by Violet Blaze
“I'm at home with Dillon,” she says, whispering her boyfriend's name like he's as scandalous as Royal McBride. “We've got Chinese takeout, and a police officer hanging out in the driveway. Stop by if you want.” A pause as I make a right onto her street. “Why do you need a dress? Where could you possibly be going after last night? Dad's been calling you all day, trying to get you onboard for the press conference tomorrow.”
I groan as I slow down, letting my Alpha Wolves escorts get a good look at the police cruiser sitting in my sister's driveway. They're pretty good about keeping their distance; the guy that followed me to the station with the FBI agents parked several doors down at one of my favorite restaurants.
“Press conference,” I repeat, but it's not a question. Of course there's a press conference for tomorrow. Hell, I'm surprised it's not today. “Right. I'll give him a call back.” Because I can't hide from my parents forever, much as I'd like to. “I'm parking and coming in. One second.”
“Sure thing,” Kailey says as I end the call and pull Royal's damaged pickup up to the curb. My car's still being processed, but one of the detectives I spoke to at the station today said it should be ready for me to pick up this afternoon, tomorrow morning at the latest.
The police officers in the car watch me as I move up the walkway, but they don't bother getting out, tracking my movements to the front door.
“Little sister,” Kailey says as she opens it and pulls me into another bone crushing hug. She still looks as weepy and shell-shocked as she did last night, clinging to my arm like a koala bear. Neither she nor my mother have ever been any good at comforting people. “How are you doing?” she whispers as she sweeps a golden fall of blond hair over one shoulder, stepping aside for me to come in.
I can tell Dillon is here immediately because the place smells like cannabis incense and tea tree oil. The painting I moved to cover the hole in the wall is still there, but the rug's been moved. Clearly, somebody's gone at the carpet with a Rug Doctor or something.
“You cleaned up?” I ask as I point a finger at the blank space where a bloodstain used to be.
Kailey shrugs.
“Dillon did,” she tells me and then narrows her green eyes, pointing a nicely manicured nail in my direction. “Although you still have a lot of explaining to do. I never did get the whole story about that break-in thing. I didn't tell Mom or Dad or anybody else because I knew how they'd react, but I feel like there's something you're not telling me.”
“If I told you it related directly to what happened last night, would you leave me alone for now?”
Kailey's brows go up as I affect a tired, sullen expression. It's not too far of a stretch anyway. I am tired and stressed and ready for a nap, but I lay it on a little thick for my sister's benefit.
“For now …” she says, trailing off and then holding her arm up to indicate the stairs. My mind flashes with images of Royal and Dober dragging one of the unconscious men out the front door. Ugh. What a crazy last few weeks it's been. “Dillon, company! Are you dressed?”
I pause at the top of the steps and let my sister breeze past me. I am in no way interested in seeing her yoga instructor boyfriend's penis.
There's a really disturbing amount of giggling before she calls me into the room, and I find Dillon lying on the bed covered in a sea green sheet, his hairy bare chest showing as he grins at me.
“Hey Lyric,” he says as I smile tightly and open the door to my sister's bathroom. It's connected directly to a giant walk-in closet filled with designer dresses she's bummed off my dad and various boyfriends over the years. I think my father also grossly overpays her as his secretary. There's no way she could afford all of this stuff if he didn't.
“Where could you possibly be going that you'd need to borrow clothes?” Kailey asks, reaching her hands up and running them through my hair. I purse my lips and ignore her, sliding white wooden hangers across the metal pole as I search for something that I could call 'dignified sexy'. “You never did tell me why you decided to cut your hair.”
“Don't you have anything that consists of more than a half yard of fabric?” I ask as I grab a white dress and step back, holding it up against my gray skirt suit as I stare into the mirror. That's when it hits me. What am I really doing here? Looking for something to wear to a motorcycle club party? I can wear the riding clothes that Royal bought me, just like I did to the barbecue.
I stare at the white of the dress as I blink several times in shock, my green eyes huge in the pale face of my reflection. I feel okay, but I don't really look it. I look a little … wary and worn down, and I don't like that.
Or maybe I'm just surprised because I've realized what I'm really doing here.
I didn't come over to borrow a dress for the party; I came to borrow a dress for a wedding.
By the time Royal gets back to his house, I'm encased in a bubble bath in the guest bathroom, loving the hell out of his claw-foot tub and sipping a glass of wine.
After the conversation I had with my father on the phone after Kailey's place, I needed this.
“Pint-Size?” he asks as he raps his knuckles against the door and I open my eyes, shifting around in the bath and sloshing soapy water onto the floor. Don't judge—my Glock is within reaching distance, sitting on a decorative table next to the sea of candles I bought on my way home.
“One second,” I call, climbing out of the bath and trying to quietly unlock the door. I try to sneak back into the water before he realizes it's unlocked. No such luck. Royal bursts in behind me and wastes no time wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling my warm, wet body back against his.
“Bleeding hell, Pint-Size,” he gasps as he lifts one hand up to cup my breast, making me bite my lip as he kneads the sensitive flesh. “You do this on purpose?”
“I didn't even know if you were going to come home tonight,” I say as the wolves sit on a dog pillow in the corner, tails wagging, heads low as they wait for their master to acknowledge them. After the shoot-out at Sea Salt, I'd left them in the car. The police had animal control pick them up and they spent the night in the shelter; Royal picked them up right before I showed up at his place. Poor babies.
“Home,” he whispers against my ear and I shiver, closing my eyes briefly against the sensation of his body pressed up against mine. “Finally accepted it then?”
“I haven't accepted anything. I'm too tired to process it; at this point, I'm running on autopilot,” I admit as Royal releases me and I turn, watching as he reaches down and grabs his shirt, tearing it over his head as I take a few steps back until my thighs bump into the side of the tub. “I take it you're joining me?”
“Like I'd do anything else,” he snorts, heeling the door closed behind him and locking it. “I'm only here for a short while anyhow.” He grins, but the expression still doesn't reach the dark, warm depths of his eyes. “Might as well use my time wisely, don't you think?”
“I think sleep might be a slightly wiser decision,” I say as I climb back into the bubbles, but I can't deny that my voice sounds breathy and my heart is pounding away like a drum inside my chest. I snatch my wine glass and take a few healthy swallows as I watch Royal unbutton his jeans and push them down his muscular hips, flashing me a few carefully placed tattoos and the thick, proud length of his cock. “So I was thinking,” I start as I swirl my wine around and stare at the distorted reflection of his muscular body through the glass as he moves toward me, gloriously beautiful in the dim candlelight of the bathroom. “About what you said, about the courthouse …”
Royal pauses, his face shadowed by the flickering flames, but his crotch very close to eye level …
“What about it?” he asks as he swings a leg over the edge of the tub and slides in behind me, pulling me tight against his lap. There's hardly enough room in here for the two of us, our bodies sandwiched tightly together in the most intimate way possible. Makes it hard to remember what I was going to say.
“Were you serious?” I ask as he wraps h
is arms around me, warm water sloshing against my breasts as I lean back into his chest. I'm in a bathtub with a naked outlaw. Who ever would've guessed?
“Were you, love?”
I poke at a bubble with my finger, popping it—and trying really hard not to think about Royal's dick pressed into my back.
“Is this a club thing?” I ask and he snorts.
“Hell no.”
I turn to glance at him over my shoulder and our eyes meet, sending a little thrill through me. He looks dead serious right now, almost grave. But also gloriously sexy. Like, when is he not?
“Then what is it?”
Royal raises a thick, dark brow at me, his lips twisting to the side in a smirk.
“Love, Pint-Size. This is love, plain and simple. All there is to it.” He leans forward, sending water sloshing over the edges to the white tile floor. In the corner, the faint whimpering sound of the wolves echoes. “I almost lost you.” A pause and a deep breath. “Again. I'd have to be a daft fucking idiot not to grab hold of you while I've got the bloody chance.”
“I …” I have no idea what to say to that, especially with Royal looking at me the way he is, his dark eyes deep with a surprising level of tenderness. Good God. I turn away and lean back against his chest, closing my eyes against the flickering light of the candles. If I had to hazard a guess of what heaven might be like, I imagine it'd be something like this—minus all of the danger and the politics, of course.
My chest seizes with a sudden shock of indecision and worry and fear.
This sucks.
See, Royal and me—just Royal and me—without the club or the city or my family, we're perfect together. His looks, his personality, the depth of his loyalty and commitment, are exactly what I've always imagined finding in a partner.
Fate really is wicked cruel, isn't she?
Why pair me up with the perfect guy, only to show me how he's also the worst possible match for me? I shouldn't have to choose between love and a career; this is bullshit. As a man and a woman, we have chemistry. As friends, we have banter. Even dealing with all of this crap has been somewhat of a blessing, because I can see the way we work together under stress, under pressure. At some level, marriage functions as a business relationship, and I can already tell we'd make excellent business partners.
“Should I be relieved or worried that you're too deep in thought to notice my todger pressed into your back?”
“Your … todger?” I laugh and squirt white wine out of my nose. Oh, that's attractive, Lyric. Nice one. “I can take the meaning from context, but wow. That's … awfully British of you. And for the record, I noticed.”
“Oh?” he asks, putting his chin on the top of my head and lifting both hands up to cover my breasts. I moan and end up sloshing some more wine into the tub. “Well then, whatever's on your mind, it must be pretty bleeding important then?”
“I …” I reach my right hand up and curl my fingers through Royal's, pressing his hand into my breast and closing my eyes against the electric sensation of his skin against mine. No matter how many times we touch, it never seems to go away. “Why tomorrow?” I ask, because I can't quite figure out the sudden rush.
Royal's body stiffens behind me and his grip gets tighter, almost to the point of discomfort.
“Because, Pint-Size, sometimes … tomorrow is all we've got.”
Royal doesn't stay the night with me, crawling out of bed a few hours later as I lie there and listen to the clink of his belt buckle as he gets dressed. When he's finished, he pauses at my side, and kneels down to press a kiss to my forehead.
“Good night, my love,” he says and then he's gone, the sound of male voices drifting in to me from the living room as he stations one of his guys on the couch and takes off with the roaring growl of a motorcycle.
As soon as the sound of his engine fades away, I climb out of bed and dig Kailey's white dress out from underneath it, sitting on the wood floor with the dogs gazing over the edge of the mattress at me.
My fingers rub the lace gently before I lift it to my face and inhale. The stupid thing still has the tags on it from when my mother bought it for Kailey. My sister was dating this big shot investment banker at the time and mom was thrilled beyond thrilled. I guess she thought if she blew a few thousand on a pretty dress, Kailey would cave and elope with the guy. When they finally broke up, Kailey told everyone that the man had dumped her. In reality, he'd bought her a pair of tickets to Paris and asked her to marry him over Christmas weekend.
But … as little credit as I give Kailey, she has some integrity. She didn't love the guy; she loves dopey Dillon the Yoga Instructor.
I sigh and press the dress against my face as I close my eyes and wonder how the hell I'm even considering doing this. Marry Royal? Tomorrow? After all of my doubts and fears—well-founded doubts and fears, I might add—how can I be sitting here doing this?
Maybe it's because last night is playing on repeat in my mind. Maybe because I can still see those bodies littering the floor. Can still smell the blood and feel the rain on my skin. And I can still see Mia's face staring back at me through the sleet.
I killed her.
Something shifts inside of me and I take a big breath. I'm not going to sit here and fool myself into thinking there was any other way out of that mess, and I'm definitely not going to sit here and think I made any mistakes. When it comes to my life and the lives of people I care about, I'll do anything.
“You could move to any large city, to Washington, and get hired in an instant. You could do much bigger things.”
Agent Shelley is right. At any time in the last several years, I could've picked up and left. I kept telling myself that working for my father was the best way forward, but … in my heart, I knew that wasn't true. Interning somewhere else, in a bigger city, with a more important politician, that would've been key.
And yet … I came back here.
Why? I have no idea.
I think … until I figure out the answer to that question, I can't marry Royal.
My mind drifts to that grave look on his face when he talked about hitting the cartel with everything the Wolves have.
Tuesday.
There's a chance that Royal might not come back from Tuesday. If he didn't, how would I feel about that?
“I think I'd lose my heart and soul right along with him,” I tell the wolves as I look up into their brown eyes, so much like Royal's that my heartbeat stutters a little and I have to close my eyes. “Fuck.” Cursing makes me feel better, so I say it again. “Fuck.”
Tuesday. That gives me a whole week to figure this … situation out. If I've been waiting years, sitting and rotting as my father's intern, then clearly more time isn't going to help me figure out what I really want. So how's this? How's a deadline?
By Monday, I'll decide if I'm going to marry or Royal or not. If yes, we'll go to the courthouse and I'll say goodbye to him on Tuesday as wife. If not … then maybe it's time for me to leave Trinidad for good, not because I don't love Royal but because I have to put myself first. I'm more than just the mayor's daughter, than Sully's little sister, than an outlaw's fiancée; I don't want to just define myself by the men in life.
So, whether it means choosing Royal or choosing the career I thought I've always wanted, I'm going to do it for me and nobody else.
I get up early the next morning to a voice mail from the sheriff's department that I can come and pick up my car. I call a cab, my bodyguards trailing me all the way as I stop by the impound and find my poor sedan with bullet holes in the sides and a broken taillight. Great.
Just because I'm so desperate not to go into the office, I take it to the Wolves' auto body shop for an estimate, schedule a date a few weeks later for the repairs and then ask around for Royal. Apparently he's out, so I cut my losses—slightly relieved that I don't have to discuss the courthouse thing just yet—then head to the florist for some more flowers.
Because I'm such an early bird, I have a few hours to
kill before the press conference, heading back to the hospital to visit the girls.
But first … I pay another visit to Agent Shelley.
“Lyric,” she says as I step into the room with a vibrant spray of pink lilies and baby's breath, setting the vase on the still empty side table. The woman's dark eyes track my movements and her mouth hovers somewhere in the vicinity of a smile, but she doesn't give anything away. Not a damn thing. “You're back.”
“Well, I noticed that your room was looking a little bare,” I say as I unhook my purse from my shoulder and set it on the single chair in the room, crossing my arms over my chest as I look down at her perfectly made up face. “When do you get out of here?”
“Tomorrow, actually. The higher-ups want to send me back to Virginia, but I just can't imagine letting this case go, not after all the work I've put in.”
“How's Agent Garza?” I ask and her smile gets a little more wry.
“He's hurting, but he'll survive.” Heather levels that powerful gaze on my face, reading into every twitch of muscle, every involuntarily movement of my lips or my brows. “What can I help you with this afternoon, Lyric?” she asks, remembering to call me by my first name like I asked.
“There was a segment on the news this morning about the Villarreal Cartel, how dissension within the group is what started the Saldaña Cartel. Apparently, the leader of the Saldañas was beheaded a few days ago on camera.”
“That's true,” Agent Shelley says, her even voice giving absolutely nothing away as she watches me. “Like I said, the violence seems to be escalating. The leader's son—a man named Miguel Saldaña—is in charge now. He's hotheaded, not particularly well-liked, which could be a good or a bad thing. These situations seem to go one of two ways: either his ascension will cause enough tension in the group to break it up, or we'll end up with a real problem on our hands when he tries to prove himself.” Heather laughs, but there's nothing pleasant in the sound. “And believe me, when a man as violent and dangerous as that tries to prove himself, it always leads to more violence.”