Page 7 of Cold Hard Truth

I try to brush past her, but she grabs my cut and pulls me to her. We’re almost chest to chest, and I really shouldn’t notice how warm she is. Or that she doesn’t actually smell like incense tonight. It’s more like sunshine on wet grass and promises I can’t make to her right now.

Her big violet eyes blink up at me, and the breeze kicks strands of black hair across her rosy cheek. She’s too pretty for her own good.

For my own good.

“Please, Sage.” She blinks up at me with a pout that has the power to break me. “I never get to do anything. Kane might as well lock me in a cage.”

I want more than anything to cave right now because Lyla makes me stupid. Because I know Kane keeps her on a tight leash and the neighborhood might as well be her jail cell. The only fun she has is when she sneaks around behind his back and makes it happen.

And if it were another night, and she were asking for something else, I might let her get away with it. But as a friend—or whatever we are that doesn’t sound as fucking confusing as the truth—I can’t.

She’s innocent.

Kane’s daughter.

And worst of all, she’s too good for this place—and for me.

I pull her hands off me, putting some distance between us. The step back feels like miles when her eyebrows knit, and defeat fills her face. My stomach turns because I don’t actually want to disappoint her. But it’s my job to protect her, no matter how much she hates me for it.

“Get in the car, Lyla.” I point to my dad’s car parked outside the clubhouse. “I’ll drive you three back to the neighborhood in a minute.”

It’s only a half mile away, but I’m not letting them wander alone in the dark. I already don’t like the fact that they made the trip over here on foot in the first place.

The compound is gated and safe, but it doesn’t mean no one has ever found their way in. Especially on a night when the doors are open for celebration.

Lyla steps back and her defeat turns to anger. Her teeth clench, and she glares at me as she turns to stomp away. But I don’t give in or back down.

I head to the clubhouse to find both our sisters.

Lyla hating me is for the best. And it’s a hell of a lot easier for me to process than the alternative.

2

Lyla

Buzzing hums through TwistedRoses tattoo parlor. It makes my nerves prickle every time I walk in here because the sound reminds me of Sage.

Kane hates that I like hanging out at the front desk of the tattoo shop, talking to customers about tattoos, and reading their fortunes with my tarot deck. But I’m eighteen now. I don’t have to listen to what he says.

And today, I’m not here to socialize. I’m here for a reason.

“Where’s he at?” I ask Jude, who is leading a girl to the lobby.

The skin around her sapphire nose piercing is red, so it must be fresh.

“In the back, I think?” Jude tips his chin to the hallway, and I start in that direction. But before I get too far, he yells after me, “He’s not going to go for it.”

“Yes, he will,” I yell back.

Jude chuckles because he has no faith in me. He’s a skeptic, as evidenced by the fact that he still won’t let me use my cards on him. But today he’s wrong. I’m determined. And if anyone is capable of convincing Sage to make a bad decision, it’s me.

While Jude thinks he knows Sage better than I do—since Sage crashes in an apartment with Jude in the city when he works late at the shop and doesn’t want to drive back to the compound—I’ve known Sage longer.

And I know how to get through to him.

Turning the corner into Sage’s tattoo room at the shop, I move too quickly and trip over a cord stretched across the ground.

“Shit.” I grip the chair I fall against, trying to gather my composure as Sage looks up at me from whatever he’s doing.

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