Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 31778 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 159(@200wpm)___ 127(@250wpm)___ 106(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31778 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 159(@200wpm)___ 127(@250wpm)___ 106(@300wpm)
“Of course,” she replied with a sweet smile.
“Thanks, baby.”
After stepping back into the room, I shut the door behind me. Then I stared back at King and frowned. “Why?”
Since we didn’t need the DeLuca Crime Family to handle club shit, I knew what he was really asking. But I played dumb because I didn’t want to admit that I was a fucking idiot.
“Not about the uncle,” he clarified, in an ironically cryptic response.
Sighing, I shook my head. “Not yet.”
He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head.
“He’ll tell my mamma,” I admitted reluctantly.
Nothing else needed to be said. Every one of us knew that if Rafa told my mamma I’d met a girl, she’d be here with wedding dresses so fast our heads would spin.
“It’s not like he can’t keep a secret,” Ace said, his tone sarcastic.
Yeah, this wasn’t about my cousin, the Mafia underboss, not being able to keep information to himself.
“He’ll do it just to fuck with me,” I muttered, regretting my hasty actions at dinner the other night.
“Threw him under the bus at Sunday dinner, didn’t you?” King stated.
King’s uncanny ability to see what no one else could, particularly when people were trying not to say it, was seriously frightening sometimes.
When I didn't say anything, his mouth curled into an extremely rare smile. “Grandbabies.”
“Fucking grandbabies.”
“So give her what she wants,” Blaze said, as if the answer were blatantly obvious, and I was too dense to figure it out.
“Working on it,” I grunted.
King chuckled. “I’ll send a vest to the shop for a property patch tomorrow.”
I lifted my chin in thanks before doing a one-eighty and exiting the room.
Annika was leaning against the wall, reading something on her phone, and she had a frown on her beautiful lips.
“Problem?” I asked.
She popped her head up and gave me a tired smile. “Just thinking about my parents and how hard this would be on them.”
Flipping her phone around, she showed me a picture of a beaming couple with their arms around a younger Annika.
“Don’t let this taint the happy memories, dolcezza,” I murmured, pulling into the circle of my arms.
She rested her cheek on my chest and sighed. “I don’t even know how I’m going to face him when I get home.”
“No fucking way are you going back to stay at that house, Annika,” I growled, shoving my fingers into her long, dark blond strands and using them to force her head back so I could look her in the face.
“I have nowhere else to go,” she murmured distractedly.
The heat creeping into her ice-blue orbs nearly caused me to lose my concentration and kiss her. I released her hair and cleared my throat as I guided her head back to my chest.
“You’ll stay here,” I declared, the finality in my tone making it clear that there would be no arguing.
“Okay,” she whispered.
5
ANNIKA
Icouldn’t believe I had just agreed to stay at a motorcycle club compound for the night. Maybe even longer, depending on how bad things ended up with Uncle Alec
My only excuse was that I was overwhelmed by learning what my uncle had been up to. Or at least that was the story I was sticking to because I wasn’t ready to admit that a certain biker had brought my dormant libido roaring to life, which may have swayed my decision.
Being snuggled up against him wasn’t helping either.
Wincing, I mumbled, “There’s just one problem with this plan.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t have anything with me.” I cringed as I thought about all the mementos I had at home. “And I don’t like the idea of my uncle doing whatever he wants with the things that are most important to me. If he stole $50,000 from my trust, what’s to stop him from rifling through my jewelry box and stealing all of the stuff my mom left me?”
“Is he there right now?” Matteo asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“You got a security system with cameras? I can ask Wizard to hack into them to see if he’s there,” he offered.
Resisting the urge to ask him why his club had a lawyer, financial expert, and apparently also a hacker as members, I slapped my forehead with a groan. “Oh my gosh, why didn’t I think of that myself? I have a door camera I can access on my phone.”
He dropped his arms and stepped back—making me feel oddly bereft—so I could pull up the app on my phone. I was relieved to see that my uncle had left the house only fifteen minutes ago.
“Perfect,” Matteo muttered. “If we’re fast, we can grab your stuff before he gets back.”
He led me outside to my Jeep—I was a little shocked that it had made it here so quickly—and opened the passenger side door for me. “It’s better if we take your car. That way, if your uncle shows up and sees it in the driveway, he won’t wonder what’s going on until we’re on our way out the door.”