Hunt agreed with a nod. “Everyone’s at Archer and Elise’s waiting for the news. We need to look into your brother more, but good news is good news. Up for a visit after your walk?”
Lottie nibbled her lip and paused. A hesitation that Hunt fully understood. Lottie was no longer a Phoenix member. She had lied to all of these people.
“They’re all going to forgive you, Lottie,” he said, gently, stroking her cheek. “They’re your friends. They only need to understand.”
“Okay,” she finally relented. “Let’s get the walk done, and then we’ll go.”
Overwrought with concern over herverydangerous brother, he placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her down the street toward the subway back to SoHo. Hunt kept his focus on the cars on the road, on the pedestrians, on anyone who might follow them, for the entire way back to her neighborhood, then again on the hour-and-a-half-long walk as she took her afternoon group of dogs out.
He didn’t relax fully until they arrived at Archer and Elise’s. Only then did the tension fade from his shoulders when he heard Zoey say from the kitchen, “You’re Lottie. You’ve always been Lottie. That’s all that matters to me.”
“Really?” Lottie replied.
Elise said, “I totally agree. You ran away from some very bad people. I don’t hold that against you. Besides, I imagine trusting people is hard for you, so it would be difficult to open up. You did what you had to do to survive.”
A long pause. Then Lottie’s voice shook with obvious tears. “You don’t hate me?”
“How could we hate you?” Zoey said. “You welcomed us into Phoenix with open arms and made us comfortable. I, for one, will love you for that forever.”
“Me too,” Elise said. “Nothing has changed. You will never be anyone other than Lottie to me.”
The silence that followed, then turned into soft laughter, told Hunt they had embraced and had given Lottie forgiveness. Only then did the remaining tension fade from his shoulders.
Seated on a patio chair, Hunt watched Lottie pour something into a bowl, laughing at whatever Elise and Zoey were talking about through the window. Even from where he sat, he could see the beginnings of a bruise, her skin red where her brother had gripped her arm.
“You look miserable,” Rhys said.
Hunt took a long sip of his whiskey, meeting Rhys’s gray eyes. Owner of Phoenix, Rhys had money. Though Rhys never was flashy about his wealth, he had an air about him, the prestige that came from old money. “I feel miserable,” Hunt replied.
Rhys’s gaze fell to his wife, Zoey, whose strawberry-blonde hair was pulled up, and her hazel eyes were as sunny as ever, before he focused on Lottie through the window. “Archer told me that you and Lottie are together now.”
Hunt agreed with a nod, the ice clinking in his glass as he circled his wrist with his other hand. “Things with Lottie and I are not the problem.”
Rhys's hand carved through his jet-black hair. “Then what is the problem?”
“Her fucking brothers,” he explained. “They’re trouble. Not anyone I want Lottie near. Fuck, not anyone we want close to any of us.”
Sitting next to Rhys, Archer asked, “How dangerous are we talking here?”
“Doesn’t get more dangerous than the older brother, Leo,” Hunt said through gritted teeth. He sank back against his chair, crossed an ankle over his knee. Sipping his whiskey, he couldn’t tear his eyes off Lottie. The yearning to protect had been ingrained into him, but this felt different. This felt personal.
He blinked away when she vanished from the window. To his friends, he said, “She’s brave as shit, I’ll tell you that. The fact that she grew up with these people and had the balls to steal that money to get out of that life”—he slowly shook his head in awe of her—“that she had the strength to do that amazes me.”
Rhys cocked his head. “It was that bad?”
“Yeah, it’s that bad,” Hunt confirmed. “She deserves to tell her own story, but it doesn’t get much worse.”
Archer finished his sip of his whiskey and put it down on the table next to him. “I suppose I can understand why she’d keep her past a secret.”
Rhys laughed quietly, dropping an arm over the back of his chair. “Stop letting it ruffle your feathers that she got past your vetting. We’ve got a better system in place now. Lottie joined the club a long time ago.”
Hunt watched his good friend closely but swore he was reading Rhys right. “You’re not pissed at her?”
“No, I’m not.” Rhys’s gaze fell onto Zoey again as she passed by the open window, the women’s laughter flowing out. “Lottie’s a good woman. I realize things are not always black and white. We need to talk, but we’ll get through this.”
Hunt smiled his relief. “I’m glad you see it that way.” The thought of returning to Phoenix without Lottie sickened him. He wouldn’t have gone back without her, and Phoenix was as much in his blood as it was in Lottie’s. To Archer, he asked, “What about you?”
“I don’t like being lied to,” Archer said firmly. His nostrils flared once before he sighed dejectedly. “But, in this case, Rhys is right: Lottie is a friend. And from what you say, there’s a good reason she wouldn’t want people to know the truth. I’ll hear her out.”
