Page 12 of Slay Ride

I spin the blade in my hand like I’ve practiced so many times in my bedroom mirror. Even smeared in horse droppings, I bet I look cool as fuck. “Be careful. Wouldn’t want you to getscratched.”

He pauses, and his eyebrows pull together. “Is that...is that your tag line? Wouldn’t want you to get scratched?”

“Is it bad?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “I mean, it’s not the worst, I guess. It could be better, though.”

“Okay, wait. I have another I could try.”

He folds his arms over his chest and nods for me to go on.

I clear my throat and spin the blade again, followed by a dramatic pause. “Be careful. This kitten hasclaws.”

He licks his lips and blinks at me.

I lower the knife. “That was worse, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, way worse.”

I groan. “I got nothing else.”

“What’s your killer name? Maybe I can think of?—”

Before he can say anything else, a gunshot rings out and the side of his head bursts open in a spray of red. I’m too stunned to do more than gawk as brain matter paints the stall.

Then, as his body drops to the ground, I spot Maverick behind him.

He saved me? My crush, the man who hung the moon, this glorious god of a man, savedme?

I take a step toward him, then halt almost immediately. Standing a few feet behind him and to the side, tucked away in the shadows, is Bennett Carter.

And he’s holding the smoking gun.

Chapter Six

Bennett

When we reach the mansion, Cat rushes straight to Ezra and Kindra to tell them what happened, but she’s got part of it very wrong.

“No, that isnotwhat happened,” I say. “I didn’t save your stupid life. I prevented you from getting your first kill. There’s a difference.”

Maverick steps forward and puts his arm around my shoulder. “I was there, and you definitely saved her life.”

“Bull fucking shit. That guy weighed maybe a buck. A buck ten if he needed to take a healthy shit.” I shake my head and laugh. “If he’d charged her, she could have stopped him with her pinky finger.”

“Bennett, my hero,” she says as she bats her long lashes over her bright blue eyes. She’s only doing it to annoy me for kill-blocking her.

“Fuck all of you.” I grab my bags from the pristine marble floor and head toward my room. If they want to live in a fantasy land where I saved Cat as a good deed, they can. I’mfirmly planted in reality, and goodness never factored into the equation.

As I stroll through a mansion hallway drenched in fine art and fresh flowers—in fucking Alaska, mind you—I’m slightly taken aback by the level of grandiosity my brother has risen to. This rich-people shit ain’t us.

Our father, the illustrious Desmond Carter the third, has plenty of money. He probably wipes his ass with the stuff. His children, however, never see a penny. Or a birthday card.

Not that any of that shit matters to me. My mother taught me that you have to work hard for what you want in life, and she gives me a birthday card every year without fail, though I’m pretty sure one of the nurses helped out with the last one. She was going through one of her bad spells.

I find my room toward the end of a hallway. A large four-post bed dominates the back wall. A shimmering silver fabric creates a canopy over the top. It looks like something out of a period drama, and I hate period dramas.

A massive wooden dresser stands beside the bed. I pull some pants from my suitcase and open a drawer to put them away. That’s when I spot the small ceramic pineapple tucked inside, along with a note and a little hand towel.

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