Lennox stole from the wrong family. The Cottonmouth Kings were paid to hand her over. Havoc decided otherwise — and broke the only arrangement keeping his club alive. They sent me to collect a debt.
Turned out the debt was her. I’ve delivered a lotta messages for this club. Never once asked what a man did to earn one.
That’s the job—Storm points, I go, and the whole parish sleeps easier knowin’ I came and went. Then New Orleans hands me a name and a photograph, and it’s a woman.
We got one rule in the Cottonmouth Kings. One. Everything else, you can talk me into. So, I did the only thing I could do. I took her. Not to them. To me.
Lennox is all mouth and no fear and a whole lot of trouble I didn’t ask for. She won’t tell me what she stole. She won’t tell me why.
And she looks at me like she already knows how this ends—the worst part bein’, I think she does. ‘Cause here’s what I worked out too late. She didn’t run to Rosalie. She came here. For us. For me.
Now there’s a man downriver who wants her back, a president who wants an explanation, and a table full of brothers about to find out exactly what I’m willin’ to burn. Let ’em come.
She’s mine—and I have never once in my life known how to hold somethin’ without breakin’ it. Guess I’m learnin’.
