Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“Fuck that!” Duane kept yelling.
Raye went on like he didn’t speak.
“You’re going to agree to do what they tell you to do. You’re going to tell us when that’s going down. We are then going to make a plan to fuck it every way we can fuck it for them, at the same time communicate that playing with your emotions was not okay, you have friends, friends who will go to the mat to look after you, so if they think you’re open to fuck with, they need to think again.”
Duane just stared at her as Jinx joined me and Raye.
“Yeah. We gonna fuck them hard,” Jinx stated.
Oh boy.
Persia, Lotus and Skyla came to stand with us.
“Whoever this Amy bitch is, she’s gonna wish she never clapped eyes on you,” Persia stated.
“For sure,” Lotus punctuated that.
Joey and Shanti joined us.
But it was Shanti who said, “You be you. So you’re a skeeve, but you provide a”—she looked around and settled on—“somewhat decent and safe place for these girls to do their business, and you’ve done the Angels some good turns. It’s payback time, my man. And we’re paying you back. You in?”
Duane dedicated the next very long ten seconds to continuing to scowl at us before he said, “They want me to be their bagman.”
“Collecting or delivering?” Persia asked.
“Both, taking something to someone, taking something from that someone to them,” Duane answered.
“You know what it is?” Joey asked.
He shook his head.
“You know who it’s to?” Raye asked.
“I know it can’t be to someone too good, or they’d do it themselves,” Duane said.
Uh…yeah.
“I got no interest in that life,” Duane surprised us by carrying on. “I keep my head down. I keep my shit tight. I work my shift. I go home. I eat. I smoke a little weed. I jack off.”
“TMI,” Shanti muttered.
“I sleep,” Duane continued. “Rinse. Repeat. I don’t want trouble. I don’t want hassle. I don’t want to be known to that world. I just wanna live my life.”
“And that’s what you’re gonna do,” Raye decreed. “Set up the pickup and drop-off.”
“I don’t wanna—” Duane started.
“Duane, you’re not gonna,” Raye told him. “We’re gonna figure something out. But when you set it up, be very clear, when you do the final drop-off, they don’t get it until they hand over Amy.”
“Fuck her,” he bit off.
“Yeah, we’re gonna fuck her,” Raye said. “But you have to play your part. Set it up. But be a good actor. You can’t let on you know they’re playing you, because if you do, they’ll know we’re playing them.”
Duane didn’t say anything or even twitch.
“Duane, we got you,” Raye said softly. “Now, we’ll ask again, are you in?”
Duane continued to stand immobile, before he looked down at the cupcakes in his hands.
He looked back up. “You’re gonna mess her shit up?”
“We’re gonna put the screws to anyone who put the screws to you,” Raye told him.
“Can I watch?” he asked.
Raye shrugged. “Sure.”
He shoved the second half of the cupcake in his mouth, chewed twice, and with a full mouth said, “Okay then. I’m in.”
“Right on,” Persia replied.
But I looked at Shanti.
She looked troubled.
I wasn’t surprised.
All Raye said seemed like a lot of maneuvering, and the Angels might have a knack for this, but we weren’t superheroes.
Then I looked to Raye.
She looked determined.
Neither of them was good.
But in the end, we were Angels.
Somehow, some way, we’d get the job done.
NINETEEN
DARVILL AND DENISE
Shanti bumped me, shoulder to shoulder, as we walked by Gabe’s man-mobile in the guest spot on our way to our apartments after our All Angels briefing at AAHQ.
Luna, Jess, Harlow and Gemma got in and out of Duane’s with what we figured they’d get. A note in the fridge asking for the Angels’ help and for us to leave another note to say where we thought we could meet so we wouldn’t be seen.
Since we took care of that at the motel, it was sorted.
And Luna, Jess, Harlow and Gemma were all in on Raye’s unplanned plan to screw over anyone who screwed Duane, and to extricate Jinx’s head from her ass about Noah.
In other words, we’d had a mission dry spell.
But it was all systems go now.
“I love that for you,” Shanti said, referring to Gabe’s car being here, meaning he was waiting at home for me.
I punched in the code to the security gate thinking I’d love her to try things with Liam so she’d have a hot guy to go home to, too.
I didn’t say that.
I said, “Not as much as me.”
And that was no lie.
We exchanged smiles before we called hellos to the tenants hanging in the courtyard, and Shanti headed their way.
But I went right to my door.
When I got inside, I saw Gabe lazed on my olive-green velvet couch, eating a cupcake and watching something on TV.