Page 17 of Callum

It’s like he threw a wet blanket over the excitement building in my chest. “What? Why would I do that?”

Grant frowns, his tone making it obvious that I should already know the answer. “Ginetta Ricci is calling us out for a reason, and I want to know what it is.”

“I can’t be her protector, Grant. There’s too much between us.” Mainly the fact that I spent exactly thirty minutes in her presence, and it ended with my dick in her ass. “When I look at her,” my breath stutters on the exhale. “I’m not sure if I want to fuck her or kill her.”

“If you’re going to be a MacAlister again, you have to learn how to put your impulses aside. Whatever those impulses may be.”

I snort an unflattering sound in the stark silence of his office. Too fucking late. “How long?”

“Until we know the truth. About everything,” he adds at the question in my eyes. “The easiest way to lure out the true intentions of the GiGi’s marking her as a traitor is to allow them to have what they’re looking for.”

“You want me to give them Rosalind?” I’m not sure what to do with the building anger in my chest. How can he ask me to protect her just until the GiGi’s come for her?

“I want them to get to Rosalind. Then I want you to be there to ask the right questions.” Grant spins something in his hand that I hadn’t realized he was holding. The moment recognition flashes through my brain, all other thoughts cease.

The silver skull shines enticingly in the light between us. It’s the one that marks the Consigliere of the MacAlister Family, not the Capo as I had been expecting. “I can’t take that.”

“You can, and you will.” Grant flips the ring through his fingers again. “Maddock already gave his permission. In fact, I believe his exact words were, ‘fuck yes, give it to Callum. I’m tired of you ignoring my advice’.”

A soft laugh slips out of me at Grant’s impression of our brother. “Are you sure?”

“I’m always sure,” Grant scoffs, a smirk tugging at his lips. “We need you, Cal.”

“Lachlan said the same thing.”

Grant shakes his head with a huff. “You know, he was the only one who believed you’d come back for her.”

“I haven’t.” The words are insistent, but my tone is soft.

“Yet you’re here, once again asking me to protect Rosalind White.” Grant sighs, tilting his hand just enough that the ring rolls into my waiting palm. The skull stares up at me, daring me to set these wheels in motion. The moment I accept this position, I’m sealing the fate of so many others.

My fingers close around the ring, curling my hand against the cold metal. “I’m only asking for her protection because she could be useful to the MacAlisters.”

Grant watches me slide the ring into place on my right hand, the metal heavy against my previously bare pointer finger. It feels good. It feels right.

It feels like home.

“She already has been.”

Five: Nightmares

ROSALIND

“As I live and breathe! Rosalind White, in the slightly rotten flesh.”

“Lachlan MacAlister,” he isn’t the person I’d been expecting, but I can’t say it’s a surprise. This is his club, after all. “You don’t look a day under forty.”

His mouth ticks up on one side as he leans against the door frame, crossing both arms over his chest. “Didn’t think you’d have much to joke about these days.”

“Humor is a balm for the soul.”

“You think our souls deserve to be soothed?” It’s an honest question, but I don’t have any kind of answer for him.

“Maybe not yours,” I tease, trying to move past the heaviness suddenly settling around us. “Did Ginetta say you could be in my room?”

“Ginetta said there was a present for me in room three. But I refused to wait until Christmas to open it,” Lachlan’s tone is light, but something flickers in his eyes, making my hand move instinctively to the knife in my waistband. “You know, it’s funny because I always thought dogs were the loyal ones.”

“That’s because you’ve never had good pussy, Lachlan.”

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