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Heidi turns away from one of the ovens and waves. “Hey!”
“Grab whatever you want and relax,” Trinity says, gesturing to a long kitchen table. The window above it seems to look out on the front parking area, giving me a view of the garage. Lilly’s at the table, so I take a chair next to her.
“Morning.” She yawns.
Trinity sets a mug of hot water and a handful of random tea packets in front of me, then sits at the other end of the table.
“Am I wrong, or is this earlier than usual?” Lilly says to Trinity.
“Definitely earlier,” Shelby says, dragging a chair in between Lilly and me.
Trinity shrugs and sips her coffee.
“I just hope they’re not riding out after church,” Heidi says, dropping into the chair next to me. “Swan and I baked like a billion muffins.”
“A billion and one!” a tall, lithe woman shouts from the other side of the kitchen.
“Is that possible?” I ask. I rode here with Dex. Now I’m anxious about being stranded here all day long. “They just take off?”
“Sometimes,” Lilly says.
“Dex said they had, like, emergency church or something the other night. Can there really be another emergency already?” I try to make a joke out of it but snap my mouth shut when I realize Lilly’s staring at me.
“Did they have church during the week?” Lilly asks.
Shelby shrugs. “Rooster didn’t say anything about it.”
A cloud of dread drifts over me. Like I’m almost certain I just stepped in a pile of dog poop but I’m afraid to look down and discover I ruined my shiny new shoes.
Heidi picks at the label on the bottle of juice in her hands.
Trinity stares at me like she’d like to superglue my mouth shut. Then shifts her gaze to Lilly.
“I think it was something concerning one of Upstate’s businesses.” Trinity twirls a finger in the air. “Not something they’d bother Downstate with.”
Oh, fuck.
Lilly’s husband is the president of thedownstatecharter. Shelby’s man is the downstate VP, right? Everyone seems so close, I didn’t think the distinction mattered.
Someone should’ve handed me an organizational chart or maybe even a family tree when I walked in.
Lilly accepts Trinity’s answer with a casual shrug.
No big deal, right?
I sip my tea and try to study Trinity from the corner of my eye.
The enforcer’s wife. Dex’s friend.Oh, shit.Is she going to tell the guys about my blunder?
CHAPTERFIFTY
Dex
Even though wewere all called into church earlier than expected, my head’s still upstairs with Emily. Letting her leave with Shelby hadn’t been easy. I’m confident she can hold her own with the other women but the abrupt shift in our morning leaves me unsettled.
I fucking told her I love her.My heart jumps, reliving the moment. I never expected to feel this way again.
Christ, I’m acting like a teenage girl about to flip open her diary and doodle a bunch of hearts around Emily’s name.
