On The Rocks by Sable Jordan Read Free Book Online Page A

her
goaded. “Hard to handle a prisoner and a distraction. ‘Specially if
you don’t know if we’re together. And even if he’s just some
do-gooder—”
    “Shut up.”
    “—Out doing good the way do-gooders do,
he’ll probably call the cops once he gets close enough to see—”
    “I said shut up.”
    “—That you’re holding me at gunpoint. What
do you do…? What do you doooo…?”
    Channeling her inner Oprah, Kizzie pulled
his Ruger from her pocket. Without looking, she pointed the
snubnose in the direction of her Samaritan and kept her Beretta on
the asshole.
    You get a gun! And you get a
gun! Everybody gets a guuuun!
    That’s what you do.
    The footsteps stopped abruptly. “Whoa. Hey I
was only—”
    “‘Preciate ya’, really,” she called. “But
leave. Now.”
    The pitter-patter of boots faded fast. The
metal gate slammed and the second gun joined the first in the man’s
face. “We were at the part where you tell me who you are,” she
explained calmly. “This can happen before or after the bullet I put
in you. Your choice.”
    He laughed, a sound that was just as
familiar as that tattoo she couldn’t pin.
    “You really don’t remember me, do you?”
Something like pain flickered in his eyes and he sighed. “This how
you treat an old friend?”
    “I don’t do friends.”
    His lips twitched, deep voice dropped an
octave. “You did me.”
    Kizzie narrowed her gaze, tipped her head.
So that was his deal? A jilted screw?
    “Guess you weren’t that good,” she scrunched
a shoulder toward her ear, “or I’d’ve called.”
    He sucked his teeth. “Now you’re just being
mean. And bruising what’s left of my ego, chuchu .”
    Her heart stopped.
    Even in the absence of sunlight his dark
eyes twinkled. Then he smiled, showing the slight gap between his
front teeth and a chipped canine.
    The gap was God’s work.
    That canine was hers.
    Kizzie’s shot to her feet, both arms
extended, both guns leveled. A rush of emotions sprinted from her
soles to the crown of her head. Then her ticker kickstarted hard,
beat way too fast.
    No way.
    No. Fucking. Way.
    He lifted onto his elbows slowly. Inched up
to sitting just as carefully, as though afraid if he moved too fast
he’d get shot.
    She should have shot him.
    Instead, Kizzie lowered the guns as the
first ripple of disbelief subsided.
    “Ta… Tate?” she whispered, her voice losing
strength much the way her limbs had.
    Knees to his chest, Lennox Tate linked his
arms around the bends. He looked entirely comfortable down there,
like he was sitting on a bed in the grandest suite of a luxe hotel
and not on the ground in a back alley in Harlem.
    “How you doin’, Kizzie?”
    “I’m fine,” she breathed, returning his wide
smile with one of her own. “I’m just fine.”
    Then she reared back and swung hard.
    The butt of the gun smacked his temple
again. The ricochet off his head made her finger squeeze the
trigger. A bullet went flying into the ground, jumped up, and bit
into the brick facade of the nearby building.
    She didn’t care.
    She hit him again.
    Lennox threw his arms up and curled into a
ball.
    “Dammit, stop!”
    Nope.
    Another slap for good measure, just as the
annoying wail of New York’s finest screamed not too far away.
    “Kizzie! Kizzie, stop!”
    Dropping his gun onto his exposed side, she
kicked at the spot near Lennox’s head, sending a rush of dust and
debris over him.
    Kizzie snatched up her dusty black ball cap
and slammed it down on her head. Then she stalked out of the alley,
body shaking and blood boiling.
    The number one spot on her shit list was
suddenly back in her life.
    And Bill Connolly had just moved up to
number two.

 
    2
     
    TWENTY MINUTES AFTER her reunion with
Lennox, Kizzie was still a ball of pissed off in a slightly roughed
up package. The adrenaline had burned through her body, and the
twinges and aches made themselves known in places she hadn’t even
realized she’d injured.
    Just one more