16

THORNE

“All right gentlemen, I believe that concludes our business for the evening,” I announced, eager to be done with this conversation and return to Sunday. If I hadn’t promised my father I’d meet with his men tonight, I would have told them to kindly go fuck themselves when they’d dared to interrupt my fervent seduction of the luscious Sunday Fallon.

As it was, my skin crawled at the thought of leaving her out there alone. Unprotected while so many other men circled like vultures. I’d seen the way they looked at her, lusted after her. And while I’d be a hypocrite if I blamed them for it, I’d sure as hell drain them dry if they so much as laid a finger on her.

“And what should we tell your father about the pretty little bird?” The thick cockney accent of his was rough and menacing. A remnant of his human life on the streets of London long ago.