Page 73 of The Souls We Claim

“Wait. There’s one thing. Probably not even relevant. But three of the older guys were talking last night about them taking back the docks.”

“Do you know when or how?”

Jax shakes his head as he folds up the cash. “Just that they’d heard it was the plan. Does that help?”

“Sure. Thanks, kid.” It doesn’t. At all. “Anything else?”

“They were just badmouthing the leader. Ben. Bill. Bradley…Bradley Collins. Shit about how he’s changing the vision of the organization.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know. I tuned them out when they started talking about how it’s not even his real name. It felt like such a conspiracist thing to say.”

“Which man was it?”

“Baker.” He points to the room next door. “He’s full of shit though.”

And I barely hear what he says as I storm out of the door.

22

ARIANNE

Sleep is fitful.

I toss and turn and stare at the ceiling in the dark.

Halo didn’t explain where he was going, and I didn’t ask. But I’m assuming anything that requires the weapons and clothing choices he made has to be trouble.

For the twentieth time tonight, I reach for my phone. It’s three thirty already. I type out a quick message.

Just tell me you are safe and unhurt so I can sleep.

I hold my phone, waiting for a sign that he’s replying, but none comes. The phone bounces along the bedding after I toss it.

I’m in Halo’s bed. His neatly made bed with folded corners. The sheets smell like him. I wondered if feeling closer to him would make tonight easier. In some ways, it did. But it made me worry more.

I gave up on my own bed when even my romance book couldn’t hold my attention. Which is saying something because the Mafia hero just kidnapped a rival family’s daughter who is fifteen years younger than him and told her to be a good girl.

Closing my eyes, I try to quiet my mind and breathe deeply, but my attempts are ruined when I hear the roar of a motorbike pull up to the house.

There’s the rumble of the garage door as Halo lowers it. Then I hear the front door click shut, the thud of heavy boots being dropped, and the creak on the sixth step up the stairs.

My heart trips when I hear him open Lola’s door and whisper her good night. It trips again when I hear him pause outside the room he thinks I’m sleeping in. “Good night, kitten,” he says.

There’s a weariness in his voice and in his gait as he finally enters the room. In the dark, he doesn’t immediately notice me, and I’m holding my breath, staying as still as I can possibly be.

With his back to me, he slides his shirt over his head. “Breathe, Ari,” he says without turning around.

The air comes out on a whoosh. “I missed you.”

“Is that why you’re in my bed?”

“That and other reasons,” I admit.

Without turning a light on, he comes and perches on the edge of the bed next to me. “Yeah?”

“I was worried about you. You were on my mind.”