Page 4 of Cold Hard Truth

Reed rolls her eyes, and it manages to drag a smile out of Ellie and Lyla.

“Come on. I’ll show you around.” Reed bounces again and they start to follow her down the road that leads to the neighborhood. “How old are you guys?”

“Ten,” they both answer in unison.

“Me too,” Reed cheers.

Their voices start to fade out as they walk and skip away with so much laughter; I’m not sure what to think of it. It’s a rare sound in this place.

I watch the three of them disappear, digging my hands in my pockets. My sister is bad enough, but I have afeeling this newly formed preteen girl squad is going to be the death of me.

“They’ll be fine,” Dad says to Kane, and I look over to see them watching the girls run away.

“This is a bad idea, Hawk.” Kane runs his hand through his dark hair.

“Then why’d you do it?”

“You know why.” Kane glances at my dad and they share some silent understanding, even if they keep me out of it.

“They’ll be good here,” my dad says. “They’ll be safe.”

Kane nods, turning his attention to me. “I need you to look out for them, Sage. Just like you do for your sister. You know how this place can be, and these are my daughters we’re talking about. Keep ‘em out of trouble.”

“I will.” Not that I want to.

I want to be a Twisted King, not a babysitter.

“Good.” His eyes drift once more to the girls—to the three bright dresses slowly fading in the distance with their giggles. “They’re little spitfires just like their mother. God help me.”

As if God gives a crap about the Twisted Kings.

1

Sage

Lyla thinks she’s sneaky.That there’s so many people crawling the compound tonight so no one is going to notice her.

She tips up on her toes and peeks through the window of the clubhouse, getting a look at what’s inside. It’s no doubt drugs and debauchery, and everything her father explicitly says she needs to stay away from. But she can’t help sneaking around here anyway.

This girl is trouble—one of three of my biggest headaches. And whenever her, Reed, and Ellie get an idea in their heads, Lyla is inevitably the ringleader. The one with all the bad ideas. Reed’s too busy studying and reading, while Ellie just wants to flirt with the new young prospects. But Lyla wants adventure.

She wants attention, and she demands it.

Even if she’s made it clear she hates living at the Twisted Kings compound, she can’t help involving herself inevery little thing that happens around here because this girl is desperate to be the center of everything.

Lyla plants her heels in the dirt and smooths her hands down her outfit. If Kane sees her wearing that shit, he’s going to have a heart attack or lock her in a cage.

Lucky for her, I’m the one who caught her, not him.

“What do you think you’re doing out here?” I catch Lyla’s wrist when she tries to sneak around the corner of the clubhouse, and she yelps in surprise.

She spins to face me, almost tripping in the process. She finds her balance by grabbing my arms, and I swear this girl is a magnet for danger. If there’s a situation that will end in disaster, she’s going to find herself directly in the center of it.

I help her steady herself, and don’t release her until she pauses, rolling her shoulders back. She’s so close, I get a hit of the scent that follows her around—incense and bad decisions. A smell I can’t seem to escape when she refuses to keep to the neighborhood lately.

When Lyla and Ellie first started coming around the clubhouse seven years ago, it was sporadic. Talia had just started a new job that took her all over the country, and Kane refused to have Lyla and Ellie stay in the city if Talia wasn’t around.

But one trip turned into a series of them. And Talia started returning to the city less and less. Until finally, Talia didn’t come back at all. She started a new life as far away from Kane as possible, leaving her daughters just like she did everything else.

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