Of Snakes and Men Read Online Jessica Gadziala

Categories Genre: Contemporary, Crime, Mafia Tags Authors: Jessica Gadziala Advertisement

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I didn’t like losing that kind of crazy on this side of the border, but if there was a situation going on down there, he was someone who was capable of… sending a message.

There was no room for subtle when it came to cartel warfare. Shit was rough between syndicates. Literal gunfights in broad daylight in the streets.

That had been the life I’d grown up in. And because there wasn’t a whole fuckuva lot of options to get out of the debilitating poverty I’d been born into, I’d gotten myself wrapped up in that world before I was even in middle school.

That life makes you hard, and it does it fast.

I hadn’t so much as blinked at the idea of torture since I got my twelve-year molars in.

“I’ll get him the message,” Marco said, nodding. “You heading out?” he asked when I reached for my keys.

Here is where never letting anyone close enough to you to truly know your tells came in handy.

Because I had to lie right to his face.

“Val’s gotta hit the vet. Got something going on with his stomach,” I said, shrugging.

“Want me to come?” he asked.

“Nah, ‘less you want to be the one to clean up puke and shit in the car,” I offered, wanting to smirk with how quickly he lost color at that. “Didn’t think so,” I said, grabbing a leash off the hook, then heading out back to find Val.

I didn’t like to outsource any kind of work to someone outside of my organization if I could help it. That was how you ended up with a shiny new pair of bracelets and a free bus ride to the state pen.

But the fact of the matter was, I’d been trying to figure this shit out on my own for weeks without making a damn bit of progress.

I couldn’t watch my men like an outsider could watch them. They’d sense something was up. I had to have someone else who could see shit that I wasn’t seeing, then report it all back to me, so I could decide how to move forward.

I had a place in mind since the idea came to me.

I had several reasons.

One, they weren’t a big company. They would see dollar signs when they heard I was looking to hire them.

Two, they weren’t exactly known for being the most moral of PI companies. They were willing to get a little dirty.

And three, yeah, Hope.

I was still relatively new to this little town known as Navesink Bank. But I’d learned quick about the organizations that ran the place. The Grassi Family mafia. The Henchmen bikers. The Mallicks were a family of loan sharks. Hailstorm was some sort of paramilitary organization.

Each of those organizations had spawned off a new generation.

Hope was of that new generation. The daughter of a biker from the Henchmen club, and a profiler from Hailstorm, she’d decided, for fuck-knew what reason, to become a private investigator.

See, the thing was, Hope wasn’t exactly a fan of mine. That didn’t mean that I didn’t have respect for a woman like her.

Tough as nails.

Capable.

Take-no-shit.

That was the kind of person you wanted working for you.

And I liked the idea of her being on the team.

For her talents and determination.

Though, I won’t lie, she was nice to look at, too. I figured if I had to get bad news, might as well get it from a beautiful woman.

And she was.

Beautiful.

She either didn’t know it, or didn’t put any stock in it, though. Always dressing in somewhat utilitarian pants, black tanks or tees, and—weather permitting—a bomber jacket.

She was tall and lean with long, dark hair that, when the sun caught it right, had little flashes of red in it. Thanks to her biker daddy with his red hair. She also inherited blue eyes from him. But where his were bright, hers were dark and stormy.

Her Ma was Asian and Dutch, if I remembered that shit correctly, and you could see that evidenced in her bone structure and features.

She had a little bit of an edgy look to her, too. What with her ink and her double nose piercing.

When I opened the door to the office, my gaze landed right on her. Sitting at a desk, pouring peroxide over a wound in her leg. She barely fucking winced.

In another world, she’d have made a grade-A criminal. And I guess, in a way, she was. Trespassing and spying on people and shit like that.

It seemed like most of the female offspring of that biker club went on to live more straight-and-narrow lives. It wasn’t until recently that they started letting women prospect to become members. I wondered a bit distractedly if Hope would have signed up if she could have.

She’d look sexy as fuck on a bike.

And pointing a gun.

But then I got to watch the wildest shit.

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