Page 40 of Lovely Venom

“I don’t see who we need that badly as an ally right now,” I say to Rhys, so he can’t tell I’m losing my mind over a woman.

“I’m gonna talk to Trace and get one of the guys on our team to watch this place,” Rhys says, walking back toward his Audi. “Later.”

He leaves me standing on the curb, the late summer night pressing against my skin.

I thumb the comb in my pocket. When I saw it just sitting on the carpet near the bar, I recognized it from her hair. She must have dropped it rushing out of the Warwick.

I should toss it. Burn it. Pretend she never existed.

But I don’t. No,I can’t.

I crack my neck, rolling my shoulders, the anticipation of finding her again settling into my bones. A woman with a sharp mouth and the steadiest hands on a weapon I’ve ever seen can fucking keep up with me.

She’s not afraid of me, either. No one has ever affected me this way. There’s a pull in my gut I’ve never felt before. Something dark and aching and real. She’s a challenge. A fight. A goddamn wildfire.

I wanther. Not some polished heiress that Griffin will hand-pick to secure his next deal. He was forced to marry Ava. He forced Shane, too. Rhys is right. I’d be a fool to think Griffin would stop there.

If that woman were mine, Griffin wouldn’t dare force someone else on me. She might be the only way I get to choose anything for myself.

I’ll hang back and play her game for a while, find out what she’s really after. If she does something like refer myfamily to ATF, well then, I’ll be taking her prisoner and teaching her a lesson in loyalty.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Raina

By the time I push open the door to my apartment at two a.m., my nerves are shot. The buzz of exhaustion claws deep in my bones, but my mind is wired.

I drop my keys in the bowl by the door and shrug out of my leather jacket, the gown left in a ball on Valdrin’s backseat.

Even with so much on my mind about what the hell happened tonight, I rush back to my bedroom to pull out my mother’s letter. I read it four more times, inspecting every word for a hidden meaning. Something I missed. I even take it over to the lamp and see if there’s another message indented into the paper.

Nothing.

A knock on the door startles me. I put the letter away and check the time. It’s around the hour when Ruby would be getting home, and crawling here to sleep on my sofa if her father is awake and being an asshole.

Sure enough, big brown eyes stare at me through the peephole.

I open the door and step aside. “Hey, you.”

She floats into my apartment wearing shorts so short that her thong strap shows. Her pierced belly button is on display from her cropped top.

“Where’ve you been?” she asks me with alarm in her voice.

“I, I was with Valdrin.”

“This late?” She folds her arms, her body tense.

“There was an event he wanted me to attend with him. What’s wrong?” I peek out into the hallway and listen for yelling, moaning, loud music, or the sound of dishesbreaking.

Nothing. Silence.

“Michael has those guys over again. Smoking weed, watching porn,” she whispers.

My eyes close, and I silently apologize to my mom for always giving her a hard time for just smoking.

“Were you waiting long?” I steer Ruby into the kitchen.

“I did laps on the stairs.” She kicks off her high heels. “My feet are killing me.”