Page 40 of Worth

I pull back enough to look at him. “The Dixie Chicks? Really?”

He rolls his eyes. “Let me guess. You wanted a Taylor Swift song.” He says it with such disgust that I cackle.

Tears leak out of my eyes again, even as I laugh, and I suck in a harsh breath to stop myself. All the emotions are overwhelming me. The desire to breakdown is still there, but the need to keep laughing is scratching at my throat.

“Hey,” Aiden says, wrapping his hand around my throat without any squeeze. “If you’re not laughing, you’re dead. It’s okay to laugh when we’re hurting the most.”

I nod, sniffling. “I don’t like this,” I admit, another wave of grief running through me.

He pats me on the head, then stands straight up with me still glued to him. My eyes widen at the display of pure physical power to do so. He heads toward the house without missing a beat.

“None of us do, Kitten,” he replies, bracing his arms under my ass. “But it would be such a waste to live without living, now wouldn’t it?”

“Even if it makes you crazy?” I ask, scrutinizing his face for a reaction.

He chuckles. “Especiallyif it makes you crazy. That’s real freedom.” His eyes light up. “Let freedom ring,” he sings out. “Let the white dove sing. Let the whole world know that today is a day of reckoning.”

The laugh breaks free from me as he continues singing us all the way into the house.

Chapter 14

“Tomorrow night,” I confirm, eyeing Kitten when she shoots me a curious look from where she’s eating her lunch. Thank fuck she started eating normally again after I made her listen about how it was okay to be crazy.

“Don’t be an idiot this time, ‘kay?” Val drawls on the other end.

I scoff. “I’m never an idiot, girl,” I answer.

Kitten had turned her attention back to her food, but the second the word ‘girl’ leaves my lips, her head jerks up and her narrowed eyes land on me. I throw up my free hand in surrender, widening my eyes to prove that I’m not talking to a girl.

I mean,I am, but she is notthegirl. Kitten isthegirl. Val isagirl. But it’s not like I’ve fucked—

Fuck. Ihavefucked Val, but we were both shitfaced and regretted it the second we woke up the next morning. That doesn’t count, right?

“Who is Val?” Kitten mouths, her gray eyes so narrowed they’re basically slits of pure, unadulterated hostility.

It’s so fucking sexy.

Val sniffs. “Aiden, your bitch ass is constantly fucking up our jobs. Don’t play with me.”

“I, uh…” I say, staring at Kitten while I battle an increasingly hardening dick. “I gotta go. I’ll check in with you tomorrow afternoon.”

I hang up on Val’s disgruntled complaint to my response and slap the phone down on the counter, backing away from it like the action will get me out of trouble.

“Hey, Kitten,” I say brightly. “Do you want to be a good girl and—?”

“Who is Val?” she snarls, her eyes brightening with a flare of that crazy I unleashed.

Oops.

“Val is our associate,” Zander answers, waltzing into the kitchen like the fucking Queen of Sheba or some shit. I scowl at him. “She and Aiden extract Skins when we haveplansin place.” He shoots me a pointed look.

I ignore it and focus back on Kitten. Her lips have thinned in the presence of Zander, andthank fuck. That vicious look has been removed from me and transferred over to Zander.

“I don’t recall asking you,” Kitten snipes.

Zander smirks. “I don’t recall caring if you had.”

Kitten’s hand tightens around the fork in her hand, a piece of pasta still on the prongs. Zander and I notice immediately, both of us freezing in place, and I watch her with open fascination. Is this what she looked like before she killed Jack?

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