Page 200 of Tempting Little Thief

She’s getting antsy, though. Fucked up over all the shit that went down at home and she still doesn’t know the half of it. Has no idea what I’ve done and what I’m about to do the second we get back. This isn’t a detour I anticipated when I took Oliver right out of the school and locked him in thebasement, which surprisingly already existed on the property I threw a grip of money down on. Or when I grabbed his father and then hers. Thank fuck for Hayze.

A frown pulls at my brows at the thought of him. Shit, I haven’t talked to him in days. Been so preoccupied with waiting for my sister to wake and making sure Rocklin didn’t go and fucking die on me I haven’t taken the time to touch my phone.

Where the fuckismy phone?

Rocklin sighs beside me, and I look to her.

Gripping her hand, I draw it to my lips, running her knuckles across my lip ring.

Her eyes lift to mine, her head dropping to the wall behind us, and for a minute, it’s just us in this room.

I’ve known she was what I wanted for months now, but it’s been molded and cemented deeper. Now more than ever, it’s crystal fuckin’ clear Rocklin Revenaw was meant to be mine.

My sister almost died in the water because she didn’t know how to swim.

I don’t know how to swim.

But my girl? She’s an Olympic gold medalist.

The water is her second home.

I will be her first.

From the day I arrived in this town, to the moment I met her at her edge of hers, to this second right here, it was all in the cards for us. It was meant to lead us right fucking here, to bind her to me in a deeper way, through the only other person I love, before we go back to her home and do the same.

She’s about to learn a lot of shit, but she can handle it. She’s Rocklin fucking Revenaw, a queen in her own right.

And me?

I will be her king.

Even if I have to take out the current one …

Rocklin

As I push through the heavy hospital room door, Brielle’s voice reaches me. It’s thick and heavy with a rasp, having been out of practice with use. This morning marks day four. She’s been coming in and out of consciousness. She’s wide awake now, and something settles in my chest as I find Bastian is the one to whom she’s speaking. He’s at the edge of her bedside, looking down at her.

“You’ve been sitting beside me for four days,” she says. “I can’t imagine the new world you’ve found can run smoothly without you in it.”

My lips twitch when Bastian responds with, “You have no idea.”

“I object to that statement.” All eyes look to me, and he sighs, narrowing his eyes a little, and I pause where I stand.

Something about this moment feels too intimate, I’m not really sure I should stick around for it, so I spin on my heels to leave, but just as I reach the door, it opens.

The head of the Brayshaw family steps in, and then I get the first glimpse of the man behind him. My eyes fly wide as I look into the deep-set, rage-filled ones of my father.

“Oh shit,” I mutter, breath lodged in my throat.

His gaze slices past mine and I know exactly where they’re focused, on the tattooed, black-haired boy behind me. I don’t look, so I have no idea if Bastian stares this way or what expression he wears, but when he speaks, it’s not a request.

“Take it outside,” Bastian orders my father, the head honcho where we come from. The man who has killed more men than I could ever guess. Who makes cartel soldiers cry and weep athis feet. The whisperer behind my every move and the true controller behind my role as a Greyson. “Now.”

And holy. Shit.

My father turns on his heels and walks out of the room.

It could be because we are out of our jurisdiction, so to speak, our word meaning nothing in this town as theirs means nothing in ours, but I can’t be sure. It takes me a moment, but then I get myself together and quickly follow him out into the hall, but he’s already curving to the waiting room, so I have to pick up the pace to meet him there.

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