“I get that you mean well…and I miss you, Sander,” I promised. “Something changes, you know where I am. But I will not associate with a man who’s actively against The Fallen.”
“Glad you got that,” he said over the increased roar of motorbike engines pulling out in front of the store, parking illegally in their haste to get to me and make sure everything was okay.
“Sorry you don’t,” I said softly as I turned my back on him and ran out the store toward King who was running toward me, face creased with worry and anger, arms open for me to jump into without hesitation when I started for him.
When I thought to look around for Lysander again after kissing King and explaining what had happened to Zeus, Nova, and Bat, he was gone.
“I’m going to fuckin’ kill them,” King growled as he stalked around the bookstore to survey the damage. “God-fuckin’-dammit, but they’re gettin’ ballsy. This shit needs to end, and it needs to end fuckin’ now.”
Zeus cursed under his breath. “Babies comin’, cops diggin’, ’serkers circlin’… fuck me, but can’t we have a goddamn minute’a peace for once in our lives?”
“Not the life you chose,” I said softly as he righted a heavy display case like it weighed nothing. “Not the life we chose,” I corrected.
“Nah, but still, got a hot as fuck woman at home and babies to prepare for. Rather be there than here cleanin’ up the pigs’ mess.”
“Rather be takin’ ya for dinner at Donavon’s like we planned. Now I gotta find a way to send those fuckers a message not to fuck with my woman,” King grumbled, stalkin’ to me with a look in his eye that I recognized from the nights he came home from riding or fighting, when that pale blue went near white with banked savagery he could only expend between my legs.
“The boys like to go to The Lotus,” Nova said, referring to the strip club The Fallen had purchased a few years ago, around the time Zeus and Lou found each other again. “Think we can sort somethin’ out.”
It was hours later, after King returned home from “deliverin’ a message” to Ormand and Peters that left his knuckles bruised and split over the bone, after he’d taken out his lingering savagery on my body in ways I couldn’t innumerate or speak about without blushing, my pussy sore, ass pleasantly aching, his body crushed onto mine like a paperweight to hold me in place so he could love me even while he slept.
But I couldn’t sleep.
There was something tangling in my gut, twisting and mangled that set my belly to aching, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.
Only that the situation with Harleigh Rose was distressing me. She had been my friend and family for almost half a decade, and now, when I wanted to share the news that I would finally be her sister-in-law, but she was absent, so removed from our lives it was almost as if she didn’t exist anymore.
I strained to reach my phone on the bedside table from under King’s warm weight and used my finger to pull it closer so I could pull up my text messages.
Cressida: Okay, remind me why I love tequila again? I went out with the brothers to celebrate Bat’s birthday, and now it’s the morning after, and I couldn’t tell you anything that happened. We missed you by the way.
Cressida: H.R. honey, please call me back or even text. I have something exciting to tell you, and I don’t want to do it over the phone. Can I come visit?
Cressida: It’s the opening of Paradise Found today, and I wish you were here. I know you’ve got a lot to deal with, so don’t worry…just thinking of you, wishing I had your sass and spirit to light up my day and erase my nerves. Hope you’re doing well, my love.
Cressida: I love you.
Cressida: Still love you. Here if you need me for anything, even if you don’t want me to tell King about it. I have you, girl, if you’ll let me.
Each message was sent days apart without a response. I couldn’t even tell if she’d read them, which was somehow worse because I wanted her to at least know how much she was on my mind.
Then as if I’d conjured the devil himself by saying his name, a text appeared from an unknown number and I knew, even before I opened it, who it would be.
Harleigh Rose: Cress, I need you to come and do it fast. 4195 Spruce Road in Vancouver. Come alone. I need to explain things to you. I’m worried something might happen to me or Lionel Danner.
My heart lurched into a sprint, trying to hurdle over my ribs and out my chest.
“King,” I said, pushing back the soft tangle of his hair and shaking his shoulder. “Get up, get up now.”