Page 67 of Devil in Her Details

Lilly shifted beside him. “Is this because of who I am?”

“Yes,” Drake didn’t hesitate to say. “We have our own troubles. We can’t have the daughter of a duke mixed in with all of it.”

“I see,” she murmured, and Dagger caught a note of hurt in her voice.

His face frosted over. Why did everyone who came to call today want to take Lilly away from him? Or him away from her. He didn’t bloody like this one bit. The hypocrisy grated on every nerve in his body. All he wanted to do was protect her. Was that such a damn sin? “You both married the daughters of earls, yet you want to stick your faces in my damn business?”

Lilly sat upright at that, and her intrigue practically wrapped around him, so palpable was her curiosity.

Drake scowled. “Our wives left that life behind and wanted no part of it anymore. They have little to no foothold there. The last time a duke entered Fury’s, we were forced to take a child for leverage, a child who became that duke’s brother-in-law and is also the heir to a dukedom. Or have you forgotten?”

“I think I’m beginning to understand,” Lilly said dryly. “Nothing ever good comes from dukes.”

“Our father was a duke, petit chaton. A really bad one.”

“So you’re all . . .”

“Bastard sons,” Dagger said bluntly. “Disregarded by the man who sired us and collected by each other to survive.”

“Exactly,” Maxen said. “Come home.”

“No.”

“You’re angry at me,” Saint spoke up in a deep, rough voice. “Stop taking it out on them.”

Dagger refused to look at him, standing his ground. “I’m not taking anything out on anyone. You made your position very clear. I’ve made mine clear as well.”

Maxen’s face darkened. “What exactly is the situation here?”

Dagger scoffed. “Finally decided to ask. Didn’t Reaper tell you?”

“Dagger,” Drake warned.

Maxen glared at the turtle. “What should you have told me?”

Reaper sipped his brandy, averting his gaze and muttering into his glass. “What should I have told you? You told me not to bother you with this.”

Maxen cursed, dark face turning thunderous. “The bloody this you’re talking about is very different from the this you first brought to me.”

“It’s still the same, frère.”

“I have a suitor gone awry,” Lilly spoke up. “Your brother is helping me deal with him.”

“And you still say it’s the same,” Maxen directed at Reaper.

“Enough,” Dagger said. “What’s the mission here? You want to haul me home? I’ve been away one night. Who here hasn’t? The fact that you’re raking me over the coals is exactly my damn issue with you.”

No one said anything.

Dagger gritted his teeth, annoyed. “I gave my word to Lilly that I would help her. I’m not breaking my damn word.” If his brothers decided to band together and drag him off, he wouldn’t be able to stop them. It was highly unlikely to come to that, but he still warned, “If you force me to, I will leave for bloody good.”

A pin could have dropped and made a racket in the silence that followed.

Lilly cleared her throat and attempted to lighten the mood. “Why don’t we all take a moment to collect ourselves?”

“Agreed,” Dagger said. “You should all leave.”

“We’re not leaving,” Maxen growled. “Not without you.”