Embrace the Darkness (The Maura Quinn Series Book 1) - Ashley N. Rostek Page 0,7

and their eyes dropped to my side. The tiniest flicker of surprise told me I hadn't been quick or discreet enough.

The three of us stood there, not saying a word as we took each other in. Time was good to them, I mused as I did a slow perusal of each of them from head to toe. They’d always had pretty boy looks with the bad boy appeal, which they'd used to their advantage from high school on. Girl after girl would throw themselves at them back then. Now they were men, with about twenty pounds of added muscle.

Feeling their eyes roam over me as well left me feeling a little self-conscious. I was a mess, still wearing the clothes I'd killed people in. I hadn't checked my jeans or fitted green T-shirt for blood splatter. Both garments were dark in color, so I wasn’t too worried. As for my long red hair, I’d been either tugging on it or running my fingers through it for hours. Oh well. It was best not to dwell on something I couldn’t change. Besides, both of them had seen me worse than this before.

My fingers began to itch to snap my bands as my mind drifted back to that night. They'd both seen the aftermath. Instead of pulling at my bands, I had to settle for squeezing my hand tightly around the grip of my gun.

“I see the bromance is still going strong,” I teased, leaning against the door frame, trying to appear nonchalant, even though the thought of having two bodies upstairs poked at the back of my brain like a pickaxe.

Louie cracked a smile while Jamie just stood there as his normal unreadable, stoic self. He’d always been a brooding ass. Louie, however, rarely took anything seriously.

“We like to role play. It keeps the relationship interesting,” Louie played along, making my mouth quirk a little.

“That just put a dirty visual in my head of you playing a naughty nurse who has to blow life back into Jamie. Talk about a whole new meaning to resuscitation.” Could I be crude and crass with a potty mouth that would make a sailor blush? Yes, I grew up surrounded by men who were criminals.

I'd had to constantly watch what I said around Tom. The few times I'd slipped up, he’d looked at me with such disgust. With Jamie and Louie, though, I could spew as many vulgar things as I wanted with zero judgment.

Louie’s smile fell, but I caught the corner of Jamie’s lips twitching.

“Why am I the nurse?” Louie asked, sounding offended, but the gleam in his eyes gave him away.

“I don’t think Jamie could pull off a naughty nurse outfit as well as you, Louie. At least not the one I’m picturing you wearing.”

Louie threw his head back, laughing. “I’m glad to see that beautiful mouth of yours hasn’t changed. When I heard you were dating a brief, I was worried you’d be all prim and proper now.”

At the mention of Tom, I cringed. It didn’t go unnoticed. Jamie narrowed his eyes in an assessing way.

“How’d you know he was a lawyer?”

I was answered with silence.

Louie looked to Jamie, telling me he'd heard it from him. How did Jamie know? I hadn’t even told Stefan he was a lawyer. Looking to Jamie to push for my answer, I paused before the words could leave my mouth. It was the way he was staring at me, eyes fixated, appearing contemplative, like I was a puzzle he was trying to figure out.

“Was?” he questioned with a slight tilt of his head.

I shouldn’t have been surprised Jamie had caught that. He’d always been perceptive, just like Stefan.

Jamie and I had grown up together under the same roof. His father Liam had been Stefan’s best friend and used to be the family’s head enforcer until he'd been killed when Jamie had been three years old. After the tragic loss, Stefan had stepped in as a father figure, helped raise him, and groomed him to one day take his father’s place.

“Was,” I repeated, pushing from the door frame. Jamie’s eyebrows rose. Why else would I have asked for him and not Stefan to come get me? Why not just drive home instead of asking for help, which was something I didn’t do? These were the questions I knew were running through his mind.

With the barrel of my gun I pushed my front door open wider, an unspoken gesture for them to come in. I took a step