“Talia got hooked when she was in high school,” Tayline said with a wince. “Warren got a lot of the kids to deal or buy through him. Cress told me she’s one of the ones on that list King found at Javier’s apartment.”
“What list?” Lion demanded. “Dammit, Z, I thought you were keepin’ me in the loop on this one?”
Zeus glowered at him. “You’re datin’ my girl doesn’t mean I gotta answer to you or your rules’a righteousness. I do what’s best for the club. End’a story.”
Lion bared his teeth at the Prez. “I do what’s best for this family, ’cause whether you like it or not, I’m part of it now. You don’t trust me to do right by the Garros, that’s your lack of intelligence, not mine.”
Zeus slanted him a sidelong glance as Loulou giggled at the taunt.
“He’s got you there, Z,” she teased.
“Talia, Honey, and Lila were on the list,” Tay offered.
Not so fuckin’ helpfully.
I braced as the other women, Loulou and Harleigh Rose, shot open mouth looks of horror at Lila.
My Flower Child?
She tipped her chin into the air and stared them down.
“Why the fuck’re you on a list by that monster?” Harleigh Rose demanded.
“Lila,” Lou breathed, her huge blue eyes unblinking. “What did you do?”
“Nothing you wouldn’t do,” Li assured her with an innocent smile. “Promise.”
“Fuck that,” H.R. shouted, leanin’ forward in the couch to point at her friend. “You’re my best goddamn girl, what the hell are you up to that I don’t know about?”
“She’s workin’ for Irina Ventura,” Zeus admitted, the words expelled like air from bellows.
As if it was a fuckin’ relief and an agony to reveal the truth.
“What the fuck!?” Loulou and Harleigh Rose exclaimed simultaneously.
Lou sprang out of her seat and slinked toward her much larger husband, her pretty face a mask of outrage. “You thought it was a good idea to send one of our babes into that place?” she spat. “And you didn’t even tell me.” When Z opened his mouth, she rocked up to her toes to press a hand over it and said, “And don’t try to tell me it’s club business when Lila isn’t even a part of the club.”
“King was gone, I was still inside,” he admitted gruffly when Lou pulled her hand away. “Wasn’t the best decision.”
“Okay, fuck this,” Lila snapped, standin’ up to address the room. “I may not be anyone’s Old Lady or blood relative, but I am a member of this family because you made me one. I’ve been with you through the last few years of chaos, and if you think I don’t have a right to help when my family’s in trouble, it’s you all who are fucked in the head.”
She sucked in a deep breath, her little chest heavin’. “And just so you know, I did have a plan, and it’s finally starting to work. Because of little ol’ me, property of no one, we know how Irina’s selling her girls. So you got a problem with what I’m doing, you lay it at my feet. Not Z’s and not Nova’s. I am responsible for my own actions. Me.”
There was a clotted silence as everyone stared at Lila in the aftermath of her uncharacteristic tirade.
Finally, a slow clap erupted from the corner.
“Atta girl,” Cy said as he beat his meaty hands together. “Fuck yeah.”
I knew Lila would’ve blushed if she could, her cheeks swellin’ with an embarrassed smile she tried to bite off. She turned to me, eyes big, as if askin’ me why she’d had a moment of drama.
I winked at her, ’cause damn, seein’ her passion for the people I loved, the people I’d always wanted her to have, too, was a thing of serious beauty.
“Come here,” I said quiet, just for her.
’Cause in that moment, I didn’t fuckin’ care about the looks or the words of censure Lou or H.R. might fire at me. I just wanted to comfort my Li girl.
She smiled then, small and genuine, then sat down beside me again, this time so close, I had to raise my arm to let her settle underneath.
Fuck, but she felt good there. She always had.
“Li, it isn’t about you not being family or something stupid like that,” Harleigh Rose argued, but her spirit wasn’t in it. Instead, she looked worried and vulnerable with it. Lion reached out to rub at her back as she tried to find the words. “It’s just, we’ve lost a lot of loved ones lately, and we wouldn’t survive losing you too.”
“I get that,” Lila agreed, shooting a reassuring look at her best friend. “But sometimes you have to do dangerous things because they’re the right things. I think you know a little bit about that, babe.”
H.R. sighed gustily and slumped back against Lion, who chuckled and kissed her hair. “Yeah, yeah, pot meet kettle, both of us are black.”