make all the dark go away, that instead of walking away, like you should, you take it, you stare at it, and you devour it until there’s nothing left. I wondered if Mo realized how much I was doing that to her… how I used sex with her as a way to make myself feel whole, less tarnished.
Groaning, I rose to my feet, popped the pills in my mouth and slowly made my way towards the door.
I opened it softly and glanced down the hall.
Sergio was standing in the kitchen talking to Nixon in hushed tones. Mo was in the corner eating cereal, her eyes about as big as the Cheerios she was trying to choke down. Great, someone probably died.
Cursing, I stomped down the hall, fighting the urge to ram my body into Sergio’s causing him massive blood loss, and grabbed a bowl from the cupboard.
“Someone’s not a morning person,” Sergio said in low clipped tones. The fact that the bastard was still speaking with his slight accent, which frankly made him sound like a giant ass, didn’t help matters.
“Yeah, well…” I stretched my arms above my head. “I had these weird nightmares where I was holding a really sharp knife to someone’s neck and then all of a sudden he’d piss his pants. I never did see the guy’s face, though he screamed like a bitch, had a slight accent, six-foot one, with the tattoo of a cross on his left hand.”
Sergio rolled his eyes.
Nixon glared at me.
Mo coughed next to me.
“What?” I shrugged. “I can’t share my hopes and dreams with you guys?” I poured the cereal into my bowl. “Some family.”
“Ten million,” Sergio said smoothly. “Makes you feel like less of a man, doesn’t it? To think, that’s the price of your measly little life. Hell, last year a made man went down for twelve.”
“It’s too early for me to kill you.” I yawned and poured some milk into my cereal.
“You think I would let you?” Sergio chuckled, sounding amused as hell.
“I think you’d have no choice.” I chomped down on a bite of cereal, the crunch the only sound in the kitchen except for Nixon’s teeth clicking against his lip ring. For whatever reason, he knew this was my battle not his. “And ten million is still ten million. Think of all the surgeries you can pay for after I rearrange that pretty face, hmm?” I pointed my spoon at him. “Now it doesn’t sound so bad.”
Sergio smirked, his eyes roamed from me to Mo and then back to me. “It’s cute really… how you can’t really take a hint. All brawn no brains, isn’t that what people say?”
“Girls.” Chase walked into the room and yawned. “Stop fighting or Mil’s gonna come out here with a gun. The woman’s exhausted, let her sleep.”
“Maybe if you didn’t keep her up all night…” I laughed.
Chase held up his hand. “So dehydrated taking a piss was like trying to find water in the Sahara.”
“Details I didn’t need to know,” Nixon piped up. “Ever.”
“You guys always talk about your women like this?” Sergio asked looking around the room.
“Actually,” Mo said with a sigh, “this is tame.”
I grinned. “Sharing is caring.”
“No wonder people keep trying to kill you guys off… no respect.” Sergio tilted his head at Nixon. “So, are we in agreement?”
“About the no respect?” Nixon crossed his arms.
“About me staying at the house.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I pushed out my chair and rose to my feet, my hands clenching at my side. “What the hell, Nixon!”
“Yeah.” Nixon broke eye contact with me and shook Sergio’s hand. “But the rules apply to you just as much as they apply to Tex or any single guy. Lay a hand on my sister without her permission and I cut it off.”
“You didn’t cut off Tex’s hand.” Sergio pointed out, a smug grin plastered across his shit-eating face.
“No.” I rolled my eyes. “He just shot me at point blank range. But hey, maybe you’ll get lucky and get to choose when the time comes!”
Sergio threw his head back and laughed.
I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt showing him my wound.
He stopped laughing.
Nixon crossed his arms. “We understand each other?”
Sergio whistled. “Damn Nixon, you’re a scary son of a bitch, you know that?”
“First compliment of the day.” Nixon shrugged and gave me a pointed look. “Tex, we need to talk.”
“Dun, dun, dun.” Chase sang.
I smacked him on the back of the head and followed Nixon into his office, wishing like hell I knew what had crawled up his ass and taken root. The man never spoke to a member of the Elect away from the other members. Meaning, I was in deep shit. Fantastic.
I pasted a grin on my face and took a seat on one of the leather chairs, propping my hands behind my head, trying to look relaxed when really, I was bit worried he was going to shoot me again.
“The marriage—” Nixon licked his lips and pulled out a few sheets of paper. “—wasn’t made legal.” He handed the forged documents over to me. “On top of that it was never filed. Sergio’s already forged new documents that have been filed with the state.” His eyes flickered down to the floor. “Now that I’ve thought about things… I don’t know if it’s in Mo’s best interest to marry you regardless of what you did to her.”