“Not even you?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.
He grinned, quick and devastatingly. “Well,” he said, leaning slightly closer across the console, “rules don’t apply to me.”
That damn smile. It was a thousand times more effective on me than Mason’s dimples ever could be. I swallowed, doing my best not to stare at his lips. “I’ll keep that in mind if you decide to scale my roof and knock on my window in the middle of the night.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he retorted, and his voice dropped lower, rougher.
A blush stole across my cheeks. Thank God, it was dark within the Jeep. I really wanted to lean across the car and kiss him. “So I should leave my window unlocked or locked?”
He gave me a look. “Lock the damn window, Hales.”
I grinned and opened the door, the interior light flooding the space, and grabbed what remained of my takeout as I cradled the kitten carefully against my chest, stepping out onto the curb.
Maddox stayed in the driveway until I unlocked the front door, slipped inside, and flipped the deadbolt into place. I peeked out the window to see his headlights sweep across the front yard as he drove off, the rumble of his engine fading into the night.
The house was quiet, and the kitten blinked up at me from my arms. I sighed, looking down at her. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”
She just blinked again, contentedly, as if she’d already decided we belonged to each other.
Now to convince Mom to let me keep her, not that I needed an additional responsibility, but I couldn’t help but think how nice it would be to have her around to keep me company.
Especially at night… When I was alone.
Of course, I could tell my mom the truth.
Or I could beg her to let me keep the kitten. Seemed a safer route for all, particularly since I’d become attached to Elmwood. More specifically, attached to a boy. And my friends. It was definitely Paisley and Atlas that had me wanting this move to be my last.
27
MADDOX
By the time I pulled up to the club, the food in the passenger seat had probably gone cold, but food was food. Hot, cold, warm, my brothers and I didn’t really care. Hell, sometimes takeout was better cold.
I grabbed the bag and headed for the back entrance. The bass from downstairs thudded faintly through the walls, muffled by layers of concrete and steel, a heartbeat within the building that never quite stopped.
The real business happened upstairs. Behind locked doors and soundproofed walls. Away from the lights, the music, and the people who came to escape their lives.
I stepped into the narrow corridor and reached the secured door at the end, punching in the six-digit code that changed monthly. My father was strict with security, and only a handful of people had access.
The lock mechanism clicked open, and I shoved at the door, stepping inside. As much time as I spent here growing up, you would think I would expect the unexpected. Wrong. I never knew what the fuck I would walk into.
Tonight proved no different.
Mason, Raine, Kreed, and Kaylor were already in what we deemed the interrogation hub, and they weren’t alone.
A man sat tied to a metal chair in the center of the room, wrists bound behind his back with zip ties. His ankles were strapped to the chair legs. They hadn’t waited for me, already starting.Pricks. His face was bloodied, nose clearly broken, one eye swollen completely shut, the tissue around it purple and grotesque. His shirt was half torn open and stained with sweat and blood, exposing a chest covered in crude tattoos. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t be sure I’d ever seen him before. At some point, criminals all looked the same, especially those who had been on Rusty’s payroll.
I lifted a brow as I walked in, my gaze moving to my brothers and Kaylor. “Thanks for starting without me,” I said, holding up the takeout bag like an offering.
Kreed turned toward me with a frown, blood staining across his knuckles. Definitely not his. “You’re late.”
I lifted the takeout bag higher, the answer obvious where I’d been.
Raine snorted from where he was leaning against the far wall, a knife flipping idly through his fingers. “If you were on time, you wouldn’t miss all the fun.”
“Who’s this?” I set the bag down on the table.
Kaylor stood off to the side, her expression was frigid as she watched the man in the chair struggle weakly against his restraints, testing the give that wasn’t there. Whatever softness she had in her for the rest of the world, for Kreed, for her friends, and for people who deserved it, never showed itself here. If I didn’t see it for myself, I wouldn’t believe she was the same girl who came to live with us less than a year ago.
