Page 80 of Bad Little Bride

Slowly, I slide my eyes his way, my expression blank. The man knows me well enough. Even before I let go of my plans for Rayo Revenaw, he and I had a working…understanding.

He understood I could cut him off at the ankles if he didn’t extend his hand to me when I reached for it, and I understood he was but an old man holding on to his legacy with both hands until his daughter took her place as the head of it. We are not the same, but he was smart enough to know you don’t piss on the wolf when he’s a born hunter.

Everyone in this world has a particular skill, and where the Galley family is my go-to for private investigation of living flesh, the Bandonis are the shadows behind keyboards, expert hackers with endless reach.

Torin dips his chin in respect or apology, I don’t know or care, and his lips curve when my features don’t change. “You like her.”

“She is my fiancée.”

“One might say she’s like a second daughter to me.”

“One might be wrong. She’s nothing to you.” Torin is simply the father of Boston’s sister’s best friend. He’s the father of a Greyson girl, and Boston isn’t one.

She is nothing to him and more importantly, he is nothing to her.

Torin grins wider. “And you like her,” he repeats himself. “I don’t have to tell you this, but that could be dangerous for you both.”

I don’t comment because there is no reason to. I can protect what’s mine. I wouldn’t run the nation’s most notable security corporation if I couldn’t.

He looks over at the girls’ table. “My daughter will marry a man she hates. I’ll be sure of it. To protect her.” He pauses a moment. “Speaking of…” he grumbles and I look over, my brows snapping together when I spot the familiar grinning asshole.

Hayze fucking Garrett.

I scoot forward on my seat, eyes narrowing.

“Hayze fucking Garrett.” Torin mimics my thought. “Pain in the fucking ass. Impulsive. Arrogant.” He sighs. “And fucking brilliant, the backwoods bastard.”

I trail him with my eyes, noticing the way he dips down close to Bronx and the complete disregard she hits him with.

“You said protector.”

“Mm.” Torin nods, blowing smoke into the space between us. “She’s fought me long enough and with the turn of the tides in our world, with Rocklin and Delta now both spoken for, and with the fourth Greyson girl still missing, Bronx is most likely to be a target, should someone foolishly decide to make her one.”

I look away a moment, lifting my glass to my lips before facing him again, focusing on the simplest part of his statement and not the part that would raise questions. “You really thinkBastian will give up the only man he brought with him when he took over?”

Torin considers this, glaring across the room a moment before nodding. “Sacrifice is the first thing men in this world learn, be it the easy or the hard way. He knows what his position means. He will do what’s right. The real question is…” He glances my way. “Will you?”

I watch him closely, just as he does me, and tip my head. “I suggest you tell me what you’re referring to.”

The man smiles but says nothing. I hold his gaze a moment longer before looking toward Boston.

Her eyes lock on mine, a bratty glint within them I can’t miss, even from thirty feet away.

She is so fucking gorgeous when she stares at me like this.

Hell, she’s gorgeous when she breathes, but there is something about the dare in her dirty little glare that makes my body burn. I want to take her and toss her onto the table right there, fuck her in front of everyone so they can see how truly she is mine, document claiming so be damned.

Boston Revenaw was made to be mine.

I need no legal binding to tell me so. She just fucking is. Every bratty bit of her.

Her eyes narrow slightly and my cock jolts in my slacks, but then something catches my attention.

And apparently Torin’s at the same time as he says, “I suggest you get over there, before your fiancée becomes someone else’s wife.”

But I’m already on my feet and her eyes have left mine to meethis.

Torin’s laughter rings behind me and Mino’s shadow is on my heels.

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