Page 40 of Tempting Fate

Slash chuckles from behind us.

“Do you realise that he’s going to gut you in your sleep and make me watch?”

“Nah,” I reply in a too-loud voice. “I’ll leave a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle near the door to distract him… we’ll have plenty of time to escape.”

“I can hear you,” Hunter snaps. “And you should know that it’d take more than a thousand pieces to distract me long enough for you to get away… I have an eidetic memory, dumbarse.”

Lily’s shoulders shake as she bites back her laughter.

“Do you reckon he’ll go vertical or horizontal with the gut cut?”

My woman breaks into full-blown giggles at my question, struggling to catch her breath as she tells me, “Definitely horizontal.”

“Least one of you has a brain,” Hunter mutters. “Who the hell disembowels someone with a vertical incision?”

“Horizontal disembowelment, it is,” I inform the van. “Spencer Reid has spoken.”

From the driver’s seat, Toker laughs, then Slash joins him with a booming chuckle. Lily is too far gone to chastise me for taunting Slash’s little brother. Eventually Hunter can’t contain himself any longer, and he starts muttering under his breath about idiots who think Criminal Minds is based in reality.

It’s a light moment in a whole heap of darkness, but it’s enough for now.

Because shit’s about to get real grim as soon as we step foot inside the clubhouse.

I’m not looking forward to explaining to the few brothers that I trust that I believe one or more of the Shamrocks had something to do with today’s events… and that my gut is warning me that our president is the driving force behind the entire debacle.

Including the abduction of his own daughter.

7

LILY

“All right, I’ll, ah, I’ll leave you to it… go and check in with your father.” Charlie’s gaze darts around the bathroom. She hasn’t met my eyes since I returned to the Shamrocks compound, and still won’t, even though I’ve told her, more than once, that I know she didn’t send me the text that set today’s drama in motion. “If you need anything, just holler.”

“Will do.” She hands me the brush she was using to comb the tangles out of my wet hair, and I catch her wrist. My skin crawls, my inner voice warning me that I will infect her if she remains this close to me. Gritting my teeth, I push through the discomfort. “Thank you. For the shower. For staying with me when I lost my shit.”

“Lilianna,” my stepmother says my name in a steely tone that’s also laced with love. “There’s no need to thank me. I’m here for you, no matter what.”

As much as I want to believe her, it’s hard. She abandoned me four years ago. For months, I didn’t see her as she chose to remain at Dad’s side while he manipulated his way back into the Shamrocks, and eventually into the president’s role. Still, I appreciate the sentiment, so I let her promise pass without comment.

“Now.” She pulls free of my grip, her focus fixed firmly on her feet. “Everyone else will want to check you over.” I grimace, hissing as the stitches Doc put in my lip and my eyebrow pull tight. Charlie shakes her head at my reaction. “You know they mean well.”

“Sure… that still doesn’t stop me feeling like a carnival attraction.”

When she leaves me alone, I take pains to avoid the mirror. It’s easy in the steamed-up bathroom to stop myself from looking at the damage Alex has done to my face and neck. Unfortunately, the bruises on my wrists and ribs aren’t so easy to escape as I pull on the boxer shorts and t-shirt that Zeke provided for me to change into.

He wasn’t happy when I asked Charlie to help me shower after Doc was finished with me.

I felt bad, but I didn’t backtrack.

He has questions.

Questions I don’t want to answer.

As I think about the strip tease I gave Alex, his palms holding the weight of my breasts as I used them to distract him, my stomach flip-flops and my chest gets tight.

My reasons might have felt solid at the time.

That doesn’t help me from second guessing everything now that I know the Black Shamrocks were literally minutes from saving me.

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