Page 29 of Gather the Storm

I was glad Otis didn’t ask any questions. Otis liked fixing things and there was no fixing Jace.

“I forgot how deserted this place is,” Otis said, looking around.

Trees towered on every side of the house. There was no traffic, not even from a distance. Just the sound of birds singing in the surrounding woods and the rush of the falls in the distance.

Even the river, below the cliff at the back of the house, was drowned out by the falls, and I found myself relaxing into it. Complications aside, this had been the best move.

Daisy was right: it was a good place to regroup — as long as we kept our distance from her.

That part was important, not just because it was a bad idea to get mixed up with Daisy Hammond but because Blake had asked me to stay away from her. I had no idea if he’d had a similar conversation with Jace or Otis, but he’d had it with me not long before he died, when Daisy had started showing up at the same parties we went to.

“Hands off Daisy, bro. Forever. Promise.”

It was all he’d said, but I could still see the look in his eyes when he’d caught me staring at her, and I’d promised, held up my hand like a fucking boy scout and promised never to touch her.

By then, things were already going sideways with Blake, but still. After everything that had happened, everything we’d done, keeping that last promise seemed like the least I could do.

The fact that I was already trying to worm my way out of it wasn’t a good sign.

“So what’s first?” Otis said, ripping me from the past. He was looking up at the house. “With the house?”

“It’s Daisy’s fucking project,” Jace muttered.

“True, and we should let her lead since she’s paying the bills.” I looked around at the woods, thought about what had happened at Aventine, the way the fucked-up mafiosos had been hunting kidnapped girls though the woods. “But we need to lock this place up, set up a security system ASAP.”

“I got it,” Otis said.

I didn’t doubt it. He’d have motion lights and cameras covering the house from every angle by tomorrow night, not because he was a security expert but because he liked solving problems and he solved them well.

“Make sure Daisy reimburses you,” Jace said.

I rolled my eyes. None of us were hurting for money. We’d had lucrative side hustles going even in high school thanks to the Blades and we’d been careful to stash that money before we confessed to Blake’s murder.

Jace caught my expression and crossed his arms over his chest with a scowl. “We’re not here to bankroll the princess. She’ll pay us for the work, not the other way around.”

“Whatever, dude.” There was no exasperation in Otis’ voice. He just didn’t care about Jace’s attitude. “I’ll get it set up and give her the receipts.”

I rubbed my lip with my thumb and looked at Jace, trying to squelch my frustration at his hard-assery. “You going to be able to control yourself? Keep your distance from Daisy, like we said?”

The question was rich coming from me, because I still had zero fucking idea how I was going to keep my own distance from Daisy, but Jace didn’t need to know that.

He flashed me an evil grin. “You keep your distance your way, I’ll keep it mine.”

Chapter 15

Daisy

Iwas nervous doing my makeup the next morning, not so much about the first day of my internship but about the fact that it was my first full day living with the Beasts.

I didn’t know when I’d started thinking of them that way. Probably when I’d realized living in close proximity to three undercover underwear models was going to be harder — no pun intended — than I’d expected.

It was easier to think of them as the Beasts, the guys who’d killed my brother, than to remember them as Blake’s best friends, which said a lot about how fucked up the whole thing was.

My phone buzzed with an incoming video call and I picked it up, waited for Sarai and Cassie’s faces to appear on my screen, then propped it up against the bathroom mirror so I could keep doing my makeup.

“Hot!” Sarai said, spotting me in my underwear and bra. “Please tell me you’re having all kinds of sexy run-ins with your new roommates.”

I rolled my eyes, then worked on my lip gloss. “No, and I’d like to keep it that way. I just haven’t gotten dressed yet.”

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