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Wide brown eyes blinked twice, and then he nodded, seeming to clear his confusion. The others were closing in, sensing or hearing our tension, I wasn’t sure. Elora yelled something after us, but my eyes trained on our target. Mind rushing through our response.
I needed to notify my security.
Needed Luke to call for backup.
Needed to get ahead of this.
By the time Oliver’s and my dead sprint for the car ended, I’d already reached Alice’s voicemail for a second time and dialed her again.
Her GPS showed her getting on the highway home. Itshouldbe comforting, knowing where she was. But I couldn’t shake my trepidation. Home wasn’t any safer. Not with them inside it. Not with the Ashcrofts still categorized asa friendin her mind.
A concerned-looking Arthur was stepping out of the idling SUV as I pinned my phone to my shoulder.
“Ride with Preston,” I ordered, slipping past him into the driver’s seat. We were already rolling, Arthur jumping away from the car when Ollie’s door slammed closed. “Pick up, baby.Please, pick up.”
Alice
Mattie and Leightonwere belting out the lyrics to “Another Brick in the Wall” by Pink Floyd when Jax merged our SUV onto the highway. His amused eyes found mine in the rearview mirror, and I laughed as he slowly pressed the accelerator, the engine thrumming to life.
Royce awkwardly cleared his throat from where he swayed in the passenger seat, his cell clutched in his hand. “Thanks for the ride, Rhodes.”
Scowling, I muttered, “God, that sounds weird now.”
“Like being a Hart?” he questioned softly. My smile set my chest heating, a hand coming to rub over my sternum.
“Yeah,” I breathed. I really did. Thoughts of Greyson wrapped around me—glimpses of his laugh on the patio, or his palpably intense focus as we worked. The memory of his finger in my ass as he hammered into my pussy, breaking me apart on his dick, suddenly was all-consuming. The man had taken me captive in both body and soul, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. “I do love being a Hart. Well,” I amended, thinking of Reggie the Dick, “I love being Greyson’s.”
He nodded, throat bobbing as he grabbed the oh-shit handle, and Jax rolled the passenger window down with a revolted-looking glower. “If you’re gonna hurl, you do itoutof the fucking car. Understand?”
“Yeah,” Royce grunted, looking worse for wear.Poor bastard.
Smirking, I shook my head at my cranky ass bodyguard. The volume with which the girls were serenading us had decreased, though Leighton was still crisscrossed and twisted so she could see Mattie in the back.
We had just reached the Emerald Bay Bridge to the opening cords of Rolling Stones’Beast of Burdenwhen I heard the distant buzz of a phone. When Leighton glanced at hers andshook her head, I mumbled anoopsand bent to fish mine from my bag.
Sevenmissed calls from Grey glared back at me. My first worry was Paxton, but when I brought the receiver to my ear, his frantic, “Where are you?” had me second guessing that. I straightened and looked around us, making sure all was well.
“We’re on the bridge,” I said, voice mirroring his anxiety.
“Watch your surroundings. Do you understand me?”
“Yeah,” I breathed, the panic in my tone catching Jax’s attention in the mirror. He turned the music down a notch but kept bobbing his head as though determined to keep it a good day. As though the oldies station could preserve our joviality.
“Royce is one of them.” The world stopped, my eyes flicking to the back of Royce’s coifed blond hair before thinking better of it and holding Jax’s eyes in the mirror instead.
“What?” I breathed, fighting to keep my voice even. Leighton’s concern landed on me like a physical weight, but I shook my head, waving her off. She kept singing, but now she was looking around us, a little too obvious in her alarm for anyone to miss it.
“Odessa Gilbert had an affair with Daniel Ashcroft that resulted in Royce.”
“But that doesn’t mean?—”
“Until I know otherwise, we treat him like an enemy. Understood?”
Eyes darting between Jax in the mirror, who was subtly tracking my conversation, and Royce, where he leaned against the door frame, fingers tapping out a message on his phone, I scrambled, brain going blank. “Yeah, we’re almost home. We’re almost to Miranda and Royce’s house.”
“Cocksucker,” he snarled, an engine revving in the background.
Heart ratcheting up, I did my best to keep my tone casual. “You right behind us, baby?”