Make Me (The Fox Family Crime Syndicate, #1)

by Summer O'Toole

I’m about to leave when a man with fair skin and dirty blond hair dressed in an all-black suit walks up to the hostess. He leans in to whisper something in her ear and, while doing so, places a hand on her bicep. As soon as I see it, it’s like being hit by a bus. I am so unsettled and shell-shocked that I stumble back a few steps, as if taking a physical blow. I am transfixed on the black-and-white fox tattoo staring back at me, the snake still dead as ever dangling from its mouth. I beg my feet to move, but I feel just as paralyzed as I did the first time I saw that exact tattoo. Frozen. Immobilized. The hostess laughs at something he—Beth’s killer—says, and it breaks me out of my trance. With every nerve in my body pounding with adrenaline, I walk out briskly. I try to keep my cool until I make it around the corner of the block, but I fail instantly. I sprint down the sidewalk. Rounding the corner, I throw my back against the nearest building. Panting, I look up at the blue sky while my lungs work to restore my breathing.