Page 56 of Pretty Wicked Secrets

“Present and accounted for,” he calls back without taking his eyes off mine, a lazy smile hovering around his mouth.

“Well, I need you present and accounted for out fucking here,” Maddoc snaps through the door. “There’s been a development.”

“About Chloe?” I blurt, shoving Dante away and scrambling toward the sink to clean the mess off my body.

The beat of silence that follows my question has my eyes snapping up to meet Dante’s as I belatedly remember what he told me. Maddoc, the fucking hypocrite, has a rule. None of them are supposed to touch me.

My face flushes with heat, but Dante just smirks, once again reading me like a book, and gives me a tiny shrug.

“We’ll be right out,” he tells Maddoc, plucking my shirt off the towel rack it landed on and holding it out to me.

“Fuck,” I whisper, snatching it from him and tugging it over my head.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Dante says, fixing his own clothes before helping me straighten the last of mine. “Come on, princess.”

He opens the door, and Maddoc immediately narrows his eyes at us. His irises are a startling mix of grays, lighter near the pupils and darkening near the edges, and right now, they make me think of storm clouds.

Even if I hadn’t already seen how well-fucked my mussed hair makes me look in the mirror, the expression on his face tells me loud and clear that he knows exactly what just happened. Or at least, close enough.

He turns a look on Dante, and they have a quick but intense non-verbal conversation that includes Maddoc clenching his jaw and Dante shrugging again. I can tell Maddoc wants to say something, but fuck that. I need to know if they’ve got a new lead on Chloe.

“What happened?”

Maddoc’s attention immediately shifts back to the matter at hand, his jaw clenching even tighter.

“We need to go,” he says. “Now.”

Nerves shoot through me, killing off the last traces of my afterglow, and Dante’s laid-back expression morphs into something deadly serious. Maddoc turns on his heel without giving any further explanation, and even though I’ve got no clue whether or not I was supposed to be included in that “we,” I follow when Dante takes off after him.

Neither of them stop me, and when we get downstairs, neither does Logan. All four of us head out to the car, Maddoc getting behind the wheel and peeling out of the driveway before his seconds even get the doors closed.

The silence is a crushing, almost suffocating weight in the car. Dante methodically checks several weapons he’s carrying and Logan’s fingers fly over the small screen of his phone in the front seat while Maddoc navigates the Escalade toward a sketchier part of town. It’s an area I’m pretty sure Maddoc’s map showed as lying right on the edge of the Reapers’ territory, and despite the fact that they betrayed me, lied to me, the idea of her stumbling intoanothergang’s territory is even worse.

It’s enough for my fear to overcome me. Even though I’m not sure I actuallywantthe answer—not with the three of them looking grim enough to put shards of ice in my veins—I need Maddoc to tell me.

“Is this… is it about Chloe?” I whisper, the words like sandpaper as they leave my throat.

I swear to fuck, if he tells me she’s dead or was taken or something, I’m going to lose it no matter how determined I am not to look weak in front of these men. But Maddoc doesn’t draw it out or torture me. His eyes flick up to meet mine in the rearview mirror, and for just a fraction of a second, his gaze softens.

I swallow a sob of relief before it can escape, jerking my hand up to cover my mouth.

Maddoc’s eyes return to the road in front of him, his grip on the steering wheel noticeably tightening. “No. It’s not Chloe.”

“Then what’s up, Madd?” Dante asks.

“A West Point attack,” Maddoc bites out, causing Dante to punch the seat next to him and let loose with a stream of curses, while Logan goes dangerously still.

Maddoc rattles off a few more details that obviously mean more to his seconds than they do to me, and before I have time to settle my emotions, we arrive at a run-down building that looks abandoned.

A small group of men are stationed around it, looking cagey, but I can tell by the tense way they all go on alert when Maddoc gets out of the Escalade that they’re Reapers.

“Report,” Maddoc snaps, striding toward the entrance with Logan at his side. Dante takes my elbow and pulls me in next to him, following behind.

One of the Reapers starts spitting out details of the attack, but goes quiet when a woman walks out of the building. A woman with blood on her.

My heart drops. The sight is too close to my worst fears about finding Chloe. But then her eyes flick toward me and I recognize her from having met her at the Reapers’ house a few weeks ago, and I realize it’s notherblood. And she’s not my sister.

I repeat that part to myself, trying to slow my heart rate.It’s not Chloe.

---