Canary by Tijan ~ Excerpt
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About Canary by Tijan
Title: Canary
Author: Tijan
Genre: Dark Contemporary Romance
We were on the front lines in that world, the mafia world.
There was nothing soft or glamorous about it.
Who you were before no longer mattered. Names didn’t exist.
I joined anyway. I had no other choice because they took my sister.
Join. Find her. Try and make it out alive.
Then he won me in a poker game.
I hated him instantly, thinking he was like my other bosses before him.
He wasn’t. He was worse.
He wasn’t just cold. He was dead inside.
It didn’t matter that he was gorgeous.
He was the most lethal thing I’d ever met.
He was also the only person who could keep me alive, if he didn’t kill me himself.
A/N This is a 102k mafia/cartel standalone.
This is the most violent book Tijan has ever written.
Trigger warning: references to sexual violence “Canaries sing to save lives. I sing and people die.”
Excerpt from Canary
© 2021
Tijan
“I…” I didn’t even know. I couldn’t explain what I didn’t know. “Ask me about Jake in a different way.”
“There is no other way.”
“You know there is! Ask it in a different way.” I shoved up to my feet. This was the fight here.
I was sick of the killing.
I could not handle one more body, especially not someone I knew.
My chest heaved. “Ask it in a different way.”
I liked Jake. I was hurt by what he said, but he wasn’t on my list anymore.
I frowned. “What happened with Cavers?”
“None of your business!” he erupted, his hands flying in the air, but he was moving farther away from me. His back hit the wall, and he let me see him, how haunted he was, how stricken. He let it all out for me to see and read, though I wasn’t sure he knew it. “I don’t run my decisions through some pussy I like plowing.”
Okay, now I was mad.
“Take that back,” I said quietly.
He swore, low and long. Then he moved, flipping a chair into the wall. It impaled there, and the wall held it. It looked like an abstract piece of art.
“Take it back!” I clipped out, folding my arms over my chest.
He looked away.
I didn’t know what was going on here, but fuck him if he didn’t take back calling me pussy he liked to plow.
I screamed, “Take it back!”
“No!” He was across the room and in my face in the next second. I braced myself, but he didn’t touch me.
He stopped just short of it, his breath in my cheek, his eyes taking me in, scanning my face.
He was panicking.
I saw it now, lurking there.
Good! That filled me with satisfaction.
My chest started pounding.
No, that was my heart.
It was thumping in my chest, getting stronger, faster—a steady and powerful beat now. I could feel it all the way to my toes—in my fingers, my neck. His eyes lingered on my lips.
He couldn’t look away.
Stark hunger flashed in his eyes, and he raised a hand, holding it in the air.
It curved gently, as if he wanted to touch my neck, or the side of my face.
But he didn’t move. He just held it there, a few inches from my skin.
His eyes lifted to mine. “You bitch.”
My heart still pounded, trying to reach him. “You’re a murdering asshole,” I whispered back, seething.
“What?”he sneered. “You want to fuck now? Forget you put a fucking gun to your head?”
“Don’t kill Jake.”
He pressed into me, his eyes wild, on the edge of control. “Why?” His breath was hot on me. He bent down, his eyes glittering now.
Then he found his control. He rested one hand against the wall, next to my head. The other found my hip and slid up, moving under my shirt, raising it.
God. I almost moaned.
Wetness flooded me, and I started to throb.
I wanted him.
So fucking bad.
He bent and his lips grazed over mine, my cheeks, my chin. Tingles raced through me.
Jesus.
I wanted him deep inside of me. I shifted, pressing against him, and both of us groaned from the contact.
I began moving, a slow grind, and he was quiet, grinding back.
This was different from the other times. The terms had flipped. Roles were changing. Everything was being upended between us.
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About Tijan
Tijan is a New York Times Bestselling author that writes suspenseful and unpredictable novels. Her characters are strong, intense, and gut-wrenchingly real with a little bit of sass on the side. Tijan began writing later in life and once she started, she was hooked. She’s written multi-bestsellers including the Carter Reed Series, the Fallen Crest Series, and the Broken and Screwed Series among others. She is currently writing a new series from north Minnesota where she lives with an English Cocker she adores.
