Page 4 of The Scout

“Obsidian?” My voice pitched slightly higher than I intended.

“Our snake.”

I turned to him, expecting some kind of joke, but his face remained impassive. “You have a snake? Like … a pet?”

“Not a pet,” he corrected. “A reminder.”

A reminder of what? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. The way he said it—low, matter-of-fact—sent something uneasy skittering through me.

The viper’s head lifted slightly, its tongue flicking out like it could sense my hesitation.

I swallowed. “You just keep it in the house? At a party?”

Ryker’s mouth twitched. “People respect things they fear.”

I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the snake or the men who owned this house. Probably both.

I dragged my gaze away from Obsidian, but the weight of it stayed with me, slithering under my skin like an itch I couldn’t scratch. The thing was a symbol—power, control, danger wrapped in sleek black scales. It belonged to all of them, a shared piece of whatever history they refused to speak about. I’d never been afraid of snakes before, but this one?

“Wow,” I mumbled under my breath.

As we passed the grand staircase in the center of the foyer, a sound filtered down from somewhere upstairs. At first, it was faint—muffled, rhythmic—but then it grew louder, unmistakable. Moaning. A low, drawn-out gasp, followed by a sharper cry that made my steps falter.

My cheeks burned as I glanced toward the stairs, then quickly at Ryker. He didn’t so much as blink. His expression remained neutral, his focus fixed on the front door like nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

“Do you … hear that?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

“Ignore it,” he said flatly, his voice steady, like this sort of thing happened every day. Maybe it did.

I pressed my lips together, unsure whether to laugh or sink into the floor. Dominion Hall wasn’t just out of my league—it was an entirely different planet. Of course, someone was having sex upstairs during a party. Of course, no one cared.

Ryker’s pace didn’t slow as we crossed the marble-floored foyer, and I hurried to keep up, my heels clicking against the polished floor. The air felt cooler when we finally stepped outside again, the sound of the party fading behind us.

I looked away, suddenly feeling like I was in over my head.

2

RYKER

Imet her when she was just a kid. Hell, she’s still a kid. Too naive, too soft, too damn oblivious to what a place like this means. What the fuck was Will thinking bringing her to Dominion Hall, my home?

If one of my brothers gets a hold of her …

Fuck.

I shouldn’t care. Shouldn’t even be thinking about her. But that dress—the way it clung to her, the way the low light hit her skin—it was a distraction I didn’t need.

We’d just closed the biggest deal of the year, and the night was supposed to be a celebration. The others were drinking, laughing, indulging in the kind of excess that made the world forget exactly what we did for a living. The kind of indulgence I had no interest in. Running off to war had always been easier for me than sipping champagne and pretending to like people.

My eyes found her again, just as she slipped a tip to the valet. A slow-burning irritation settled in my chest. How the hell had she made it out of Dominion Hallwithout one of the guys stopping her? Maybe they hadn’t noticed her. Maybe I was the only one who had.

The thought pissed me off more than it should have.

I pulled my phone from my pocket, scrolling through my contacts with a familiar, simmering frustration. I needed to clear my head, and there was only one sure way to do that. I started running down the list, mentally ticking off names. Too clingy. Too complicated. Too likely to expect a call back.

I hit the G’s. Gigi picked up on the first ring.

“Ryker,” she purred. “I thought you’d never call.”

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