Shadow & Soul by Susan Fanetti Read Free Book Online Page B

stood firm. Whatever was about to happen, he would take it.
     
    Blue grabbed a long, heavy screwdriver from a worktable he passed and came straight at Demon with it. Still, Demon held. When Blue reached out and grabbed him by the throat and dragged him back until he was bent backward over Fat Jack’s worktable, he went, not fighting, but not making a sound, either. When Blue shoved that driver into the soft underside of his chin, almost to the point of penetration, Demon held and kept his eyes on Blue’s.
     
    “That is my little girl. If you touch a hair on her, I will cut off your dick, and I will fuck you right up the ass with it. Then I will shove it down your throat until you choke to death on it. Am I coming through here?”
     
    Demon felt sick and dizzy and furious and scared. His face was hot, so hot, and he knew that meant he was blazing, beet red. He could sense that everyone in the bays was watching, that people had come from the clubhouse, too, and that they were all giving the scene a wide berth.
     
    But all he did was nod. His eyes steady on Blue’s, the screwdriver digging dangerously into his flesh, he lifted his head and dropped it, twice, acknowledging that yes, Blue had come through loud and clear.
     
    He understood. Faith was not meant for the likes of him.

CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    Faith hadn’t slept. Maybe she’d dozed a little, drifting off into memory more than dream. But for the few hours between the moment Michael had turned and left her, again, and the moment the light in the sky became bright enough to call morning, what Faith mostly did was cry.
     
    When Bibi had come back into the room, she hadn’t said much. She’d simply hugged her and then shown her where she could sleep. Then she’d said good night, hugged her again, and left her to her spiraling emotions.
     
    So much was so fucked up. Just all of a sudden. She thought about the morning before, waking up in her loft a couple of blocks off the Venice Beach Boardwalk, having a regular morning before a regular day. Going down to Slow Drips for a coffee and a blueberry crunch muffin, hanging out in the sunshine, doing February as only Southern California did it, then going back to the loft to work on one of her current projects.
     
    Her life. She’d been having her life. It was pretty good, all in all. Nothing special, but hers.
     
    Now, twenty-four hours later, all that, all those years of her pretty good life, felt like a dream, one that was breaking into pieces and blowing away as she sat up.
     
    Though she’d grown up with Hoosier and Bibi as her second set of parents and Connor as her honorary brother, though she’d spent about as much time in their house as in her own parents’ house, the bedroom she was sitting in now was alien to her. She’d never been in this house. She’d never been in this town. She’d never known this club. She’d never known this life.
     
    In the years she’d been away, everything had changed. And yet, somehow, they’d managed to pull her back into her old life, one that didn’t even exist anymore. It made no sense, and it made her feel disoriented, as if the floor under her feet were unstable, like a carnival funhouse, each room tilting a different way.
     
    Michael was here. Michael. He’d turned away from her, left her standing alone, but he was here, and he hadn’t gone far.
     
    Michael.
     
    She’d known he was back, of course. Bibi had never talked about him much, and Faith had never asked outright, but enough had gotten through during their occasional chats over the years to let her know that he’d been called home from exile with the Nomad charter and offered his L.A. patch back shortly after her father had been killed. She didn’t know the details. But after her father was dead, and with her in San Francisco and determined never to return, she guessed the club had seen no reason to leave him out in the cold any longer.
     
    She had indeed been determined never to return.