AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Not that I can blame him. I fucked up. Badly.
The drive back to the house is tense, and the closer we get to their place, the more tightly my stomach twists with nerves.
No matter what might have happened between me and any of them, the truth is that I’m just as disposable to the Reapers as Chloe is to West Point.
And I don’t know what they’re going to do to me now that I’ve made myself a liability in the middle of their war.
27
MADDOC
Emotions donothing but make you stupid, and stupid gets you killed. I saw it over and over growing up, and I took those lessons to heart and made them the foundation of how I operate.
But fuckinghell, the drive back to our place tests my control.
I turn onto our street, the inside of the Escalade as silent as a tomb other than the sound of Riley’s ragged, panicked breathing. I’ve got no doubt that my brothers will each have something to say about the clusterfuck we just walked away from, but they’re smart enough to hold it back until we’re alone.
Until after we deal with… her.
My jaw starts to ache, and I force myself to unclench it before I grind my fucking molars into powder. But it’s goddamn hard to relax when the sight of Riley getting into a fistfight in McKenna’s club keeps playing in my head on repeat.
His men were all armed and itching for a fight. If one of them had pulled a fucking gun on her...
My knuckles turn white, making the ink on my fingers stand out even more starkly, and the steering wheel creaks in my grip. This whole damn night has turned into a complete shit show, when it should have been nothing more than a simple meeting. Not that I actually thought McKenna would heed our warning—if he was that smart, West Point wouldn’t be the cesspit he’s turned it into—but as Logan pointed out earlier this week, there were strategic reasons for confronting him face to face.
Unfortunately, those reasons went to shit when it almost turned into a bloodbath, and all because this fucking girl we’ve brought into our home can’t obey a simple directive to behave.
All she had to do was keep her shit together and stay next to us. We would have been in and out, and that would’ve been it.
Goddammit.
The Escalade’s tires screech on the cement when I pull into the garage, and I’m out of the vehicle and have the rear door yanked open before the engine goes silent.
“Inside,” I growl, dragging Riley out of the back seat and toward the house as Logan and Dante follow.
We’ve had eyes on the club, people watching it to scope out McKenna’s business. So why thefuckdidn’t anyone spot her sister before we showed up tonight?
“Maddoc,” she makes the mistake of saying once we’re inside.
“Don’t,” I bite out, rounding on her as Dante closes the door behind us. “Do you know how much fucking damage you caused?”
Her eyes turn glassy with unshed tears, but she lifts her chin and stares me down, her chin trembling. “I’m sorry.”
“Fuck sorry, you—”
“Yousaw Chloe there, and you did nothing!” she screams, her chin firming up as the spirit she’s shown every time it would’ve been smarter for her to back down comes roaring to the surface.
She’s got no fucking sense of self preservation.None.
Anger heats my blood to boiling, and I want to slam her back against the wall and fuck some sense into her before she gets herself killed. I do one of those things, and a framed piece of art falls to the floor with a crash when I shove her against the wall and hold her there.
“Tonight wasn’t the right time,” I bite out.
“They’re hurting her,” she hisses, glaring up at me.
I scoff at her weak-ass excuse. “You telling me your sister is too weak to handle some drunk clubber trying to cop a feel?”
Her breath hitches. “That’s not what I mean. It’s not… I don’t know if… I think they’re making her…”
