Page 105 of Rook

What use was there in fighting anymore? I wasn’t going to get back there in time to try to help Rook, to check on him, to try to warn him about how ruthless and savage he could be when cornered.

“Rook isfine,” Nyx assured me as she pressed me down onto the couch in the common room.

“You don’t know that. You don’t know Randy.”

“No, but I know Rook,” Nyx said, sitting down next to me and taking my hand. “And I know my husband.”

“Not to mention Crow,” Murphy piped in.

“He had men too.”

“Yeah, they were good and incapacitated, judging by how Coach looked,” Raff said, dropping down on the coffee table in front of me. “I hope you won’t hate me forever, pretty girl. But Rook would have my ass if I didn’t get you out of there and safe.”

I got that.

For better or worse—depending on the club and the men within it—the wishes of your brothers topped the priority list.

And, with a little distance, yeah, I could see that there was nothing I could have done. That if I stayed, I would have been a distraction, a liability.

So, no matter how much my heart was in a vice and my stomach was sloshing around, I had to just sit and wait it out, have faith that Rook’s club was stronger than Randy’s.

“I might be slightly less angry if you get me some coffee,” I told Raff, who was quick to jump up and do just that.

“It’ll be the best coffee you’ve ever had,” he declared.

The girls watched him walk off.

“I don’t know how Lula has resisted him this long,” Vienna said, shaking her head.

“I think Lula just assumes he’s a flirt and not serious at all,” Murphy piped in. “And to be fair, that might be true.”

“How are you?” Everleigh asked, reaching out to take my hand and give it a squeeze.

The instinct to pull away was immediate, ingrained.

But I forced myself to leave my hand in hers, reminding myself that these were not the club women I’d known in the past. These women didn’t want to compete; they wanted to create community.

“I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” I admitted.

“Believe me,” Nyx said, waving around. “Most of us get that. It will sink in. Likely after you see Rook again and know everything is handled.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I hope no one got hurt. Like… your men, obviously. Because of me.”

“To be fair, we’ve all been the reason for a lot of strife with this club,” Nyx told me. “It’s practically a rite of passage to become one of their old ladies.”

Raff came back with a coffee that, yeah, was probably the best one I’d ever had.

To keep the conversation going, the girls each told me their versions of their stories of the trouble they found themselves in. I think doing so was equal parts distraction but also an attempt to comfort me that the club wasn’t going to be angry about my situation.

And, honestly, it did help.

Even if I was on pins and needles until, suddenly, the front door opened and Rook walked in.

He was every bit as bloody as Coach had been. But when my gaze tracked over him, I didn’t see any visual wounds. The couple of bruises on his face.

“Rook—”

“He needs to get cleaned up,” Nyx said, trying to grab me. But I shot off the couch too fast, rushing behind him as he made his way to the freight elevator.

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