Page 47 of Rule the Night (Blackwell Butchers #1)

REMY

I drove like a bat out of hell, pushing the Spider to almost a hundred on the highway, slowing down only when the car’s radar detector pinged. I passed the time replaying the conversation between Bram and Poe, reading the subtext of their words, their expressions.

I knew Poe had fucked Maeve. Obviously.

Poe always thought he was so slick, but I could read him like a fucking book.

But the conversation between him and Bram was more complicated. Bram would tell Poe he’d sent me to the city because Poe was getting too attached to Maeve, but I knew there was more to it than that.

Bram felt some kind of way about Maeve. I didn’t know what it was yet, but the fact that he felt anything at all spoke volumes.

Bram wasn’t ever tight with the Hunt girls who came to live with us, but he didn’t ignore them either.

That had been reserved for Maeve, in spite of the fact that she was the best Hunt girl we’d ever had.

In more ways than one.

So why did he treat her like shit? Why did he look through her with that creepy fucking stare he usually saved for the MCs and street gangs he kept in line in Blackwell Falls? And why the fuck wouldn’t he eat her desserts when I knew — I knew — it had to be killing him not to?

I reached the city in record time, following the blinking green light on the app we’d installed on Maeve’s phone to navigate to the right part of the city. I found street parking a few blocks away — no time for a valet and parking garage — and hoofed it toward the Warwick.

The place was wild: police everywhere, protesters carrying signs and chanting and shouting, cars honking as they tried to navigate through the crowd that spilled into the streets.

I was worried about finding Maeve in the melee, but I shouldn’t have been, because two things became obvious as soon as I reached the hotel: the crowd was mostly segregated by gender and Maeve was easy to spot in any crowd.

She was at the front of the protest on one side of the hotel’s entrance, standing in front of what looked like thousands of protesting women and a handful of men, directly across from the group of counterprotesting men.

My gaze landed on her like a homing beacon. It was more than her jet-black hair. It was something in her posture that I recognized in my bones, something familiar that made me feel like I’d known her for years instead of weeks.

I barreled through the crowd of women, aiming for Maeve at the front of the pack.

It wasn’t easy. They were worked up, and after hearing the garbage Ethan Todd spewed on a daily basis, I didn’t blame them. As for the men on the other side, men holding signs in support of Todd, what a bunch of fucking tools.

I was almost to the front when a ripple of excitement rolled through the crowd. I caught a glimpse of the open hotel doors, and a second later, a couple body men emerged, flanking Todd as they made a beeline for a black SUV with tinted windows that had pulled up to the curb.

And that was when the realization dawned on me.

Maeve had a gun.

Was she here to try and kill Todd because she’d lost the Hunt?

I moved faster, pushing through the crowd, keeping my eyes on her leather jacket, her glossy hair pulled into a high ponytail. Todd was about halfway to the car, inches from Maeve’s position at the front of the protesting crowd.

An unfamiliar emotion beat through my body. It took me a second to realize it was fear.

I lunged for Maeve, grabbing her shoulder just as Todd reached her position.

She turned in surprise, her mouth opening in an exclamation I couldn’t hear when she saw that it was me.

And then I was right behind her, lifting her off her feet, dragging her back through the crowd while she kicked and screamed, fighting me every step of the way.