“I’ll be good, I promise,” he says, his voice taking a pleading tone. “Please, just leave me alone. I promise I won’t fuck around anymore. I’m sorry for what I did.”
“Good boy,” Pyro coos as he leans down and pats his head. “Now let’s get out of here. It smells fucking awful.”
As we leave, I send a text to Owen, letting him know that’s it done, and he can make sure it stays between us and Andrew. Once it sends, I call Zo?. Wiping the blood off my face, I walk over to the car with the guys, and we all pile in. She picks up on the first ring, and hearing her voice instantly calms my temper.
“Safe?” she asks.
“Safe,” I tell her, and she releases a breath.
“I was thinking Bali next.”
I smile as I start the car.
“Bali it is.”
Follow Owen’s story here:
Burdens We Carry: Pre-order here
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Readers, I was extremely nervous to let the characters do what they wanted in this one. I’ve never written a friends to lovers trope, and I was worried it would be too sweet for my normal audience, so I hope all the smut made up for it. Especially that cum spitting scene...am I right? Woof.
Thanks again to all of my friends who are always willing to alpha and beta read for me. The comments you guys leave crack me up and keep me going. Thank you to all of you who are constantly listening to me doubt myself, I know that shit has to be tiring. I’m trying to get better about it.
Amber deserves another mention. Thank you for always being my alpha reader, and for always yelling at me when I’m being ridiculous. Forever thankful that TikTok brought you to me.
Huge thank you to Salma for translating the Arabic and to Hadeel for being my sensitivity reader. Thank you both for letting me come to you so that I could make sure Zo? was written with the respect and love she deserved.
Thanks to Abi for formatting this beauty, and also making me another amazing cover.
And Sandra, you are seriously the best editor a girl could ask for. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but dang am I happy you’re here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dana Isaly is a writer of dark romance, fantasy romance, and has also been known to dabble in poetry (it was a phase in college, leave her alone).
She was born in the midwest and has been all over but now resides (begrudgingly) in Alabama. She is a lover of books, coffee, and rainy days. Dana is probably the only person in the writing community that is actually a morning person.
She swears too much, is way too comfortable on her TikTok (@authordanaisaly and @auth.danaisaly), and believes that love is love is love.
You can find her on Instagram (@danaisalyauthorpage) or on Facebook with the same name, but she won’t lie, Facebook is not her forte.