Page 244 of Redeemed

“Mmm, no, don’t think so. Give the Elshers my sincerest apologies, will you?”

“You do realize you just gave up your position in the Glass Rooks, don’t you?” Mark says darkly. “You’ll never take my place now. Hell, I should ban you from the organization entirely.”

“That’d be a pretty bad look for you, though, wouldn’t it?” I ask coolly. “Kicking out your own son because he didn’t want an arranged marriage? Sounds pretty petty. You’d have a lot of members questioning your loyalty and wondering if they were next. They wouldn’t know if they could trust you.”

“Don’t think there won’t be consequences for this,” Mark growls.

“Oh, I’m sure there will be, just not ones related to the Glass Rooks. They’re my family, Dad, not you. And you’re never taking them away from me.”

I hang up and toss my phone onto the mattress. He can yell at a wall for all I care.

“What are the Glass Rooks?” Haven asks sleepily.

Shit.I didn’t realize she woke up.

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

“Uh uh, no.” Pushing herself up, she gives me a hard look. “I’m your wife now, Colton. That means no more secrets. What the hell are the Glass Rooks?”

I can’t help my grin.My wife.She called herself my wife.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

I interlock our fingers. “Haven Heverly. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

Narrowing her eyes, Haven says, “Don’t change the subject on me.”

“Angel…”

“Please?”

“Promise me you’re not pulling the wife card just to get me to talk.”

The words must hit Haven hard because her expression completely changes. She knows what a big deal it is for me to let my guard down and be vulnerable with her.

“I’m not.” She straddles me, the sheets pooling at her hips. “I want to know because I care about you. I want to fight for you. But that means we both have to trust each other.”

I swallow hard. She’s right. In my heart, I’ve forgiven her for her betrayal, but love, trust, and forgiveness are three very different things. The Glass Rooks isn’t something I can sacrifice. The organization means too much to me. If Mark somehow gets into Haven’s head again, and she tells him things he can’t know…

No.No.She wouldn’t make that mistake a second time.

Leaning forward, Haven places her hands on my chest. She’s beautiful like this—fully naked, her hair framing her face, and wearing my ring on her finger. It’d be so easy to let myself fall into her completely, caution be damned.

“Colt, Please. I want to know what’s been stressing you out so much lately, and it has to be this. Right?”

Goddammit.Who am I becoming that I can’t say no to her anymore?

“Does this have something to do with what I overheard you guys talking about during Christmas break? Something about Mark stealing from some fund?”

“It does, yeah.”

She stares at me, waiting for an explanation. Part of me is reluctant to give it, but the other side of me wants to bring her in on this. Not only do I want to trust her, but I want her to know everything about me. Someday—the sooner the better, in my opinion—I want there to be no secrets between the two of us.

“Before I was born, my father was involved in some… illegal activities. After almost getting caught a few times, he realized his life would be a lot easier if he had people watching his back, and vice versa. So he formed the Glass Rooks. Lucas’s stepdad was one of the founding members, along with some other men you don’t know.

“The goal of the organization was to create a network of criminals in various fields who could all help each other with jobs. That quickly extended into helping each other with personal problems. It was a tight-knit community of people who were incredibly loyal to each other.”

Haven’s eyebrows widen in realization.Thisis why loyalty is so important to me. It was the first value ever instilled into me, and I’ve seen firsthand what loyalty can do for a group of people—and how quickly disloyalty destroys it.

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