Page 23 of Pay the Price

I scooted back against the headboard and crossed my arms over my chest. “Maybe I’m looking for you to get your ass kicked by Bram. Start talking.”

My eyes had adjusted to the dark. His features were clearer now — blond hair falling over his face, dark eyes warm — and the longing I’d been fighting over the two weeks came back with a vengeance.

“I don’t like that you’re here,” he said. “I mean, obviously I don’t like that you’re here, away from me, away from us. But there’s no security here either. We’re worried about you.”

“Bram is Cassie’s security.” Blackwell Falls had a lot of factions — the MCs and the street gangs and the rich assholes from Aventine — but Bram lorded over them all.

“It’s not enough,” Otis said.

I rolled my eyes. “It’sBram.”

“You think those guys at the dam would care about Bram?” he asked. “Think about it.”

I swallowed hard, because the truth was, Ihadthought about it. Not here at Cassie’s, but on the street walking from work to the gym, and especially walking from the gym to Cassie’s, when the summer sun had dropped behind the ridge, the light fading.

“My dad was just trying to teach me a lesson,” I said. I still hadn’t called or texted him back, still hadn’t figured out what to say to him, if anything, because never speaking to him again wasdefinitely on the table. “And I’m not even living with you, Wolf, and Jace anymore, which I’m sure he knows.”

My dad had rats all over town. It probably hadn’t taken an hour for him to hear that I’d moved out of the house.

Otis hesitated. “What if you’re wrong? What if you don’t know him as well as you think you do?”

“I think it’s pretty obvious I don’t.” My dad was an arrogant asshole. He was controlling and demanding, someone who demanded total allegiance, but never in a million years would I have thought he’d kidnap me and hold me prisoner in such squalid conditions just to bring me back under his control.

“No, I mean what if youreallydon’t know him?” Otis asked.

I glared at him through the dark. “So, what? I should move back in with you and Wolf and Jace?” I shook my head and let out a soft bitter laugh. “Like I know you any better.”

“I wish you would move back in with us. I don’t trust anyone else to keep you safe,” he said.

“It’s not like you kept me safe last time.” It was a low blow. I’d felt safer with the Beasts than I’d ever felt in my life. But we’d been looking for a psycho stalker, someone lurking in the shadows. There was no way any of us could have seen my dad coming.

It wasn’t their fault he was a psychopath.

Still, putting my kidnapping on them was easier than talking about the real reason I couldn’t come back to the house: the fact that they’d killed Blake.

And it was definitely easier than talking about the fact that I still wanted them. That even now, it was all I could do to focus on what Otis was saying, to ignore his scent — an intoxicating mix of male body spray, motor oil, and a hint of sweat — and the magnetic pull of his body.

It would be way too easy to pull him into bed, lift his T-shirt over his head, forget all about what he’d done to Blake as his hands and mouth roamed my body.

I couldn’t let that happen.

A pained expression passed over his face. “You’re right. We fucked up, didn’t realize your dad was still a threat.”

One word jumped out at me. “Still?”

He shook his head, like he’d said something he shouldn’t have. “There are things you should know. About your dad. About what happened to Blake.”

“Convenient that now you want to tell me everything,” I said. “You had weeks to tell me before Calvin stuffed me in his car. Wolf made it clear the subject was off-limits.”

Otis nodded, and I saw the regret written in his eyes. “That was a mistake. Obviously.” I was confused, having trouble connecting the dots. Blake had been my dad’s golden boy. What did he have to do with Blake’s murder? “Come home so we can talk. So we can keep you safe.”

“You don’t get it, do you? I don’t trust you, Otis. I don’t trust any of you.” I wanted to say I’d never trusted them, but that had been my real crime: Ihadtrusted them.

I shouldn’t have, but I had.

His shoulders dropped a little. “I can’t say that I blame you, doll.” He stood and walked back to the chair against the wall, then lowered himself into it. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to stay awhile.”

I wanted to tell him to leave, that it absolutely wasn’t okay that my brother’s murderer was watching me sleep.

---