“Fuck you,” she spits, shoving at my chest with all she’s got. She’s strong for a little bird, I will give her that, but I don’t budge. From this position I can feel the heat radiating off her and smell her sweet scent, coconut and something else just as delicious. Arousal? Why do I hope so. If she wasn’t such a problem, I would have already screwed her, and by the way her eyes flare when I’m this close to her, I reckon she knows it.
“You can’t just hold me hostage in this place,” she whimpers when she realizes trying to move me is like trying to budge a mountain—impossible.
“You have been gone a long time, so I’ll catch you up to speed. This is our town, and whatever we say goes. You won’t be going anywhere until we get the answers we want and you’re all better.” Or maybe not at all, if I have anything to do with it. “You’re currently in debt to the Thrones until I say you’re not.”
Her pretty eyes lock with mine, fear registering when she realizes how deadly serious I am. “W-what do you want, Slater? I don’t have anything,” she stutters out, the bad-bitch act slipping completely.
“Answers,” I reply like it’s simple, but Dove is smart enough to know that won’t be enough for us. We need a full backstory of the past ten years, every detail to make sure the dead thugs’ mates won’t be knocking our doors down to collect her or whatever she owed them. And that’s just the start, because what we really want is her.
Kasen moves into my side sleuth-like, quietly. He would have been watching our interaction, carefully calculating the perfect time to strike. He leans an arm against the wall, dropping his face closer to her. “Who were the thugs, birdie? Think carefully before you answer me this time. I’m one more wrong answer away from locking you back in your room for the foreseeable future.”
Her eyes widen in outrage, her chest rising and falling quickly. She’s panicking. What exactly is she hiding from us? Judging by her reaction, it must be good. “You can’t do that.” She shoves at me again. The hand on her waist holds her firmly, just to prove we can do anything we want. Does she really think she can fight the two of us off? We’re twice her size, for starters. But I do love her energy.
“Try me.” His voice booms down the hallway, all cool power. He sounds just like Keller, not that I would be stupid enough to say that to his face. He despised the man, but he learned a thing or two from him. We both did. Truth is, we might have all hated the man, but we wouldn’t be where we are today without him, and I respect that.
Her mouth pops open to fight Kasen, but she sees the deathly look on his face and closes it again. When her eyes come back to me, I raise a brow. I want to test her, push her, see what she’s really made of, but this is K’s game. I’m just here as the brains. “I owed them some rent money, okay? Shit, you two are intense. Can you drop this interrogation act? It’s a bit much.”
My eyes narrow in on her. Those fuckers did this to her over a little rent money? My jaw tightens. “Who are they?” I seethe. Two of them might be at the bottom of the ocean already, but they will have mates, and I need someone to suffer for the hurt I see in her eyes. She’s broken, and I will personally make sure they pay for ever thinking they could mess with our girl.
She shakes her head. “It’s not important anymore, Slater, they’re hardly going to be chasing me down again, now are they, so you two can get off my case over it.” She looks between us, desperation slipping under her bitchy façade. “Look, I’m sorry you got messed up in my shit, okay? But I didn’t come back here for a reunion. I have stuff to do, the sooner, the better, then I will be out of your way, and you cango back to ruling over your town or whatever trouble you lot are into these days.”
Kasen sighs heavily. I can feel how tight his body is with tension; it mirrors my own. This girl has us on edge in a new kind of way, and I already know there is no way he’s going to let her go anywhere now that he finally has her back. “Guess we’re doing this the hard way,” he mutters to me.
I can’t help the evil grin that rises in me. “Hard has always been my favorite.”
“What?” she gasps, looking between us for answers.
Before she has a chance to open her sassy-as-fuck mouth again, I scoop her up in my arms and carry her back to her room, her sweet scent wafting all around me as she tries to fight me off. She smells delicious. Like the summertime, all coconut and sunshine.
“What the fuck are you doing? Put me down, asshole.” She whacks my back and squirms around in my hold, reaching for doorways or anything she can to escape me. Her attempts are futile, of course, I’m twice her size, but I do enjoy the way she fights. I wonder if she fucks the same.
Shoving open the door to her room, I deposit her back on the bed. She stares up at me, her expression wild with rage. She’s so damn pretty like this. “Fuck you, Slater.”
My lips twitch up at the sides. “Take this time alone to remember those names, sunshine,” I sing-song, before turning and locking her in.
Loud bangs come from the other side of the door. “Let me the fuck out, assholes,” she cries as her fist slams into the door repeatedly.
I smirk back at Kasen as we move back into the main living room. “So, this is the plan, you lock her up until she talks?”
“You got a better idea? Those scumbags had every intention of beating her to death last night, and we both know it’s over more than rent money. One of them said she worked for him. Motherfuckers like that run in packs. Where there are two, there is a whole fucking club of ‘em, and once they work out their boss is missing, our town becomes their next target, and birdie will be in trouble all over again.”
“What did you say the club name was? I’ll look into them.”
“Southern Breakers.”
“I’ll see what I can find. She’s going to be trouble, you know that, right?”
When I glance back over my shoulder, Kasen looks wounded by my words, but he knows the last thing we need is a problem with some neighboring gang. We have enough going on with him taking the reins of Throne Developments. “She’s come home to us. You of all people should be over the moon, you mourned her for fucking years when she disappeared.”
“Yeah, then I grew up and got over it. She didn’t want to be found, and we had bigger issues to deal with. You’re the one still holding on to shit from the past, brother. She might be a complication we can’t afford.”
“Or the one to bring us back together. You know we haven’t been the same since she left.” He has hope in his eyes, excitement for the first time in so long I can hardly believe it.
I nod, agreeing that we haven’t, but life isn’t the same now. A girl like her, so sweet, wouldn’t have survived the early days of Throne Developments. The shit we had to do to get it started, yeah, it made us the men we are, but it stole a part of all our souls as well. “What if she’s not strong enough to survive?”
“I’m sure you will make sure she is. Was that a test I walked in on? Or you just couldn’t help yourself?”
I shrug and huff out a laugh. “Both. She’s damaged, K. Like something fucked up has happened to her.”
