Diamond Scars: A Dark Mafia, Enemies to Lovers Romance (Shadows of Grace Book 1) by Riley Flowers

Author:Riley Flowers [Flowers, Riley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Leo

Speaking with Alyson lifted a weight off my shoulders. Over my weeks of silence, preparing for this attack on the Red Hand, there hasn’t been a day where she didn’t infiltrate my thoughts. Longing makes the heart grow fonder? That’s an understatement when it comes to Alyson.

She’s inspired something deep inside me. A desperate urge to change and fix myself. I don’t just want her in my life, I need her. To know I’ve upset her, left her when she needed me most, breaks my heart. I could’ve been there for her in these troubling times, and in turn, she’d see me through the passing of my father.

Time and circumstance dictate us forward. I am a man with a goal and a vision, she is a distraction. The time we spent together at her apartment is enough to show me how far I’ve fallen. Alyson stripped me of the cold-heartedness so deeply ingrained in the fiber of my being and replaced it with purity. I fear I may never be the same again.

“I just got the strangest feeling of, what do they call it? Déjà vu?” Duke Hellweather says, gnashing on the end of a chicken’s drumstick. “The four of us—”

“Five,” Rex corrects.

Duke points the chicken bone to Dominic driving the car, me in the passenger seat, Rex at his side, Victor in the back, and then himself. He flicks his writs, murmuring one through five as he goes.

“Five it is. But we were sitting in this car, driving off on some grand adventure. The fellah in the back wasn’t with us though.” Duke jams the knuckle of the drumstick into his mouth, sucking it like a lollipop.

Didn’t eat supper, Duke told us, getting into the car with eight wings from some local diner. Hope you don’t mind me stuffing my face on the drive.

Why I thought his eating habits would be anything but vile is beyond me.

“We all know the peace pipe, preps us right for wild dreams,” Duke concludes. Rex is looking at him squinty-eyed, mouth agape in disgust or confusion. Both are fitting.

How much peace piping has Duke indulged in to forget the last time we saw each other? God damn, it’s only weed, it doesn’t stunt your memory that bad.

“Three years ago, Otto’s Luxury Cruise Line. The Rebel Rats helped us deal with Luca Scarpati homing in on Grace territory,” I say.

“Ah, yes, that’s right,” Duke rolls down the window, tossing his box of chicken bones into the street. With the open window, music pours into the car. One of the Rebel Rats thought it wise to bring a boombox, to blare ‘Nam era war music hyping up the troops. “Wasn’t going crazy after all.”

That train’s already left the station, friend. You’re bat shit crazy, and that’s why I want you on my side.

Duke doesn’t shut his window after discarding his scraps, singing along to “Born in the U.S.A.” after CCR’s “Fortunate Son” concludes. He’s bobbing his head back and forth, missing most of the lyrics and replacing them with a humming murmur.

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