Red Handed (The Gentlemen, #1)

by Kate King

Beck glanced back at me, looking considerably happier than he had minutes ago. “You okay, babe?” I nodded. “Yup.” I stared at the blood dripping down the wall, wondering if I should be more bothered by this.

Rush wrapped an arm around me as we walked back to the car. “Sorry for the interruption, Firecracker,” he said into my hair. I laughed without humor. “You switch gears so fast it’s almost scary.” “Does it scare you?” “No,” I said honestly. What scared me was that it didn’t. What scared me was that I was already used to this kind of lifestyle, and it would be easy to get used to them.

“You disappeared, and I lost my goddamn mind,” he said into my hair. My breath hitched and my mouth wobbled, saying the words I’d been refusing to let rise to the surface. “What if you didn’t find me?” He lifted on his side, half over me, and his fingers gripped my jaw, eyes pierced mine. “Not finding you was never an option. I would burn down the entire city to get you back.”

“We’re going to hunt down every single last one of you that tried to steal her from us.” His voice was edged, and a shiver ran down my spine. “And enjoy cutting you up and making you scream until all of you learn the lesson that you don’t fuck with the Gentlemen, and you definitely don’t fuck with what’s ours.”