Wicked Whoopie Pies by Addison Moore (english novels to improve english TXT) 📕

me know Jimmy took off. Meg happens to be friendly with one of his men, and they let Meg know Jimmy was at his private shooting range.

I didn’t need directions. Whether or not Jimmy realizes it, the Ashford County Sheriff’s Department knows about all of his haunts—and all of the haunts that belong to Luke Lazzari and his family as well. Jimmy and Luke might be on opposing sides when it comes to mob dealings, but to the sheriff’s department they’re one and the same to us. They’re nothing but a bunch of common street thugs.

Jimmy’s private shooting range is located on the east end of Leeds. I know for a fact he uses it as a training ground for his army of hitmen. Here’s hoping I don’t make a good moving target.

Everett runs through my mind and I shake my head. Thank God Canelli called off that hit. If anything happened to Everett because of something I dragged him into, I would have taken that guilt to my own grave.

The bustling street turns rural, and soon I’m driving down an unmarked dirt road lined with evergreens on either side. A clearing appears with a smattering of cars spread over it and I glide in next to the gate. I spot a couple of Jimmy’s goons keeping watch at the entry and frown over at them. They look sleek and mean in a couple of dark matching suits, somber matching expressions as well, as if they just came back from burying ten men alive—and odds are good they might have.

I’d better text Ivy and let her know where I’ve gone in the event I go missing.

I’m about to do just that when a large SUV pulls up next to me and I do a double take at the driver.

“What in the…” I get out at the same time he does. “Everett? What the heck are you doing here?” I step around my truck to find him in his new uniform of a T-shirt and jeans. The sun is high, it’s so warm out you’d think it was the middle of summer, the birds are chirping, and the sky is blue. And yet, I can’t help but feel something downright deadly has supernaturally drawn us both here at the very same time.

“I was invited.” He shoots me a look that lets me know he’s not pleased to see me before locking up his truck with the flick of a button. “What are you doing here?”

“I invited myself.”

“Should have figured. Just like you do with everything else.” A rumble of a laugh rattles his chest as he heads for the gate.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask as I lock up my own truck and follow along. “Never mind. It all goes back to Cormack, doesn’t it? Who knew one blow to the ego, in high school no less, would cause such a rippling effect.”

“Lemon.” He hikes his brows a notch my way. “It all goes back to Lemon.”

“What?” I shake my head at him. “You wish. I didn’t invite myself to Lottie. We came to the mutual conclusion that we should be together.”

“You came to the conclusion that you should be with her—that’s why you didn’t tell her about Britney.”

He’s not entirely wrong. But the reason I didn’t tell Lottie that I was still married at the time we started dating was because Brit and I hadn’t even seen one another in a year. We were separated and the divorce was already rolling. I would have told her eventually. The time was never right.

“All right, Everett,” I say, looking ahead while those goons get ready to greet us with their arsenal of weaponry. “You just like to make it sound bad. But that probably helps quell your ego because Lottie didn’t choose you first. She met us on the same day, only hours apart.”

“And once you knew I was in the picture, you saw that you had to act fast.”

A laugh bucks through me. “Even if you’re right, it doesn’t change the past. What’s done is done. Lottie and I burned bright and fast until—”

“Your wife strolled back into town and said she wanted her husband back.”

I blow out a breath as I relive that horrific night briefly. “And it was a surefire way to knock Lot and me off our base. But don’t worry, Everett. We’re going to rally. You haven’t seen the last of me yet, sweetheart.” I give a little wink.

“All right, easy,” he says. “Save the charm for the big guy. Something says we’re going to need it.”

“Before we head in, what ended up happening to that video Evie uploaded?”

Once Everett and I took one look at that near-naked dance party, we convinced Evie to take it down immediately, but by the time she did, it was replicated just about everywhere. Everett told me to head home and get some sleep, that he’d take care of it. But I didn’t get much sleep. I care about Evie as much as Lyla Nell. God forbid Lyla Nell upload a racy raunch-fest like that one day. I don’t know how Everett held it together.

“I spent two hours on the phone with the reps from both of those social media sites she uploaded it to and they both said the same thing. Once content is uploaded, it can be copied and stored by just about anyone. It looks like Evie’s gyrating moves are here to stay. And the kicker is, I could swear I was talking to teenagers on the other end of the line.”

“This planet is run by millennials now. They control the universe from a keyboard while watching cartoons in their mother’s basement. It’s the way of the world, old man. Get used to it.”

“I’m afraid you’re right.”

We approach a wooden gate large enough to let a tank through, and the men in black step in front of it as if we were about to storm the dusty gates.

Everett lets the goons in suits know who he is