“I have my reasons.” Reasons he was not about to share with his brother. Or anyone else.
“Do those reasons have anything to do with why you are sneaking around with Reaper?”
“Christ. I’m not sneaking around with Reaper.” What the bloody hell was this? An interrogation?
Knight simply raised a brow.
Ah, hell. So it was. “It’s a personal matter. Nothing to get your laces in a twist.”
Knight’s lip pulled up in a sneer. “What’s the personal matter?”
Drake narrowed his gaze, stepping away from the bars to cross his arms. “Since when are you curious about other people’s business?”
“Since that man has returned.”
Ah. “Our uncle.”
“He is no uncle of ours.”
Right. “The snake, then. My matter has nothing to do with him. You’ll just have to trust me on that.”
Knight merely stared, then turned around and walked out.
“Knight!” Drake roared, leaping forward to grip the bars again.
His brother glanced back at him—a single heartbeat of consideration.
“Do not,” Drake growled, “leave me here. Let me out. Right now.”
Knight made an agreeable humming sound. “You’re right, I can’t leave you here.” Before Drake could feel relief, the arse added, “I’ll send one of the others to fetch you.”
His temper exploded. “Why the hell would you do that? Is this you taking revenge for your precious boots last month? I bloody replaced them.”
“Revenge is for the petty man.”
Drake nearly choked on blood. “You best remember I’m a damn petty man then.”
His brother gave him a lazy little salute. “I know.”
“Damn crazy behemoth,” he called after the man abandoned him, dragging his hands through his hair and letting out a strangled curse. He kicked the bars and jerked back with disgust. When he got out of here... He’d vent his pettiness, because he possessed a sliver, on his brother’s stew.
And Violet Sharpe?
Christ.
He didn’t know whether to throttle her or kiss her into a fluster as punishment. Neither would do him any good. And yet he wasn’t in a particularly accommodating mood.
She would pay for what she’d done today.
He simply needed to decide how.
Chapter Six
Violet brushed herfingertips over the purple flowers of her potted heather, still jeweled with last night’s rain in the enclosed courtyard. This spot was the reason she’d wanted this corner shop. However, back then, she hadn’t known who her landlords were, something she’d only discovered after the fact.
And because of a certain landlord, she had hardly slept a wink last night.
Every time she closed her eyes she saw the same scene: Drake Fury, enormous and infuriated, gripping the iron bars of his own cell while she tossed the key and walked out. It must be her most daring and delightful memory to date. But blazes, daringness aside, what kind of madness had seized her? First going with him at all, though she didn’t have much of a choice in that, and then locking him in, which she most decidedly had a choice in.
