Read Havoc for Free Online Page B

growl.
    “Let him in,” he muttered to one of his men.
    I was unblinking as I watched Abram send the girls out just as Nate came barreling in, butterfly bandages on his purple cheek, spit flying in all directions as he snarled like a dog.  “You don’t fucking learn , Abe.”
    “Christ, are you still on it?”
    “This isn’t the first time a pretty girl came around and seemed harmless when she fucking wasn’t! I’m telling you there is no reason to trust that bitch.  She just happens to come into that alley that night, that time with no fucking ID on her?”
    I froze when I realized he was talking about me.  The blood drained from my face.  My pulse beat my chest off the wall but I stayed leaning against it, straining to hear what Abram had to say.
    “I did a background check.  She’s fine.”
    “You did a back – that’s it? What if she’s not fine? What if that piece of shit set us up? Maybe you can be relaxed about this but I can’t, because if the cops find out, they fuck up our shit and we never get Toro.  And I know exactly what happens after that.  We go to prison and you survive while his guys stick a blade in my throat on the first fucking day.”
    Toro .  I remembered that name from one of the articles.  And I knew it anyway.  The Toro Family was one of the oldest organized crime syndicates in New York.  Dante Toro was a famously cold-blooded killer from my parents’ generation, his face as recognizable as any Hollywood actor.  It was he that kept coming up in articles about Abram, thought they also mentioned his older son, Jesse.  I figured he was the Toro that Nate referred to because I recalled hearing about Dante Toro being sick in the hospital.
    But as my mind floated elsewhere, I let the door close an inch – enough to scrape the raw skin on my knee.  “Shit!” I muffled the word with my hand.  But it was too late, I’d accidentally slammed the door shut as well.  Stumbling back, I heard Nate’s footsteps immediately bounding up the stairs, his words spearing fear through my heart as he got closer.
    “No fucking way.  If that’s her I’m gonna fucking kill her right here and now .”

chapter eight
    I was pressed against the wall, locked in pure terror as the door flung open.  Eyes wild, Nate stood still for a moment of shocked, frantic rage.
    Then he flew to me.
    “ You dumb bitch , tell me who you are now before I – ”
    Thwack! His head snapped to the side, his hand immediately grabbing the part of his face he’d been hit.  My heart hammered.  I thought it was Abram but then I registered the sudden pain in my knuckles.  Holy shit.  It was me.  I’d dropped Nate to the ground.
    But before I knew it, he was up – and I was flat against the wall, his hands holding my wrists above my head.  My cuts burned in his grip but I snarled over his every word.  “I had nothing to do with whatever you’re talking about, asshole, so find another person to take it out on because you’ve done far enough to me,” I hissed from my throat as I felt my hands swell.  I barely recognized my own voice.  But God, I was done.  I was so fucking done with being blamed, being scared, being hurt.  I was done bearing the brunt of someone else’s downfall.
    “You fucking bitch, you don’t fool me for a god damned – ”
    Nate suddenly flung back like a ragdoll. A gasp singed my throat as he practically flew through the air.
    That one was Abram.
    Frozen, I watched as he hoisted Nate back up by his lapels, tossing him hard against the wall and growling barely an inch from his face.  “You have no idea how fucking lucky you are to be Gavin’s blood.  I swear to God, if you don’t lay off the blow and calm the fuck down, I will kill you faster than Toro can,” he snarled, snatching the little baggy from Nate’s inside pocket and chucking it aside.  I stared at it.  Coke.  Nate’s face was so red I was afraid it would burst.  But when he spoke again, his voice was