Of Snakes and Men Read Online Jessica Gadziala

Categories Genre: Contemporary, Crime, Mafia Tags Authors: Jessica Gadziala Advertisement1

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While I waited for it to be filled, I popped into the local big box store, grabbing some more supplies to treat my wound since I was running low at home.

Don’t ask me why, but I walked my ass casually down the book section.

And when I saw Les Miserables and the first Wheel of Time book—that was now a TV series, according to the sticker on the front—I grabbed them and tossed them into my basket.

I tried not to think too much into that as I checked myself out, then grabbed my food, and headed home.

Then, about a foot into my place, I forgot I even had books in my bag.

Because I realized almost instantly that I wasn’t alone…

CHAPTER FOUR

Hope

I’d never been so grateful for a plastic bag ban as I was right then. Because as I set my canvas totes down on the floor, so my hands were free to reach for my expandable baton and knife, they didn’t make a single sound.

My apartment had a weird setup. It wasn’t in a complex like most people had, but on top of a store that, judging by the fact that it was only open about five hours a week, seemed like it might very well be a drug front. Not that I cared. I was never home. And when I was, what the fuck did I care what went on below me, so long as everyone stayed the hell away from me?

Clearly, though, someone wasn’t staying away, because there was a clank from the apartment as I moved down the short, narrow hallway that stretched from the door that led to the outside staircase to my front door.

When I reached it, the knob turned freely in my hand.

I wasn’t careless.

I always locked my door.

Both when I was inside of my apartment, and when I was gone.

Taking a deep breath, feeling too tired to have to chase some burglar out, I moved inside.

It wasn’t a big space, but the living room was almost obnoxiously large, taking up three-quarters of the downstairs, with a little kitchen off to the side, a bathroom next to that, and a utility and storage room across from both.

There was a small staircase between rooms that led up to the loft bedroom that I had been dreaming about for two days now.

I planned to take all my food up there and eat in bed while putting something mindless on the TV for a bit before completely passing out.

After, of course, I dealt with whoever was currently in my bathroom.

Maybe an addict, then. Looking for drugs.

I had some from a particularly gnarly on-the-job injury from half a year ago, but those were well hidden in the storage room.

Taking the opportunity to tuck away the knife, I grabbed the gun out of its hiding place under my TV in the living room instead.

I didn’t plan to actually shoot anyone. But they tended to make everyone think you meant business.

And I did.

They needed to leave.

I wanted to eat.

I’d just moved back toward the hallway and raised the gun when the door suddenly burst open with a puff of steam.

Steam?

Like someone had been in my shower?

But before I could even wrap my head around that, the “someone” was moving into the hallway as well, wearing nothing but one of my towels wrapped tightly around her body.

“Jesus Christ, Hope!” she yelped. “You scared the hell out of me,” she added.

“I scared the hell out of you? You’re the one in my apartment without warning, Vi,” I said, looking at my cousin Violet.

I mean, she wasn’t technically a cousin. None of them were. But our dads were all in the same outlaw MC which made us all a sort of big family. We’d grown up together. And we were all still tight.

Violet was tall and fit with a killer rack that was barely managing to stay contained by the towel. She had long hair falling around her somewhat delicate face, all soft cheeks, cleft chin, and strong brows over her honey-brown eyes.

If she had clothes on, it would be similar to what I preferred to wear. Jeans, tees, everything in dark colors and comfortable to wear when working long hours and occasionally doing physically taxing things.

Because Vi, like her mother before her, was a skip chaser.

Which was why she was at my place. She was usually out of town so often that she never bothered to get her own apartment. She always just decided to crash on one of her cousin’s couches instead.

I guess it was my turn to have her for a visit.

“I did warn you. Three days ago,” she added with emphasis, making me realize I had been so focused on work, and therefore my work phone, that I hadn’t really checked my other one.

Suddenly worrying I’d missed something important, especially with such a big extended family like we had, I reached into my back pocket, finding it, and noting the almost dead battery. And no less than eighteen missed texts. Two of which were from Vi.


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