Page 71 of Pay the Price

She nodded. “Your situation is tough. I can’t even imagine.”

“At first I told myself it was okay to like them because I didn’t know for sure if they’d done it.” I was glad I didn’t have to go into more detail — Willa knew that I was talking about my brother — because the less I had to say the wordsthey killed my brother, the better. “But now… well, now I don’t have that excuse.”

Willa’s mouth turned down in a frown. “I’m sorry. It must be so hard to reconcile all those conflicting feelings.”

“Yeah.” It was such a relief to say it out loud to someone other than Cassie, who’d been there when Blake was murdered and who’d gone to school with the Beasts. She’d been super understanding — the best really — about my conflicted feelings, but it was nice to talk to someone who didn’t share my history. Maybe Willa’s distance would give her a different perspective. “And they had a reason for what they did, but I’m not sure that changes anything.”

I didn’t want to go into detail with Willa about Blake’s involvement with the trafficking ring, about his plans to sell me.It was ugly and I already felt gross even being associated with it, like I was a loser because of what Blake had been about to do.

Like there was something wrong with me.

Like I’d deserved it.

Which didn’t make any sense because no one deserved that.

“Hamburger, hot dog, steak, or chicken?” Rock called out from the grill.

Willa and I followed the sound of his voice just in time to watch him shove Neo out of the way with a well-placed throw of his giant shoulder.

I understood what Willa saw in them. Blond and built, Rock was always doting on her, making sure she had water and sunscreen, asking if she was hungry, if she wanted him to adjust the umbrella over her lounge chair.

And Drago couldn’t take his eyes off her, or more specifically, his camera. Every time I looked up, he was taking pictures of Willa, his dark hair flopping forward as he focused. I knew he’d had a show a couple months earlier at the gallery in town, but I hadn’t gone, and I wondered if it had been populated with anything but pictures of Willa.

“Those are raw. You’re going to make Willa sick,” Neo said. All the men around the pool were big — mine included (when had I started thinking of them as mine?) — but Neo was as big as Jace, all swollen muscle and bad attitude.

“You’re telling me how to cook meat?” Rock said. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Willa laughed. “Steak. And two hot dogs. I’m eating for two.”

“I’ll take a hamburger,” I said. “With cheese. And a hot dog.”

I wasn’t eating for two, but something had let loose inside me after our visit to the Velvet Rope the night before. A lot of the night was hazy — probably a combo of the super strong drinks and the fact that I’d been pussy-deep in sexual delirium — but I remembered that moment when all the rules had seemed stupid.

It had suddenly seemed so clear that every second I’d spent eating only healthy food and wearing expensive but modest clothes and saying and doing all the “right” things… it had all been for someone else.

For the first time, I’d seen all that time stretched behind me, a landscape of wasted opportunity when I could have been actually enjoying my life.

When I could have been living it for myself.

Over by the grill, Wolf was talking to Drago, who’d finally lowered his camera, their dark heads bent together in what looked like a serious conversation.

Jace was watching as Rock demonstrated how to know when steaks were perfectly rare without a meat thermometer while Neo was pointing out the security cameras at the back of the house to Otis.

Willa laughed. “They’re enjoying this.”

I smiled. “We can’t tell them we know. It’ll totally cramp their style.”

It was the best kind of testosterone overload, and I couldn’t help feeling lucky even though I was nowhere close to resolving my feelings for the Beasts. The concrete was warm under my arms, the pool cool against my skin as the smell of cooking meat filled the air.

For now, everything felt right.

“I’m not sure if you know this,” Willa said, “but when I first came to live in the Kings’ house, I thought they might have had something to do with my sister’s disappearance.”

I turned my head to look at her. “I didn’t know that.”

“It’s true, and I started falling for them way before I knew they hadn’t.” Her expression turned pensive. “I was conflicted, like you are now, but looking back, I just think something inside me knew.”

“I felt that way when the Beasts first moved in to help me with the house,” I said. “Except unfortunately, I know what they did to Blake, because they admitted to it.”

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