Page 109 of Meet Your Maker: Part One

“You let him go.”

I whip around, my jaw clenched tight. “I let him go?” Disbelief spikes my voice to a new octave. “No,preciosa y desquiciada.” Precious and insane. “You sneaked out of our house like a deranged little mouse, met with a dangerous bastard who already tried to kill you, and then you told me to let him go!”

“I thought—” She cuts herself off, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter what I thought.”

“No,” I snap. “It matters a lot what you thought.” I exhale, trying to find something that resembles inner calm. “Walk me through your thought process, Amor. I’ll need to know how to defend you in the Alpha’s court. I’m not sure your ass can take the punishment that sneaking off to meet Silas for shits and giggles is going to get you.”

“Not shits and giggles.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Oh? What was it then?”

She lifts her chin. “He found Colt.”

I start nodding, my mind spinning through possibilities.Classic blackmail. Threatened to kill her brother, probably.

“We’ll get him back.”

“No, Colton’s fine.” She waves her hand, her voice weary. “Silas gave him a nice bottle of liquor and fed him a whole lineof bull. But the thing is, he wasn’t lying. Colt can smell a lie a hundred feet away. If someone’s thinking about lying, he knows. So when Silas told him he was sorry, that he made a mistake, that he wanted to help us take down Roxana…”

She trails off, the weight of it settling between us.

I pull her into my arms, my grip firm but careful. “You thought maybe you could use your magic, your effect on his dragon, and get rid of the Roxana problem?”

“Shadow,” she looks up at me with those big gray eyes. “Am I one of those girls who’s just too stupid to live—you can tell me?”

I burst into laughter. “No, but you do have a tendency to forget that you have us, you have a family, you don’t have to solve these problems by yourself.” I exhale. “Do you want to know how I’m feeling right now?” She nods. “I’m hurt that you didn’t trust me. I’m hurt that you didn’t think I’d be right there next to you doing everything ten times stupider than you could possibly manage on your own.”

“Ride or die.”

“That’s us.” I nod.

“Tomas is going to kill me.

“And then, your brother. Did he really sell you out for a bottle of liquor?”

“Colt is very easily swayed by gifts and compliments… and math.”

“Math?”

“Yeah, if you ever need him to do something, make up statistics and give him a Slim Jim.”

Finally, I exhale, forcing my voice to steady. “He’ll be back,” I say. “And next time, Amor,I won’t let him walk away. That was his last chance to be part of the best mate-group on earth. He’s going to regret every decision that brought him to this point one day, and I’m going to laugh and laugh… ”

Sunday doesn’t reply. She smells sad. I watch her for another beat. “So, we need to tell the others what happened, but maybe we could massage it so you don’t seem like you’re actually trying to elope with the villain.”

“You mean lie? To our mates?”

“I mean, there’s an art to explaining things…”

Wade reenters the garage,where the fuck did he go while a demi-dragon tried to kidnap his daughter?

“So, I messaged the boys, and they’re on their way,” Wade says, his tone steady as a river. “Told ’em we had a Silas sighting and that Sunny’s fine. I’ll leave the details up to y’all.”

She leans into him, taking comfort in his presence. After a moment, she lifts her head, her eyes searching his face. “Daddy, are you feelin’ anything about him? Anything that could help us?”

Wade’s gaze goes distant, like he’s peering through a window only he can see. He exhales slowly, the weight of what he knows settling in the air between us.

“Sugar, I wish I could tell you somethin’ easy, somethin’ clear. But the truth ain’t always kind.” He pauses, his voice softening. “That boy’s stitched into your story now, for better or worse. Your paths are gonna cross more than once, and each time, it’s gonna change you—maybe for the good, maybe not. But he ain’t goin’ anywhere, not yet.”

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