Page 57 of Grim’s Angel

“McKenna is the first woman I wanted beside me after morning came. The first I wanted in my home, my bed, and my future. You put your money beneath our first step. Now I have to wonder if every step after it was ours.”

“John, I am sorry.”

“My name is Grim. You lost the right to the other one long before we lowered my mother into the ground.”

Silence follows.

Torch breaks it. “Ghost sent coordinates. He may have found Rivers.”

Duty gives me somewhere to put the violence.

“Striker, put St. Valecourt in a guest room under guard. Torch, assemble the search teams. Hound, verify the location.”

My brothers move immediately.

McKenna steps into my path. “And me?”

The answer claws through me.

At my side. In my cabin. Under me. Wrapped around me. Mine in every way she chooses to give herself.

“You stay inside the gates until Rivers is handled.”

“That’s an order?”

“Yes.”

“And after?”

“I step back.”

Her eyes harden. “What if I choose you?”

“Choose me when the contract is dead, Rivers is handled, and every gate stands open.”

“And if I still do?”

I hold her gaze and give her the only truth I trust.

“Then I spend the rest of my life making damn sure you never regret it.”

I walk out before she can give me an answer I am too weak to refuse.

Every brutal instinct in me demands that I turn back, haul her against my chest, and make it clear she belongs at my side. That is the St. Valecourt way. Decide. Purchase. Possess.

I am Grim.

I want her choice clean.

When Rivers is gone and every gate stands open, if my Angel still walks toward me, I will put my cut on her shoulders, my ring on her hand, and spend the rest of my life proving she chose right.

God help anyone who tries to stand between us.

Chapter 10

McKenna

Four hours have passed since Grim left the clubhouse.