Page 64 of Hot for Hostage

“Malcolm’s putting a team together now. They’ll head out this evening.”

Which brought us to the other topic I needed to pull Vince in on. The Ali family was dangerous, and it only made sense to convince Sadie to stick around a little longer.

For her own safety, of course.

What I hadn’t expected was how pleased I was to have another excuse to keep her around.

…Even if it meant putting up with her shoe-stealing best friend, too.

I frowned at the beast in question, who’d stopped gnawing on his stick and was eyeing my shoes with more focus than I’d like. A thick strand of drool stretched down from his muzzle.

“Don’t even think about it,” I warned, earning a whine from him before he went back to chomping on his stick. I eyed Vince; he wouldn’t like this. “With the Skulls’ friends knowing Sadie’s address and Ali sniffing around, it’ll be safest for her to stay here until I clear these problems up.”

He glanced up from his phone. “Will it now? I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

“What did I say about sticking your nose into this?”

That got me an unamused stare.

He sighed, shaking his head. “Fine. I’ll have Maria make up a guest room for her.”

That he even thought there was a possibility Sadie would need her own room was almost amusing.

Except it wasn’t.

At all.

“No need.” I smiled tightly. “She’ll stay with me.”

He did a double take, acting like I’d just told him we’d be requiring all the men to wear tutus and tiaras moving forward. “You can’t be serious.”

“This isn’t something I’d joke about.” I couldn’t believe he was acting like this was some new thing. “She already stayed with me last night.”

Vince’s mouth opened and closed like a damn fish.

“Are you…? Why would you…? Okay,I give up.” Vince’s eyes flashed—and I got the impression he was seriously thinking about swinging at me—before he threw his hands up, startling Bear into dropping his stick. “What is it about this girl? She held you atgunpointyesterday, man. She pointed a literal loaded gun at you. Is this some kink I don’t know about? Did she blackmail you? Because I just don’t get it.”

I eyed the vein bulging on his forehead. He’d clearly been holding that in for a while.

“It doesn’t matter if you get it or not,” I said, holding his glare. This wasn’t up for debate. “She stays with me. It’s that simple.”

He snorted. “That’s great and all, but how do you plan to explain her to Old Seb?”

Telling my father about Sadie was not on the agenda. “I don’t. I plan to keep her as far away from him as possible.”

“If he sees how serious you seem to be about her, he won’t like it,” Vince warned. “Not to mention, it’ll break poor Daniella’s little heart.”

I muttered a few choice words under my breath. That was a name I hadn’t heard in a while.

“Daniella has nothing to do with this,” I said, not wanting to touch that can of worms. “It’s time Seb realizes that.”

“Come on. Would allying with the Vitales really be so bad? Seb would’ve had you two hitched ages ago if you’d agreed to it.”

“If he wants the alliance so badly, he can marry her himself,” I said. “I have no plans to, and Daniella wants no part of it, either.”

He flicked a bug off his arm, shrugging. “That’s not what I’ve heard.”

For a brief selfish moment, I wished Vince weren’t so good at keeping his ear to the ground. “What’ve you heard?”

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