“Tell me about it.” I grunted, though I was relieved for us to part on more amicable terms. “See you in the morning, Dagger. And look, if you lost someone because of Red, because of me… I’m really fucking sorry.”
He had no idea how sorry.
No one, not even Kitty, did.
THIRTY-FIVE
KITTY
“Raisin, are you insane?”
I practically tossed her through the bunkhouse’s front door in my haste to get her out of that scene in the yard. The sight of those two bikers fighting over her would haunt my nightmares for at least a decade.
Raisin wasnota piece of meat, but she clearly hadn’t picked up on the connotations of their brawl.
“You’re not my mother!” She bustled off to the room she shared with Neev. All sass and zero common sense like she’d been at sixteen.
I knew I should go after her, sort out why contravening the orders of a man whose only desire was to keep us safe had seemed a good idea at the time. But I couldn’t abandon Stan. Not when he’d put himself in danger for Raisin’s sake.
She might not give a fuck about him or the repercussions of her own actions, butIdid.
I pinned my ear to the front door and listened to the confrontation in the yard. I was grateful that I had, too, because he called me to his side.
And I practicallyranback to him.
It didn’t occur to me that I couldn’t trust him to keep me safe.
My safety was his priority. Fact.
Which was batshit. Something definitely worthy of dissecting—afterthis mess.
A few minutes later, dazedly stumbling into the bunkhouse, I blinked at the ring I’d only just noticed on my hand.
Bewildered, I locked the door, my gaze catching on the elegant solitaire bridged by two baguette-cut diamonds that, in this low light, sparkled and glinted.
I didn’t know what screwed with my head the most—the fact he’d flown to Mexico with an engagement ring in his pocketorthat he’d put it on my finger while I’d slept.
“What’s going on?”
Yeah, I’d like to know too.
Still in a daze, I glanced at Neev, whose head had popped half out the bedroom door. “Nothing.”
“Doesn’t sound like nothing. Raisin’s crying.”
My brow puckered. “What?!”
Neev’s shrug was no answer. I hesitated for a second, unsure how Stan would get in if I wasn’t at the door, so I quietly unlocked it, hoping they couldn’t hear the softsnickoutside, then shoved her into the bedroom and traipsed in after her.
Thankfully, there was a lock in here, so I snapped that for extra security.
She wasn’t lying, either—Raisin, fully tucked into the fetal position, wept like someone had killed her gerbil.
And I hadn’t. No matter what she’d claimed when I’d been eight.
More perplexed than ever, I turned the ring into the palm of my hand in case eagle-eyed Neev noticed it and brought it up at a bad moment, seeing as that was her MO.
“What’s going on, Raisin?”
