Page 82 of Knot Here for You

She sighs. “Maybe we can see about meeting at a restaurant rather than…” she trails off. But we all know what she’s saying. Rather than going to the house where we broke her heart. She spent a fair amount of time with us there, but not a lot. Maxim made it clear that she wasn’t welcome and so we stopped bringing her home.

I’m not sure that Vee has any good memories of our family’s home. She was happiest—we were—when we were at our little cabin or at the lake, the same one she lives on now, or in the city taking her out. But never at the place where we’re asking to take her now.

I nod. “Done. I’ll let him know if he wants to have dinner with you, it’ll be at a restaurant.”

Her nose wrinkles. “Don’t demand it. He won’t respond well to that.”

“We don’t really give a fuck how he responds, pip,” Ford smooths a hand down the back of her head.

A worried wrinkle forms between her brows and Asher leans into her side, a purr rumbling in his chest. I watch as she relaxes, but the divot between her brows doesn’t go away.

“Things have changed in the last seven years, beautiful,” Davis reassures her. “We aren’t dependent on them—on him—anymore. Our businesses rival theirs.”

“Eclipse theirs,” Asher murmurs quietly. “In most cases, we have more influence and more money.”

“And we’re not criminals,” Topher adds in an offhand tone, but Vee’s head whips to the side to look at him with surprise.

“What?”

He grins at her and presses a kiss to her lips which she returns, a little whimper falling from her mouth that Topher hungrily devours. Watching them together makes my dick harden behind my zipper, and I shift on the table to get some relief. Davis snickers at me, but I don’t pay him any mind. These are my mates. The two people that make me complete, that make my alpha fucking sing.

I’m going to enjoy the hell out of any show they give me.

But then Vee pulls back, and although her breathing is ragged and her lips are swollen and pink, she says, “Don’t distract me, Toph. What about them being criminals?”

He shrugs and tries to kiss her again, but she puts a hand on his chest and pushes him back. “No.” He frowns at her, but she doesn’t say it because she’s looking at me. “Tell me.”

I lift a shoulder. “Apparently, the Werth pack has been doing business with the Falcones for years. Right up until Maddox Falcone executed his entire familial pack and took over.”

Topher smooths her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “They’ve been stealing money from the bank, too.”

She looks at him again. “That’s why you work there, when your pack owns about a million other businesses that would be a better fit.”

“A million is an exaggeration, angel,” Asher murmurs, resting his chin on her shoulder.

Topher nods. “It took me forever to figure out how they were doing it, but we have the proof we need now.”

“They know fucking nothing about it,” Davis sounds positively delighted with this. “If they so much as twitch in our direction, we can literally ruin them.”

Vee licks her lips while she mulls that over and then she sits up straighter. “Then we can go to dinner at the house.”

I’m already shaking my head. “No, baby girl. We don’t have to.”

She nods. “I know. And I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but if they push back about the restaurant, that’s okay. We can do it there. I’ll just… need a lot of wine to help get me through.”

My stomach clenches at that, and I find my gaze flicking up to Ford, whose jaw has tightened. He told me Vee’s been self-medicating, that drinking has likely become a coping mechanism, and while I have no problem with her drinking now and then, I do have a problem with her using it as an escape every night.

We haven’t seen any bottles recently, but that doesn’t mean they’re not here.

I don’t say any of that, though. We’ve had enough heavy conversations for today, and I don’t want to accuse her of anything, especially without proof. Not that it would be an accusation, but I worry that might be how she’d take it.

Ford nods, like we just had an entire conversation. And I suppose we did.

I lean forward and steal Vee’s hand from Topher, pressing my lips to her palm. “We’ll see what we can do about the venue for dinner, baby girl,” I murmur into her soft skin.

Her fingers scrape over the scruff of my five o’clock shadow and I purr. It feels so good to have her hands on me again. I never want her to stop touching me.

I kiss her wrist, nuzzle my cheek into her, scent marking her, because I can’t help myself and then pull back.

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