Page 52 of Savage Daddies

“You know what the media are like,” I reply. “They love to make mountains out of molehills.”

Paul bows his head more than he nods it. “Hm.”

Then he straightens out his linen shirt and leaves.

If Paul truly is buying a property from Felix, he’s not planning to live in it. Maybe it’s in his five-year plan to build another casino, an even bigger one with double the amount of hotel rooms upstairs.

Or maybe the money is for something else.

He’s paying Felix for a favor.

RING! RING!

The incoming call almost makes me jump out of my skin. I slip out my phone and take a call from Poet who requires me outside. “Now!”

I advance to the exit. It’s dark outside and bright, the flashing lights blinding me.

Even more blinding are Zoe’s emerald eyes when they land on me.

“Where did you think you were going?” I ask her.

She tenses her jaw and flashes me daggers. Unfortunately for her, she’s too beautiful to contort her features and turn them sour, but I appreciate the effort.

“When did you find out?” she asks.

“We’re right outside an Uber pick-up location,” I say. “Let’s not do this here, yeah?”

“I’ll do it wherever I want.”

Wrangler swoops in. “You want the paparazzi to snap another picture and headline all four of us again? It’s only gonna be a matter of time.”

She tenses her jaw. “Fine.”

Poet glances over his shoulder. “Where should we go? Back to the clubhouse?”

“No,” I say. “It’ll be busy this time of night. Wrangler? Your place is furthest from people.”

We divert through quiet side streets to avoid the main road, and make it back to our parked Harleys. Zoe jumps onto the back of mine, so I hand over a helmet and question my unsteady hands for the entire drive back to Wrangler’s.

The girl makes me nervous, and I hate even more that she’s wed to the only other man in this entire universe who fucking gets it. Somehow, I feel connected to Felix, like our shared history makes it feel like I know him personally. Nobody else knows how it feels to grow up as second best in a foster family, “brother” to a biological son who could do no wrong in his parents’ eyes.

It’s not my fault my own parents were addicted to drugs and couldn’t, according to child services, properly take care of me. Michael would always make comments about how my chin was too pointy and “stuck out weird.” We were in the same high school, and all the other kids caught on and started calling me “pointy.” My height was another big one. “Freak” was how Michael used to address me, even in front of his parents. They adopted me only because of the money the government paid into their bank fortnightly, I’m pretty sure. Those weremyexpenses, but they treated Michael to new clothes and shit instead.

Felix knows how it feels to be me, and to grow up in the foster system. Granted, our experiences were different—he landed into a family that sold drugs, while I was the forgotten freak—but we were both outcasts and, I don’t know, it just plants something inside of my heart that I can’t explain.

And now I’ve taken off his wife’s dress and fingered her to orgasm.

I’ve committed more than my fair share of crimes. Robbery. Murder—just because someone was pissing me off too much. But engaging in sexual activity with Felix’s wife is by far the worst of them all.

We pull up outside of Wrangler’s house. He lives in a small town, and by small, I mean a total population of one hundred and thirteen. It’s more of a commune, nestled away in the desert behind a giant mesa that glows orange during sunrise every morning.

Wind blows through the makeshift street. It’s a dirt track, not a road, and the buildings that surround us are all made of dark oak. Wrangler’s place could do with some TLC—it’s weathered in parts.

“Welcome in.” The door squeaks as he opens it, one of the hinges loose.

Quite the downgrade for Zoe.

“Thanks,” she says.

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