Page 33 of Heist in Paradise

Ryle grinned impishly. “What’s happening in here?”

“Nothing,” I said too quickly. Typically, Madoc stayed silent.

“Riiiiiight,” Ryle drawled, wriggling his eyebrows. “Then why do I have total FOMO right now?” He looked meaningfully at Madoc, who returned his gaze blankly.

Clearly used to Madoc’s brand of apathy, Ryle turned his attention back to me. “Cool, well, I’m just going to ignore the weird as fuck tension in here and tell you that Zola found something.”

I straightened. “What did she find?”

“You have to come downstairs.”

That made me tense. Downstairs meant seeing Jax, and I wasn’t ready to confront him yet. Not with my chest so tight and my legs so wobbly and my nipples so achingly hard that they were at risk of chafing.

For the first time in a long time, I missed Heath. For no other reason than that he made me feel safe, normal, and in control. Not enough to ever go back to him—I didn’t hate myself that much—but at least I could count on myself not to act so stupidly helpless.

Movement in my periphery made me snap into hyperawareness, but it was just Madoc heading to the door. He left without so much as a backward glance.

Dick.

Left alone with Ryle, I felt awkward again and smoothed down my ponytail (Jax had utterly destroyed it). He watched me unabashedly, head cocked like a puppy.

“Can’t you just tell me what she found?” I whined a little.

“You avoiding Jax?”

A bit helpless, I nodded.

Ryle nodded like he understood perfectly. “Yeah, he’s a super intense guy. Not as bad as Madoc, though, so good luck with that.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

Ryle nodded again and kept nodding. He was practically vibrating with energy. “Don’t worry about Jax. He can be a giant asshole sometimes, but he’s got a squishy center underneath all that angry muscle. You just have to be patient with him.”

“I want nothing to do with him.”

His head kept bobbing. “Smart.”

I watched him curiously, and when he started shifting from foot to foot, I couldn’t help myself. “Are you…okay?”

He groaned. “The boat made me sick, and I threw up all my Adderall, so I’m a bit twitchy. Sorry.” He forced himself to stop moving, but then his foot began tapping. “It’s worse if I try to control it. You must think we’re all completely unhinged.”

“Not all of you,” I murmured unconvincingly.

He snorted. “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t be wrong, I guess. We’ve done some shit.”

“Even you?”

“Oh, I’m the worst.”

Having spent an unwilling amount of time with both Jax and Madoc, I found that hard to believe.

Reading my doubt, Ryle sucked on his teeth and exhaled like a confession. “I killed my parents.”

I froze.

Ryle stared hard at the ground between us. “Didn’t mean to just blurt it out like that, but yeah. I hit my dad with a brick when I was ten. Just popped him right when he was asleep in his favorite chair. Luckily, he was blackout drunk, so it was easy to pretend he tumbled out and brained himself on the TV unit.”

Easy?