Page 31 of Altered By Fire (Undercover Sinners 1)
I give him a small, embarrassed smile. "That'd be great, thank you."
Weston says nothing more, just shrugs and leads the way out of the playground and down the block, stopping beside a sleek black Dodge Challenger. He pops the trunk and pulls out a pair of grey sweatpants and a black hoodie with frayed cuffs.
"Here," he holds them out to me, "they'll be huge, but probably better than running around in a clergy robe."
"Thanks," I whisper, accepting the garments then looking around awkwardly. Am I supposed to just strip down here in the street? I'm no stranger to nudity, but this is a bit much for public scrutiny.
"Change in the car, idiot," Weston snickers, pulling the passenger side door open for me and ushering me in. Blushing, I take the offered seat and let him close the door firmly behind me.
The windows are tinted dark enough that I feel no shame stripping the billowy black robe off my naked flesh. Until the driver’s door opens and Weston climbs inside that is.
"Um," I hesitate, half-heartedly covering my breasts with the cloth of his hoodie.
"Problem?" He challenges me with a quirk of his pierced brow. "You don't strike me as the shy type, Natalia."
I snort a laugh. "You're right, I'm not." It must be the lingering effects of pot and alcohol that’re making me bashful. Weston is fucking hot, and I know full well how great my tits are, so why am I covering them?
With a shrug, I drop the black fabric and allow him an unobstructed view of my full breasts and tight pink nipples. He takes the opportunity, too, sucking in a breath and catching his lip ring between his teeth while I dress ever so slowly.
When I'm done, he makes a noise somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. "You sure do know your own power, Natalia. I fucking hope Hawke knows what he's doing, bringing you onboard."
I grin at the compliment. "Are we going grocery shopping or what?"
"Yes ma'am," he replies, giving me a sly grin and starting up his engine.
We don't speak again for the few minutes it takes to get to the grocery store, and when we arrive Weston opens my door for me. Manners I didn't really expect from someone with so many pieces of metal in his flesh. Is that a stereotype? Probably. But I'm a rich party-girl daughter of a mobster, so I think I'm allowed to stereotype sometimes.
"You know," he murmurs close to my ear as we cross the parking lot, "those nipples of yours would look great pierced."
I gasp at the suggestion, but before I can respond, I hear heavy footsteps behind us.
I don't have to be a genius to know that nothing good will come from that sound.
Weston stiffens up and glances casually over his shoulder.
"Hey man," he says, just before the barrel of a gun is being pointed at the side of his head. I'm pretty sure I'm about to see his brains splattered across the pavement when, in a lightning quick movement, he knocks the man's arm aside and breaks it. I can hear the snap of bone as I jump backwards, almost tripping on the too long sweats.
The man screams and his gun skitters across the asphalt while Weston follows up with a swift fist to his face, once, twice, three times. Blood sprays across the soccer-mom van we're standing beside, and the man’s head drops unconscious to the ground.
"Weston!" I scream a warning, split-seconds before another gun is pressed to the back of his head by our attacker’s friend. A man I recognize all too well.
My blood runs cold, and I fight the urge to vomit.
They found me. How have they found me, so soon?
I'm screwed.
My mind is working a million miles an hour as one of my father’s men, Dmitri, leers at me with a triumphant grin.
He sneers something to me, but my mind doesn't comprehend it. It's fight or flight time, and I am not ready to give up. Not on their terms.
I dart my eyes around, and spot the gun dropped by the other man. It's under the next car over, too far from where I stand.
I dive for it anyway, a gunshot lighting up the dark night as I skid across the pavement and roll, my fingers curling around the grip of the gun just before I get a boot to the back. My spine curves in agony and my mouth opens in a silent scream. The gun is still in my hand, but whoever it is that's standing behind me doesn't let up, kicking me again and again and again, until the pain is so great that my fingers uncurl around the weapon and it drops back to the pavement.
"Your father is mighty disappointed in you, Natalia," Dmitri says, dragging me out from under the car and lifting me up with a fistful of fabric. He slams me into the trunk of a nearby car, the streetlamps painting his face orange as he smiles at me. It's an icy, cold smile, the smile of a total psychopath. There's nothing in that man's face that says he ever was or would ever be human. This is the same man who killed his own wife in cold-blood for watching porn. So what the fuck is he going to do to me?
