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“Well yeah.”
She gives a little flick of her head to beckon me. “Then c’mon.”
Avery follows Lo out the door and I trail behind, smoothing my hands over my hair nervously.
“Are you sure it’s okay for me to just show up like this?”
“I don’t see why not,” Lo chirps, twirling one of her blonde pigtail braids around a finger as she glances back at me. “We don’t exactly have a protocol for this situation. I mean, it’s not like you’d have to go through training camp with the new recruits at this age.”
“Don’t even mention that,” Avery groans. “Madd would make her join in with the high schoolers just to torture her.”
Lo winces, shooting me another look. “Well, you’ve already had the basic training, right? Didn’t you train with Denver’s squad?”
“Sort of. I mean, they train up everyone there, but I wasn’t a full-time pack warrior or anything.”
“We’ll leave that part out, too,” Avery winks, approaching the doorway of the conference room and standing aside, gesturing for me to go in ahead of her.
I take a deep breath as I cross the threshold, but thankfully my broody ex isn’t waiting inside. It’s just the other guys around the table- Archer, Ares, Iver, and my brother Tristan.
Ares perks up right away when he sees me come in. “Hey, Sloane, glad you decided to join us,” he drawls, flashing me that charming smile of his.
“Bout time,” Iver agrees.
“Does Madd know about this?” Tris asks, narrowing his eyes on Avery suspiciously as she follows me inside.
“He’ll figure it out soon enough,” she snorts, dropping down into a chair and motioning for me to take the one next to her.
I pull it out from the table and sit down, Lo claiming the empty one on my other side.
“Eh, don’t worry, Sloane, I’m sure Madd will be thrilled to see you,” Ares teases, winking at me.
And as if on cue, that’s when the man himself walks in- and when his dark blue eyes meet mine, he abruptly grinds to a halt.
“What’s she doing here?” Madd snarls, sweeping an icy glare around the conference table.
“She’s part of this,” Avery says simply.
He narrows that glare on his sister. “The fuck she is!”
“Fine, you big baby,” I sigh, pushing up from my chair with a dramatic eyeroll. “I’ll go.”
“No.” Avery shoots to her feet beside me, pointing a finger in my direction and pinning me with a stern stare. “Stay, Sloane.” Then she whips her head back around to look at her brother. “Madd, you and I run this squadtogether. It’s not just about whatyouwant.”
“We still have to agree.”
“Not if I pull trump on this.”
“That’s for new recruits,” he scoffs, waving a hand dismissively.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Avery challenges. “I haven’t used mine for the year yet, and I wanna use it on Sloane.”
The two of them stare at each other while the rest of us exchange uncomfortable glances, no one wanting to get involved in the Kessler twins’ power struggle. The two of them have always had this weird dynamic where they can have full blown conversations with just a look- and though neither of them say another word, Avery somehow wins whatever battle they’re locked in because it appears that Madd concedes, huffing a sigh as he steps around the conference table.
“Fine,” he grits out, scrubbing a hand over his face and flopping down into the empty chair. “But she doesn’t get a vote yet, not till she goes through the proper initiation.”
“Fine,” Avery fires back.
I’m not sure if I should be worried or not about what that ‘initiation’ entails, but I’m just trusting that Avery wouldn’t agree to it if it was something crazy.
