“He stopped in the doorway and his eyes flicked to Sam whereupon he mumbled, “Dude, cool to meet you, big fan,” then he looked back at me and exploded, “Seriously, Kiakee, what… the… fuck?”

“Ty Walker opened the backdoor to his house and walked in to a big, seriously pissed off black man with tree trunk legs planted apart and beefy arms crossed on his chest. He knew he’d get that when he got home. He also didn’t give a fuck. He closed the door and looked Julius in the eye. “She gone?” he asked.“You are one serious dumb fuck.”

“Two of us in this room, Ace, two keycards," he said and my eyes went to him. When they did, he jerked his hand, finger extended to the door. "Know what this is?" "A door?" I asked stupidly. "A peephole," he bit back then moved his hand to flick the security latch closed. "Know what that is?" "Captain -" He advanced and the aggressive way he did it made me retreat. It was dawning on me he was pissed and he wasn't pissed at Brad (that's her ex). He was pissed at me. I stopped when my legs hit the chair to the desk. He stopped when he was in my space. I tilted my head way back to look at him. "You got great hair, babe." "Tate -" "Thick." "Tate -" "Soft." "Tate," I whispered. "Shame it gets hacked off with a knife after some guy rapes you with that knife!" He finished on a roar. My body jolted. "Tate!" "There's bad guys out there, Ace. Bad. Do things to you that'll make you glad you end up dead. You don't open a goddamned door not knowin' who's behind it." "I thought it was you." "Well it wasn't." "Tate -”

“Fuck,” he muttered.…“Language in front of the girls,” I snapped.“Baby, they hear it all the time,” he returned and I felt my eyes get wide in motherly affront. Cal looked at my face then over the seat to the girls and asked, “You gonna say fuck because I say fuck?”“No,” Kate answered immediately.“No, ‘cause Mom doesn’t like it,” Keira replied waspishly. Cal looked back at me and raised his brows.”

“You get that he took something precious from you, your ability to trust.... He took that from you, now's your time to fight and get it back...Just live in the now, Kia, keep livin' in the now and when I say that, right now..""That doesn't make me any less scared, Sam," I whispered in his ear and he lifted his head and looked down at me.""He strapped you with that too, baby. Fight back and learn to be fearless.”

“Lee nodded, his smile somehow bigger like he was trying not to laugh then his eyes moved to Hector and he said, “I tried to stop it.”Hector looked at Lee then looked at me then he muttered, “Oh fuck.”“It was Ally’s idea,” Lee told Hector.“What was Ally’s idea?” Hector asked Lee.“It was not Ally’s idea!” I cried.“It wasn’t!” super-power-eared Ally yelled from the open back window of Lee’s Explorer. “It was Sadie’s idea. I just was offering moral support.”“Shut up, Ally!” Indy shouted out the open passenger side window.“I will not shut up! I’m not taking the fall for this one!” Ally shouted back.”

“She stared into his eyes and announced, “A good-bye kiss.”It was at that Raid stopped dead. “What?”“Raiden, the gig is up,” she declared, and Raid closed his eyes.Jesus, how could the woman be so infuriating and so fucking cute all at once?He opened his eyes and asked, “The gig is up?”She leaned into him and hissed, “Yes.”Fuck, he wanted to kiss her.He also wanted to shake her.“Baby, it’s jig,” he corrected, and her head jerked, which made that mess of hair on her head jerk, which reminded him he wanted his hands in that hair.Then elsewhere.He needed to speed this shit up.“Sorry?” she asked, sounding confused, and he looked from her hair to her eyes and saw she was, in fact, confused.Yeah. Infuriating. And fucking cute.“The jig is up, not the gig,” he told her.Her eyes narrowed. “Seriously? You’re correcting my street lingo?”“Think that street lingo was the street lingo about eight decades ago, Hanna. So now it’s just lingo.”