Fighting Back (Harrow #2) by Scarlett Finn Read Free Book Online

drugs aren’t going anywhere. Why should we beg off and let someone else take this opportunity? We could be rich and—‘
    ‘Money?’ she asked, tugging her hands out of his. ‘If I wanted a mansion and a fancy car I’d send you into the ring every night. I don’t do that because I love you too much to see you hurt.’
    ‘I wouldn’t have to be hurt doing this. I can stay in the background, send the other guys out to do the dangerous jobs.’
    ‘There will still be plenty of guys who want to poach your territory, your employees, and your customers. There’s a reason that most drug kingpins don’t see forty! I don’t want to see you getting yourself in deep and then being the fall guy when Brad can’t handle what he’s taken on. You said yourself that Brad takes orders well, but he’s not street smart, he doesn’t really know what he’s doing.’
    ‘Which is why Mauri wants me in on the deal.’
    ‘Which might work out great while Mauri is alive and looking out for you. How long will it last when Brad decides that he doesn’t need you anymore? I don’t trust any of them.’
    ‘I know,’ he said. Moving away from the bed, he went into the bathroom, leaving her alone in their sheets.
    ‘If you want to talk to Mauri again, we can go to the party,’ she called toward the bathroom. ‘But there’s no way I want to move into that mansion! I would never be able to relax!’
    A minute or so later, he came back out and propped himself on the doorframe. ‘I want to see Trystan.’
    ‘At the party? Or before that?’
    ‘Either,’ he said. ‘But it can wait for now.’
    ‘He’s at the mansion?’
    ‘Sounds like Mauri’s had him locked up there for a while. I suppose that when he found out Mauri was sick he had an excuse to go even more off the rails.’
    ‘Do you think he’s a threat?’ she asked.
    ‘To you?’ He shook his head. ‘I’d like to see him try and get near you now. Mauri knows that I’d walk if you were threatened.’
    ‘That doesn’t make me feel better,’ she said, tangling her fingers in the bedsheet.
    ‘You’ve fought him off once, you could do it again if you had to.’
    ‘I guess,’ she said, collapsing to her back. ‘I know that he’s responsible for us getting together, for us meeting, but…’
    ‘But?’ he said. Swooping onto the bed with barely a sound, he ambushed her, covering her body with his and holding her in this submissive position.
    ‘I’d really like to stick a fork in that guy’s eye,’ she said, drawing her fingertip over the ivy tattooed on his arm.
    ‘I’ll remember that when I get him alone,’ he said and kissed her. Just when she was pliable enough to part her legs and arch up, he took his lips away. ‘I’m going next door for a while.’
    ‘He got you thinking, didn’t he?’ she said, sliding a hand to his hair. ‘Or is it being back here, in your old life, that’s got you thinking? Do you miss it?’
    ‘I miss kicking the shit out of scumbags,’ he said.
    ‘Plenty of them around I guess,’ she said. ‘If you want to go back to enforcing, I can’t stop you. But being here, around the Starks again, it feels wrong, Dax. They don’t want us to be together.’
    ‘They don’t care about us anymore,’ Dax said. ‘At least Mauri doesn’t.’
    ‘Is that why you want to see Trystan? You want to be sure that we can be safe here? To check that he doesn’t have some other agenda that could damage us.’
    ‘Trystan isn’t a planner, he comes up with ideas and expects everyone else to figure out how to implement them,’ Dax said. ‘He doesn’t think through his actions either, he just does whatever the hell he wants. I know ‘cause I used to be the one picking up the pieces after he blew them all to shit.’
    Dax got a far off look in his eye that made her think that there was something else on his mind, which was nothing to do with them or Trystan and their past. Something else was in his thoughts, and it was something that