Alpha Knight (Wolf Ridge High 2)

My what? I don’t ask, though. I know what he means. My wound. My pain. The thing I don’t want people to see.

I can’t tell him about the mafia, but I can tell him what any asshole who googles me could find out.

“My dad went to jail for embezzlement. That’s why I moved here.”

Bo leans up on his forearm, his brows drawn together as he studies my face. He brushes a few strands of hair out of my eyes. “Yeah?”

I nod. “We were wealthy. Lived in the best neighborhood. I drove my dad’s old Beamer to school. And then wham-o. One day the Feds showed up and raided the house. They arrested my dad and took all but my personal possessions. And I lost everything. He committed suicide in jail six weeks ago.”

That’s the part I haven’t dealt with. Not at all. Not my guilt over not speaking to him after he went to prison. Over not opening the letters he sent before he died. The ones that might have held the information the don is trying to squeeze out of me.

“Fuck, Sloane. That’s rough.” Bo traces his index finger lightly over my skin, starting at my collarbone and traveling down between my breasts, then around to circling one nipple. “Your mom?”

“Died in childbirth. Me and my dad weren’t tight. He was pretty formal and distant, and I think he resented me for my mom’s death. But he was what I knew.”

“Is your aunt his sister?”

“No, my mom’s. So I barely knew her. She’s great, though. I should be more grateful to her for taking me in. I just hate—” my voice breaks, and I stop speaking. This is too much.

Bo touches my chin to turn my face back. “Hate what?”

Tears fill my eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. Tell me.”

“I’m just tiptoeing around, afraid any day I’ll get kicked out and lose it all again. I mean, what happens when I graduate? There’s no money for college. I might get a little scholarship money, but not enough. I don’t even know what I’ll do.” And that’s if I even live past next month with the mafia situation.

His fingers splay over my belly. “That’s why you’re stealing cars? For college?”

I blow out a puff of breath. “No.”

My answer came too quickly. I should’ve just let him believe it. It’s not a bad story.

“Then why?”

“Enough questions.” I try to roll away, but he catches me around the waist and tugs me back.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” I’m surprised at his agreement.

“Yeah, I’ll back off.” He settles on his back with his hands behind his head. I reach over and turn off the lamp.

I want to stay turned away from him, but it feels wrong, so I roll over to face him.

“You still going to do the job tomorrow?”

My stomach squeezes. I have to. The don will be back soon, and I’ve nothing on his bars of gold and painting. So I’d damn well better have something to give him. To buy my own freedom. “Yeah.”

His breath comes out, like he’s disappointed. “I don’t want to help you,” he says into the darkness.

His words hit my solar plexus like a blow. There’s resentment in them, and yet I understand the subtext. He doesn’t want to, but he does.

“You’re not going to help me,” I say firmly. “Winslow made me swear not to make you a part of it.”

“Then how are you going to sell it?”

“I have a plan.” The defensive note to my voice probably clues him into the holes in my plan, but I don’t care. I’m not going to ask him to get involved. Although a quick paint job might give the heist a fighting chance of success. No—I’m keeping him out of it.

“You have a plan.” His voice drips with disbelief.

“Bo? If you’re staying tonight, you’re not going to be a dick.”

In the darkness, I think I see the corners of his lips kick up. He rolls to bury his face in my neck. “Look at you, laying down the law,” he rumbles in my ear. He bites my neck, then kisses it. “Just because I let you ride on top doesn’t mean you’re calling the shots.”

“Tonight I am.”

I don’t know why I think I can. His threat from last night to turn me into the cops still stands, but we both know he won’t. Just like I wouldn’t alert my aunt to his presence. He’s going to let me call the shots simply because I’m calling them. Because despite his dickishness, he does respect me.

And maybe because I let him punch my V-card tonight, but I don’t want to hang it on that, it’s too narrow and cliche.

But yes, because we’ve been intimate—that’s why. Some of our barriers have come down, and there’s a new relationship growing underneath. Friendship, even. And friends respect each other’s boundaries.