He spun around.
I dipped my chin. “Thanks for calling him.”
Saint smiled his slow smile. “You said you felt better when he was around.”
He was gone again before I could answer.
I revved the softail’s engine and peeled away, tearing down the dirt track that led to the main road and blasting into the traffic at the kind of speed that made Mateo wince. He was my favourite person in the world, but he drove like someone’s dad.
Me? I rode like everything Saint had accused me of, and I made it back to the compound in record time.
It was quiet, everyone busy with work. Only the old ladies milled around the yard, enjoying the summer sun. There were hang arounds too—younger girls looking for some biker dick. They’d get it too, just not from anyone I gave a flying shit about.
I dodged an invitation for a cuppa and a blowjob and went upstairs.
Rubi was asleep on my bed, pillow pulled over his head, a bottle of hardcore pain meds on the bedside table.
I picked them up, scanning the label, wondering if Cam had caught up with him. Also, why he was in my room and not Nash’s?
Then I heard the squeak of bed springs and a low, feminine moan, and figured not everyone was at work after all.
He’s with Orla.
At least, I hoped he was, or we were all in trouble.
I left Rubi to sleep and ducked into Mateo’s room. He didn’t spend much time in there—we were co-dependent as fuck for two people who weren’t together—so it didn’t smell much like him. I sat on the edge of his bed and stretched my aching muscles, enjoying the burn from training with Saint. He’d watched me like a hawk, likeMateowatched me, but he’d worked me hard, and I felt good.
Knackered, but good.
I lay back on Mateo’s bed, staring at the bubbled ceiling, letting the best kind of fatigue seep into my bones. If I’d been in my own bed, I might’ve slept. But Mateo’s room was distracting.
Cracking my neck, I sat up again, ignoring the buzz of my phone in my pocket. It was Cam. At five o’clock on any peacetime evening, it always was, letting us know where to come for dinner if we were hungry.
I was hungry. But I was nosy too. I got up and poked around Mateo’s room. Aside from the patchy white walls—filled and sanded one too many times after his volatile fists had got the better of him—there wasn’t much to it. A battered bed, a set of drawers scarred by his boots. A bedside table I knew contained a bible I’d never seen him touch and a Real Madrid shirt I’d never seen him wear.
On the floor were a scattering of Estrella bottle caps, half a dozen empty Rizla packets, and...what the fuck is that?
I crouched and scooped up the sparkly thing that had caught my eye.
It was a glittery gold hair tie.
Frowning, I looped it over my finger and stood, holding it up to the light. Caught in the metal join was a long, wavy black hair that definitely wasn’t Ivy’s.
Orla’s, then.
Right. Because our fearsome queen was all about the fucking glitter. Not the red lips, leather jeans, and biker boots.
Nah. This wasn’t hers.A hook-up then?But that didn’t fit either. Mateo disappeared on sexcapades on a regular basis, but he never brought girls up here. No one did. Only Cam had that privilege, and that clearly wasn’t happening anymore.
Chill the fuck out. It’s a hair band, not a fucking thong.But even if it had been, the sense that I had no right to feel as sick as I did was a cold, spiked wave that washed over me, eclipsing the buzz I’d brought home from Camp Saint.
It was a hair tie. It could’ve been anyone’s. Hell, it was probably Rubi’s. My biggest brother wore pink boxers and purple socks to mafia meetings.
So why the hell did my gut say it wasn’t?
Your gut is broken, remember?
Severed.
