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“At least my woman has a name.”
“At least mine is none of your goddamn business.”
“Aha.” Nick grins. “At least we know it’s a woman.”
“Who is she?” Grant grins, too. “Come on. Give us a name and we’ll shut the fuck up.”
“Goddamn. Leave him alone,” Nash defends Jace. “We’ve all hidden secrets until it was time to tell them.”
“No.” Loch shakes his head. “We should know better by now. Secrets can kill us.”
“And yet,” I finish my vodka, “they’ve kept us alive, too.”
When you spend most of your life hiding who you are. When secrets and lies have kept you alive. When the truth is your greatest threat.
You have to hang on to one thing that’s real.
That’s always been my brothers, our mother, our family.
Blood and bonds have kept us together.
But now?
It’s Ruby. It’s our love. It’s the only thing I can trust.
Because I stare at the wide, inky water, snaking beside Nash’s new home with Vale. He chose this place for itsstrategic location, just as I chose mine. We live by the water for rapid escape.
It affords a sense of safety.
But now all I can wonder is…
What if one of those yachts, anchored for the night on the river, is our father or one of his henchmen, who’s been watching us the whole time?
And who in this circle helped him find us?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
RUBY
“What doyou think our kings are talking about?”
Delphine peers through the second-story window of Nash and Vale’s bedroom. And I swear, her French accent could make grocery shopping sound clandestine.
“Us.” Vale holds up the fourth dress, considering my wardrobe for my next date with Colton. “Their minds are like drunk babies. They wander off, distracted by business, but they always stagger back to us.”
“When they’re all gathered like that?” Wren stands beside Delphine, admiring the view of a circle of seven inked men gathered around an unlit fire pit. “Why does it make me want to go down there and do naughty things?”
Delphine laughs. “Because your husband has trained you well.”
“Sire didn’ttrainme,” Wren scoffs, but it comes out as a giggle. “I’m the bad influence. Not him. I’m the one who tempts him into breaking the rules.”
“Breaking or breeding?” Vale chuckles. “You know, your guest bedroom has Swiss cheese for walls. We’ve heard Sire’skink. How he’s madly in love with breeding hishorny little bunny.”
“Oh, okay, Daddy,” Wren teases Vale back. “We’ve heard how Nash,yes, daddy, makes you his dirty little girl, too.”
We’re all laughing as Delphine turns to me. “Speaking of shared kinks and kings. Ma chérie, what are you waiting for? You’re one of us and deserve your initiation, too.”
“I want to finish this mission first,” I answer, taking the emerald dress from Vale, silently agreeing that this is the one to wear on my next date with Colton.