Page 78 of Biker's Prisoner: Property of Bucky

Tamiya looks back at me and wrinkles her nose. “Um… Okay. Come on in.”

“I don’t thinkthat’s a good idea.”

Tamiya sticks her hand out. But does it stop him? No. It doesn’t. He kisses Tamiya’s palm. She shrieks and Gideon materializes in the doorway out of nowhere, making everybody flinch when his voice booms across the entire cabin.

“Why are you licking my fucking wife?”

Zeus barksaggressively and from there, all hell breaks loose. Within seconds, Gideon grabs the back of Curtis’s neck like he’s a loose pitbull and yanks him back so hard that Curtis yelps like somebody stepped on his paw. Tamiya covers Eden’s ears as she snaps at Gideon to calm down.

Zeus senses the tension in her voice and has always been protective over Eden, so his barking just gets louder and more aggressive. I stand up and try to quiet Eden down. Curtis keeps yelping like a damn dog, making the entire situation worse. Everything feels like it’s pressing down on my chest and nobody is worried about the real problem.

Ruger.

“QUIET!”I yell out. Everyone shuts up. Gideon throws my ex-boyfriend to the ground and I hear a loud crack as his knees hit the ground. Zeus rushes over to bark at him more and lick him aggressively. And Eden cries. Loudly. She reaches for me and Tamiya rushes over to hand her over, freeing up her hands to dive into the mess going on.

Tamiya kicks my ex boyfriend out of the way and then shoves her husband a few feet back.

“You can’t kill him, Gideon!”

“Who the fuck is he?”

Gideon’s face is the same color as the salmon. I sneak the tray into the oven and set the timer for twenty-eight minutes. We might need the loud alarm to snap us back to reality and we’ll all definitely need dinner. I don’t know what Curtis plans on eating, because I amnotgiving him Zeus’s share.

“He’s Zayna’s ex-boyfriend,”Tamiya says, her eyebrow movements and body language adding drama to the situation. The heat in my cheeks spreads everywhere.

The idiot stumblesto his feet. I want him to shut up and I glare at him in hopes that he takes the hint. But when has that manevertaken a hint?

“I’m here because she sent me a heartfelt love letter. I don’t know who you are, but if you’re the deranged racist holding her captive…” He stands up at all of his five-foot-eight-inches. I want to die. He looks like a shrimp compared to Gideon. Ruger could pinch him between his fingers and crush his lungs.

“I’ll fight you to the death.”

Tamiya snorts in an effort to hide her laughter. I hear it, but my delusional ex-boyfriend hears nothing of the sort. Delusional. I know he’s not delusional. He fell into a trap. Ruger did this. I don’t know he did this, but I know he did.

Gideon sighs.“I’m not going to fight you.”

“One punch surely couldn’t hurt…” Tamiya mutters. I think I’m the only one that hears it. Gideon makes eye contact with me that freezes me in place. He has a firm, commanding stare. I don’t fear him being unhinged like Ruger, but I know he isn’t afraid to lay down the law.

“Put that baby to sleep. I need to talk to him without a child in the room.”

He points to my ex-boyfriend. I nod and leave the room with Eden, my heart pounding. My closeness makes her stop crying, but I don’t know if she’ll go down in the crib that easily without me settling her way more first. And honestly? I could tell from the start that she misses her daddy.

I hatethat I miss him too. And that everything about Ruger has always messed with my head. Especially this.

Baby Eden endsup being a godsend. She takes long enough to get to bed that I have time to think.

I needto get Curtis out of here before Ruger gets back. It’s urgent. I kiss Eden’s forehead and promise her that I won’t let her father go too far off the deep end. If Ruger wants this to work… if he wants me to feel safe in this twisted, fucked up love that I feel for him, he’ll have to let me be the one that pulls him off the edge.

He’ll have to trust me the way he expects me to trust him.

When I walk backout into the living room, nobody trusts anyone. Gideon and Tamiya are playing good cop, bad cop. Tamiya’s the bad cop, which looks even scarier with her pregnancy. She turns her baby bump on him like a battering ram.

“How did you find this place?”

“He doesn’t even get USPS,” Gideon says, touching Tamiya’s shoulder gently. Good cop. But also… good husband.

“Zaynaloves me,” he says. “She wrote it down.”

“Zayna hasn’t contacted you in years,” Tamiya says. “What makes you believe she wrote that letter?”

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