“What are you two scheming about in here?”
We turned to Lore’s booming voice, seeing her push open the door behind the bar with her hip, her hands full with cans of beer. I moved to meet her and take a can from her hand, beforeshe tossed the other one at her brother. Her smiling lips were too tempting to not sweep in for a light kiss. Lore’s smile grew even wider against my mouth and she returned it with enthusiasm. She leaned against the booth we were sitting at, fiddling with her phone one-handedly.
Taylor scoffed. The loud hiss of his beer popping open was followed by a loud swig and his satisfied sigh. “Just introducing Grant to some good music.”
Our eyes met, and he gave me a mischievous wink. I returned a smirk of my own, and Lore eyed the both of us. “Uh-huh,” she sounded skeptical. “Speaking of, I come bearing news! Lyre just called, she said the band had a cancellation on their tour just before their Vegas stop. They’re coming in a couple days early and wanted to hang out.”
Taylor’s burst of laughter had Lore’s eyebrow rising in confusion. “Speak of the devil! Guess you’ll get to hang out with the legend herself!”
“How long do I have to prepare myself mentally?” I asked dryly.
Lore checked her phone after taking a long swig of her beer. She squinted at the screen and flicked her thumb across it a few times. “Uh, two weeks. Shit, that reminds me…”
Just as abruptly as she came, Lore drifted toward the staircase with her phone still in hand, tapping out a text as she made her way up toward the club’s office. I looked back at Taylor with a questioning look, and he shrugged with his own beer halfway to his mouth. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know what she’s getting into. I’m just the muscle,” he smirked around the lip of the can. “Lore wouldn’t be able to afford me if I had brains and brawn, ya know?”
“I couldn’t imagine. Truly.”
Taylor flipped me off just as I turned and followed Lore up the stairs into her office, where she was still intently typing onthe phone. It was uncharacteristic of her to be so focused on something. I hadn’t set foot in the Masked Merrow’s office since first coming to look for the club’s owner, and seeing Lore sit where Jerel had really brought it around full circle for me. It felt so unreal, me standing here with a mate bond and matching marks to show for it. I think I knew the first time we met, deep down, that we were meant for each other. It took longer for Lore to come around than I’d liked, but the warm feeling of acceptance and love I felt being with her and the Riot more than made up for the lost time. She seemed too distracted to notice I was looming in front of the desk, staring down at her like a love-struck idiot for a couple of minutes.
“What’s going on?” I kept my voice low to not startle her.
Lore sighed and tossed her phone carelessly across the desktop, sending it sliding dangerously close to the edge. Before the screen went dark I glimpsed the wallpaper; it was the one Lore took of me the day she broke into Andrea’s condo, while I stood horrified in the doorway with my bushy fox ears pricked upward. Seeing it on her phone made me want to cringe a little. I’m sure it brought her no little amount of joy to see me in such a vulnerable state, the damn sadist she was.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and pushed back in the chair, tilting her head to glare at the ceiling. “Just dealing with some bullshit. You know, the usual.”
“Anything I can help with?”
Her green eyes glared at some spot on the ceiling like it offended her, before she sighed again. I walked around the desk, stopping behind her chair and placing my hands firmly on her shoulders. My fingers dug into the tense muscles there, kneading them out bit by bit until a soft moan left her lips and Lore’s eyes slid closed.
“Hmm?” I prompted. It was a rare moment I got to look at her this closely—even in bed—to be able to admire the cute sprinkleof freckles across her nose and eyes. As if feeling my stare on her, Lore opened her eyes to look at me upside-down and smirked.
“You can take the underboss out of the mob, but you can’t take the mob out of the underboss, huh?” She joked lightly.
I shrugged. “I don’t think I was taken out… more like, transplanted to another mob.”
She laughed again and reached up to pinch my cheek. The hand slid around the back of my neck and pulled me down for a kiss. The angle was a bit awkward until she tilted her head to fit against mine. I could feel my lips pull into a smile, and I bent lower to wrap my arms around her chest.
“You’re avoiding the question,” I pulled away just long enough to say. “What’s going on? Is there something with your sister?”
“Not directly,” she hedged. “With me killing off Elio, there’s the unavoidable squabbling of who’s taking over his empire, who’s coming after me for blood, blah, blah, blah. The new head of the family is his only surviving son, Lucio, and he wants to arrange a meeting while Lyre is in town. I had forgotten until now the dates conflicted, so I’m trying to talk her out of coming the exact days he’s here.”
“I imagine that’s going well.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, like trying to talk to a feckin’ brick wall. For better or worse, she’s loyal to a fault. Lyre doesn’t need to be gettin’ all mixed up in this. I owe her that much. I’m assuming Lucio wants to meet before the Assembly meeting in a couple of months, to try and smooth over the bullshit he dad pulled.”
Her voice was straining at the end, and I could see her swallow hard, like she was trying to shove the emotion back down. Sometimes, I was envious of the kind of relationships she had with her siblings. Lore and Taylor were so tight they could practically be conjoined, so I was curious to meet her actual twin.
“What’s Elio’s other son like?” I was hesitant to ask.
Lore scoffed. “Nothing like his piece of shit father, if that’s what you’re asking. He’s actually in the music biz too. Same genre as Lyre and everything.” Despite the obvious tension in her shoulders, she chuckled low. “Heaven forbid they step foot in the same room, though. He’s a cocky little shit now, and Lyre can’t stand him.”
“So they, what, run in the same circles because of their music careers?” I was confused as to why her sister would have any interaction with Elio’s son at all.
“This might shock you, but Elio and our shitty excuse for a father are actually good friends. Or,” a twisted smirk lit her face, “they used to be good friends. We met at a lot of holiday events put on by the rich and obnoxious. Lyre and Lucio were pretty close until…” Her expression darkened. It made sense to me now why she always wore the mask or a full-face helmet when she dealt with people she didn’t trust. Lore’s face told a range of emotions at any given moment.
“Speaking of your sister,” I began, the annoyance from earlier bubbling to the top of the other emotions. “What the hell is up with using her name as a safeword? Is there something I need to know?”
Lore’s eyes widened like she was confused. “Huh?” Then it seemed like she got up to speed with the sharp turn of our conversation. Maybe she didn’t even remember. “Ah, you mean for the livestream? You’re bringing that up now?”
