Page 58 of Reluctant Surrender

“He was beaten.” Her lip shook. “Badly, but he’ll be all right.”

I swallowed hard. “Camille, I think you should tell me everything from the beginning and fast.” I looked out the window again. “Lukas will be here any second, and I can’t help you if he loses his shit before I can find out what’s going on.”

She blanched. “Oh, god.”

I grabbed hold of her hands and squeezed. “Tell me everything.”

Chapter 28

Lukas

“You’re not going to tell me?” I followed Maggie up the stairs to our bedroom.

“Nope.” She turned the corner down the hall after throwing me a grin. “Not yet.”

I grabbed hold of her arm and spun her back toward me. “Maggie. I’m not fucking around. Who was that woman that ran off down the street when you walked out of the coffee house?”

I should have gone with my instinct when I first saw them walk out of the café. Maggie blocked her with her body and made a big show of waving her arms at me. By the time I could get a good look at the other woman, she was already three store fronts away with her back to me.

“Tell me what happened in the café,” I ordered.

“I will. I promise. I just want to change out of this skirt.”

“If you don’t start talking, I’ll be happy to take care of that for you.”

“You can’t solve everything with spanking or sex.” She tried to pry her arm free, but I gripped her harder.

“I have yet to find a situation with you that either of those options didn’t work.” I pushed the bedroom door open and jerked my head toward it. “Start talking.”

She wiggled free of my grip as soon as I loosened it and hurried inside.

“Fine.” She put her hands up to ward me off, as though that had ever or would ever work between us. “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise me not to overreact.”

I softly closed the door and leaned against it, preventing any sort of escape attempt from her. “I never overreact.”

She looked ready to laugh but pulled herself together. “Okay, well, remember you said that.”

“All of this cloak and dagger attitude isn’t giving me much faith that this situation wouldn’t best be discussed with your bare ass over my knee.” I hadn’t actually spanked her over my knee yet, and just thinking about it made my cock stir. A solid ass spanking, a hard fuck that would make her spill her information.

“Okay!” She put her hands up higher when I started to move toward her. “It was Camille.”

I stopped in my tracks. “Camille, my manager?” I hadn’t recognized her, but she’d been weaving in and out of the crowd hurrying toward the bus and her back was to me.

“Yes. Now calm down.”

I forced my shoulders to relax. “Why would I not be calm?” I narrowed my eyes on her; she knew things she shouldn’t know. “What did she want? What did she tell you?” I stalked forward again. I would have my answers, and then I’d fuck my wife until she begged me to forgive her little trick.

“She wanted to explain what happened with the money. And about her brother.”

I stopped cold again. Maggie dropped her hands to her sides.

“It’s a mess, Lukas. And unlike me, she didn’t have anyone to come and save her.”

I clenched my jaw and fisted my hands. “Tell me everything. Now.”

“When your cousin owned the club, he was paying protection money. When he died and you took over, Camille tried to wiggle out of the payments. She was stupid, she understands that, but she was trying to make herself valuable by being able to handle it without you.”

“Piotr paid protection money? To who?” I demanded. We didn’t play such stupid fucking games. If we needed protecting, we provided it. People paidusprotection money, not the other way around. Even more reason my cousin deserved the death he’d found.

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