Page 101 of Ravaged By Lust

Axel’s actually managed to find a good girl and make her his fiancée.

Yep. Pigs really should be able to fly now.

The members of Ravaged rush the stage before any of us. They envelop Axel and Maddie in a big hug, which makes me laugh and cry with happiness. There is so much love in the room. Bishop, Caspian, and Drake all hug Axel so much and so hard that he starts to protest.

“I can’t breathe!”

They continue to squeeze the life out of him, though.

The rest of the party all gather around Maddie. I love the ring my brother’s given her. She shows it off between her tears.

“You didn’t tell me about this,” I say to Axel in an accusatory tone.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” he replies with a wink. “Well, maybe I told one or two people…”

“Like who?”

Ah.

I spin around to Bishop.

“You knew about this?” I ask him, incandescent that my man’s been hiding this clandestine operation.

He shrugs. “A member of Ravaged can’t hide a secret from another member. And besides, I couldn’t trust you wouldn’t have let something slip while you were drunk with Maddie.”

Axel laughs.

God, both of them are so infuriating.

I check out Maddie’s ring. “It’s beautiful,” I say. She seems like she’s in shock. She can’t stop smiling and crying at the same time.

And then Mom appears. She wraps her arms around Maddie.

“Welcome to the family, Maddie. Properly this time.”

“Thank you, Astrid. Thank you for everything.”

“You’re going to be an amazing daughter-in-law. What do you think, Chloe?”

“For sure. I wholeheartedly agree.”

They break the hug and Maddie subtly tilts her head in the direction of Winston on the other side of the room.

“What were you two talking about?” she asks Mom slyly. Even in the chaos of being engaged, she’s still trying to figure out if her plan worked or not.

“Wouldn’t you two like to know?” Mom asks, giving us both the side-eye.

“Well, you were having a long chat with him,” I say, raising an eyebrow.

Mom sighs, knowing she’s lost this battle. “We’re going to meet up tomorrow…”

“A date?” Maddie interjects, still animated about her party’s hidden agenda even if she’s just been proposed to.

“Nothing fancy,” Mom replies. “And maybe nothing will happen. We’re just catching up, that’s all.”

“Sounds like a date,” Maddie says to me. I wink back in agreement. Mom is not amused.

The boys of Ravaged decide they want to toast Axel and Maddie. We all raise our glasses as Drake leads.