“Liv—” Tommy began.

He shut his mouth when I sliced my eyes to him.

“You should’ve called me.”

I made it to the door and hauled it open.

“It was a direct order,” he said.

I stopped and asked, “Dad? Or Georgia?”

He didn’t answer even as he did.

His eyes moved across the hall.

Without hesitation, my feet moved across the hall.

“Liv!” he clipped.

I ignored him and knocked loudly at her door, didn’t wait and pushed through.

“Fuck! Get the fuck out!” Georgia, back to her desk, knees up, bent and spread wide, taking Gill’s cock, twisted her head to glare at me.

I looked from my sister to Gill.

It was not the first time I’d noted my sister’s favorite soldier was large, built and exceptionally handsome in a pug-like, blunt, brutal way.

It was just that I was so angry, I might like watching but that absolutely didn’t include my sister, so I noticed it with far more abstraction than usual while catching him fucking her.

“Go,” I ordered, looking in his eyes, not anywhere else.

“Are you insane?” Georgia demanded to know.

I kept my eyes on Gill who was bent over my sister but he had his head tipped back to look at me.

“Go,” I repeated.

He held my gaze then looked down at Georgia.

After a moment, he slid out and straightened, tucking himself back in his pants.

I stepped to the side of the door in Georgia’s office, attention to the floor, giving them both privacy to get themselves sorted.

I saw Gill’s legs walk by me as he left.

He closed the door.

The instant I heard it click, I looked to Georgia’s desk. She was now standing behind it, leaning into her fists spread wide on the top, her expression enraged.

“Do not ever do that again,” she whispered.

“Was he going to Sloan?” I asked.

“Confirm that you will not ever do that again,” she replied.

That meant Green was not going to Sloan.

“Was he going to Valenzuela?” I pushed.

“Liv, confirm that you will not ever do that again,” she repeated.

“So neither,” I surmised and finished, “And you had Tommy kill him anyway. Tommy. Tommy.”

“You are not hearing me—”

Suddenly, I bent toward her, hissing, “No. I’m not hearing you. I do not give that first fuck you’re pissed.” Her brows shot up at this rarity and I leaned back, asking, “Tommy?”

“Fuck, Liv—”

“Tommy!” I snapped his name like a whip, aiming my lash her way.

She pushed away from her desk. “He gets orders just like Gill.”

I shook my head. “No he doesn’t. Tommy doesn’t. Not from you. Tommy’s mine.”

Her face lost some of its anger and her tone was softer when she said, “He isn’t yours. He hasn’t been yours for a long time. And you know it, babe.”

“He’s mine, Georgie,” I reiterated.

“He isn’t, Liv.”

I leaned forward and was again hissing. “He’s mine.”

My sister’s voice was actually gentle, as was her gaze on me, when she returned, “He wasn’t even yours back then.”

My torso shot back like she’d struck me.

“He does what he’s told,” she continued. “He doesn’t get special treatment. He doesn’t get the clean jobs because the boss’s daughter gave him her cunt and her heart. It should have been a long time ago I stopped letting you protect him. Keep him for yourself. Try to keep him clean. The time for that to stop is now. A job needs to get done, no matter how dirty, he proves allegiance by doing it quickly and doing it well just like anyone else.”

“So,” I began, “Green isn’t stupid enough to turn on us, he just lost his patience because he needs money to actually feed himself, he takes off and you send my ex-boyfriend to whack him to make a point?”

“A point that needed to be made. Not only to Tommy but out there.” She threw an arm wide before she pointed at her desk. “And in here, to all our boys.”

That speared through my heart.

“It was you?” I asked.

“It was me.”

“Not Dad?” I pressed masochistically, but holding on to hope that she was taking orders too.

Just like Tommy.

She shook her head, her manner still gentle. “No, sis. Not Dad.”

She hadn’t relayed the order.

She’d given it.

I stood just inside the door of her office, silent.

Defeated.

Tommy, my Tommy, had killed a man. That man was Green. My man. My soldier.

It wasn’t like Tommy was clean. Before and after there was a Tommy and me, he’d done things. Many things. Including that. He was a gangster, like me. That was part of the business.

Though, I’d never killed anyone nor ordered an execution. But I’d sat through listening to orders being given with and without saying a word against it.

But since there was a Tommy and me, it was Gill or another member of the crew.

It wasn’t Tommy.

Not my Tommy.

“He gave up on you.”

Her quiet words set my entire body to trembling.

Even so, I retorted, “Dad had Gill pouring acid on his face.”

“Dad himself poured boiling oil on your back and you didn’t give up on Tommy,” she shot back.