FLAMES‘HE’S TRYING, YOU GOTTA GIVE HIM THAT’, Diego said next to me, I took a chug of my wine staring at Mia who was clad in a Kelly-green Balmain dress talking to my old man.Her face said she was trying her best to carry on the conversation but her posture was entirely different like she was scared and uncomfortable.The wise thing to do would have been to leap into the conversation and pull her away from my father but I couldn’t.She had warned me not to be me.The usual gruff overprotective and possessive man I was around her. Her words not mine.“And I’ve forgiven him, that should be enough”, I said dryly. Diego grimaced not buying my bullshit.“You could at least try going golfing with him”I turned to him with an unpleased sneer,“I hate golf”“You could take Mia along”Mia didn’t like golf either.“She doesn’t like him and I don’t like putting her in uncomfortable situations. We shook it off Dee, me and him are good and the last thing I’m gonna do is hold hands with him and p

FLAMES“You are killing me, baby”, I SLUMPED ON TOP OF HER, drained of everything.Five, six times and there was no quenching the hunger that racked my blood and veins every time this woman touched me or smiled at me.This past week had been defined by shit slapping me from every corner once it got the chance.Howard Spiro was a lunatic who had tried killing a ton of innocent people simply because he was on the loosing end with my father, after the little stunt he pulled, getting him incarcerated wasn’t a difficult feat.And just to make his life fucking harder, I added some evidence-fake evidence- with Blaze’s help that would keep the bastard behind bars till his teeth fell out and his hair thinned on his head.The other shit, the one that had bugged me so fucking much was the fact that the three bombs that had been planted at my parent’s place could have killed everyone.Blaze, who was good at pyrotechnics and all that shit, had only managed to diffuse two of them once he realized t

FLAMES‘I CAN’T DO THIS’“You can’t or you won’t?” Berkely leveled me with a stare handing me a bottle of brandy.“Both and don’t give me that crap of there comes a time in a man’s life where he needs to be responsible”, I chastised, the bottle of brandy on my lips, my fingers typing away shit on my phone.Mia hadn’t texted back in two hours now and normally that would have made me go bonkers but I had a slight feeling she was with Lucy and even though my sister had a knack of attracting trouble, that at least reassured me she was doing fine.Better than I was by far.My eyes went back to the streaks of the Miami sun throwing the last shades of orange on a busy city.This city had once been my refuge. Away from shit that ate me up, away from my past and instead had been my source of livelihood, my tether.Being a mercenary, being a bodyguard, disposing men the way I did cigarette blunts that was what defined life in Miami. Taking risks, being angry every damn time, never letting go of

FLAMESFOUR MONTHS LATER|PRESENT DAY|MOTHERFUCKING DAMN IT.Hands clutched around my walkie, I stared at the screen hard as the man I had told to stay undercover rushed in like a fucking rookie.“I told him to stand down!” I roared, “I told him to fucking stand down!”“I know”, Holy said beside me as he started pulling as much of the feeds inside as he could.The rookie who had been promoted to field agent a few weeks ago had taken the bad fucking time to turn rogue.He was supposed to stay and observe the in and the out, not to be fucking involved in the dealings, in the auction goddamn it!“Do you see him?”Holy checked the feeds again, the party was still going on strong, no alerts that us and the FBI had infiltrated the black-market auction and that should have calmed my titties down but it didn’t.My man was nowhere to be seen and if he wasn’t dead, I would kill him my fucking self.“Still no sights of him. He went right in after Aiden Hunt, you think his cover’s blown?”The fu

FLAMES“SIT”As soon as I stood in the doorway closing the door behind me, the mutt came running, clawing my pants at the seams.His eyes wandered to the shopping bag in my left hand and I barked another order knowing very well he wouldn’t listen to a damn thing.“Stay” He barked and I picked him up with one hand setting my bag somewhere on the ground.Training Thunder on the dos and don’ts had escaped my mind a long time ago. He didn’t pee or poop in the house thank the fucking gods for that.We had established some sort of system together. He didn’t leave me and I fucking didn’t leave him either.He was the only fucking good thing going on and I guess deep down I was the only person he gave a fuck about.Setting him down on the couch and escaping to the kitchen to get his bowl, the metallic container had barely touched my fingers when my phone buzzed in my pants.Geoffrey Culkin aka Jeff never called if shit hadn’t gone sideways on my end.And on occasion, it was either my men had