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King turns to meet her gaze, his eyes dark. “The kind that could get you killed. Pack your shit because you’re coming with us until this is over.”
Eloise crosses her arms. “Over my dead body. I’m not going anywhere near your club.”
“Yeah, you are,” I say.
Maddox stares at me. “Where are you taking us?”
“To the clubhouse. You’ll be safe there,” I say.
“How do we know you’re not making this shit up?” Eloise says. “Your club doesn’t have a good track record of caring about anyone other than its members. Why the fuck would you care about us?”
King’s wild energy fills the room as he closes the distance between them. “You don’t know the first fucking thing about our club. If you did, you’d know we go out of our way to keep people we care about safe. And while I don’t really give a fuck about you, I give a fuck about a boy who was stolen from my clubhouse and robbed of the chance to know his family. So you will fucking pack your bag and do what the fuck we tell you to do, because if you don’t, I’ll carry you fucking kicking and screaming out of here.”
She blanches and suddenly has no more words for us.
“I’m going,” Maddox says before leaving us to go into what I’m guessing is his bedroom.
Eloise’s gaze snaps to Maddox’s room. “No, we’re not, Maddox. Get your ass back out here.” I don’t like the nastiness in her tone. No child deserves to be spoken to that way.
When Maddox doesn’t respond to her, she moves in the direction of his room.
I reach out and grab her arm to stop her. “Go pack your bag. You’ve got five minutes.”
She glares at me for a good minute before finally realising there’s no way this isn’t happening. “Fuck you,” she snaps and stalks into another of the rooms off the hall.
King comes to me. “This woman is gonna give us nothing but fucking headaches.”
I nod, knowing he’s right. The alternative, though, is one I won’t consider. King’s right: I give a fuck about a boy who grew up knowing only lies. Maddox deserves our care and our help. This is the fucking least we can do for him.
Eloise drags her packing time out until King loses his shit and forces her to finish packing and get out to the van. The four of us make the drive back to the clubhouse listening to her grumble about being made to do something she doesn’t want to do. That is until King turns around and barks, “Shut the fuck up and pull your fucking head in. If you don’t, I’ll take you back home myself and leave you for the wolves.”
She clearly believes him and does as he says. Thank fuck, because the headache I felt forming earlier has taken hold after listening to her shit.
Once we arrive at the clubhouse, I show Eloise and Maddox to the room I had Thorn set up for them, and lay down the rules for staying here. Eloise doesn’t appear to take much of it in, but Maddox listens intently. I can’t get a read on this kid. He was mouthy as fuck the first time we met. This time, not at all.
When I finish speaking, Eloise says, “How fucking long do you intend for us to stay in this shithole?”
I work my jaw. “As fucking long as it takes.” I jab my finger at her. “And if you give my men hell, I’ll give you hell.”
With that, I stalk out of the room and down the hall to my office. I still need to talk to King about the shipment from Torres, and handle some other things that came through on text while I was at Eloise’s. It doesn’t look like I’ll be going home to Birdie any time soon.
31
Birdie
* * *
“She said yes!” I grab my bag out of the car and head into the clubhouse as I share the good news about the Instagram influencer with Cleo.
“Oh my God, that’s fantastic news!”
This influencer has a massive following. Every share she does for our business will give us the kind of exposure we’ve never known.
“I’m putting together a marketing plan with her, so email me anything you want us for sure to cover. She’s going to do her first post featuring us next week.”
“You sound a million times better than you did two days ago. Have you and Winter talked?”
Cleo and I haven’t had a chance to catch up since she helped me see I need to face my marriage problems. “Not really, but I did go to see him at the clubhouse like we talked about. It was good, and we made plans for a dinner date. Stuff came up, though, and he had to cancel. But I feel good about things. I’m at the clubhouse now, dropping in again. Maybe we’ll get our dinner date tonight.”
