Devil's Advocate - Book 3

Chapter One

Chapter One

THE POPPING noise echoed so loudly that Kristie had to cover her ears. The sudden pain in her abdomen made her nauseous. Surprised, Kristie looked down and saw red soaking through her T-shirt. She looked up, panicked, and saw a cloaked figure running away...

Kristie’s eyes opened and she lurched upward, breathing hard. She clawed at her belly, trying to get the red off, when she realized that she wasn’t on the sidewalk, staring down into the cloaked face of the man who had shot her. No, Kristie was in her apartment with Gray snoring next to her.

Gray, she thought, turning to look at him. She felt covered in sweat, sticky and warm on her body from her nightmare. Always the same nightmare. The morning she had been shot, always a little different than how it had actually happened. Kristie rubbed her brow, trying to wipe the sweat off, but her hand was clammy. Gray didn’t stir.

Kristie had hoped that Gray would wake up. Maybe somehow sense that she had been having her same nightmare again and hold her. Almost in response, Gray let out a loud snore and shifted onto his back. A nightlight in the corner illuminated the room in a soft glow. Gray had thought it was silly, Kristie knew, when she had suggested putting them around their apartment. But he hadn’t made fun of her. He understood.

The fear that Kristie had lived with since she had woken up in the hospital six months ago, after being gunned down due to the g**g battle Gray was involved in, came rolling over her. She gripped her stomach, feeling sick, remembering the pain of being shot. It was silly to even be thinking about it. But if Kristie allowed herself, she could still vividly recall those few seconds right before the g*n had gone off.

Kristie squeezed her eyes tightly. No, not right now. The clock near her side of the bed showed it was four in the morning. She slid out of bed, nervous about heading toward the kitchen alone to get water. Get over it, she lectured herself, always harder on herself than anyone else was. Six months since being shot twice and almost dying. Was she supposed to be over it already? She asked herself those questions almost daily and never had an answer.

The coolness of the tiles in the kitchen helped steady her a bit. Kristie got a glass of water and drank it slowly, looking at the nightlight over the counter, which was brighter than the others. Gray joked that it was almost as if the lights were on. Kristie didn’t care. It was silly, because it hadn’t even been dark when she had been shot. But the darkness now felt imposing, as if it hid a million enemies, all coming after her.

Recovering after being shot had been difficult. Kristie had lost a lot of blood from the two life-threatening bullets. She had been in the hospital for almost a month recovering. Gray had sworn that Armand had been the one who had fired the g*n, or that he had at least hired the person to fire the g*n – either way, Gray blamed Armand. Kristie didn’t know who it had been. All she knew was that it had been part of the g**g violence that Gray swore he wouldn’t fall back into.

But Gray hadn’t removed himself from it. He said it was because he wanted to avenge her. As Kristie took another sip of water, all she could think was that she didn’t want to be avenged. She hadn’t died. She wanted to live with Gray and start their married life with a new baby. That was all Kristie could think about lately. Having a baby and raising a baby. That would bring Gray back to Earth and give him something to truly care about. It was what Kristie wanted as well.

She finished her water and rubbed her eyes, sighing. If Kristie stayed up like this, she’d be over-thinking everything. I need to go to bed. She had work in the morning and couldn’t be replaying the last year in her mind any longer. Kristie turned around and headed back to bed. She walked a little quicker than she would have in the daylight.

>>

Gray wiped his hands on his pants, trying to get some of the car grease off of them. Rick was strolling toward him, puffing on a cigarette. It seemed impossible, but Rick had actually grown bigger in the last six months. He looked like a gladiator or something, Gray mused as he walked out of Lionel’s garage.

“There you are,” Rick said. “I have to get the oil changed in Kass’s car and wouldn’t mind seeing you actually do some work for a change.”

Gray laughed. “Hey, I do plenty here.”

Rick wrinkled his nose as if he didn’t quite believe him. “I’ll admit it – thought you could give me a discount, too.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Gray said, pretending to consider it.

“Thanks, pal.”

“Kass didn’t want to drop it off?” Gray asked, heading over to her car.

Rick shook his head. “She had to get to work. I told her I could do it for her. She’s trying to catch up on work since she had that cold last week.”

Gray nodded, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Rick and Kass had so easily settled into married life. Easier than Kristie and he had. Kass wasn’t shot the morning of their honeymoon though, Gray reminded himself gently. Maybe if Kristie hadn’t been, things wouldn’t be as messy as they were now.

Almost as if Rick sensed Gray’s thoughts, he asked, “How is Kristie doing?”

Gray shifted his weight, leaning back against Kass’s car. “Okay.”

Okay about summed the situation up. Kristie had recovered from her g*n shots from Armand. Gray had sworn to take Armand down for what he had done, but it turned out it hadn’t been that easy. Armand had gone underground, impossible to find. Gray had been trying to have the asshole show his face so he could blow it off, but he’d had no luck.

Instead, the Infernos had been pressing on them harder, just in ways that were harder to strike back against. Burning the warehouse down and trying to shoot Gray in the face had apparently been their big plans. When both had failed to kill Gray and ruin the Devil’s Advocates, they had tried smaller ideas. Trying to frame them for crimes and constantly having the cops on Gray’s a*s.

All of it had added a lot of stress to his relationship with Kristie. She wanted Gray to leave the g**g, like he had said he would do when they married. But that had been before Kristie had been shot. There was no way that Gray could let Armand get away with almost killing her. No matter how much Kristie wanted everything to go back to a pretty, perfect life, Gray couldn’t allow Armand to get away with what he had been doing.

“She still afraid of the dark?” Rick asked, breaking through Gray’s thoughts.

Gray nodded. “Yeah. Still don’t totally understand it, since the shooting happened in the day but...she’s doing the best she can.”

“She still talking about a kid?”

Gray nodded, falling silent again. Kristie seemed obsessed with the idea of having a child. It wasn’t that Gray was against it, per se, but he didn’t know if now was the best time. They had just moved into their own apartment with the money Gray had made from working at Lionel’s garage as well as what he pulled in from the g**g. Kristie had gotten a job at a law office doing clerical work and had been discussing going back to school for her law degree.

“It just doesn’t feel like the best time to have a kid,” Gray finally said.

Rick took a drag off his cigarette. “Never is a good time for one, is it?”

Gray nodded in response as the subject changed back to Kass’s car. Things felt so messy. He wasn’t sure how to put them back into their proper places.