Page 72 of Battle Lines

“Phillip,” she said, relief threading through the syllables of my name. I preferred Bodhi, but I wouldn’t chastise her for not using it. “I didn’t know you were in here.”

“No one did,” I assured her. The shock that cracked through Reed’s fury dissolved back into anger again. His world was definitely taking a battering tonight. It was a problem when you played games with other lives. Sometimes you found your life being bartered about or, worse, overlooked entirely as the antes kept going up. “Do I need to make him bleed?”

No one else had bothered to answer me, so I would go to the one who mattered at the moment. I liked Lainey B. I always had. She’d been a kind child. A gracious teen. Now, she’d grown into a beautiful woman. She was also PPG’s best friend. How cool was that? Small world didn’t usually apply, but then our rarefied world was so tiny, it was practically inbred.

“No,” she said softly on a sigh. “You don’t. He didn’t take anything from me.”

I nodded slowly, but the jerk of surprise out of Graham wasn’t lost on me. Had he expected her to give a different answer? Maybe he and I should have this conversation alone and he could tell me what he thought happened.

Perception was always worth exploring.

“Why are you in here, Cavendish?” Reed asked abruptly.

“Talking to Lainey B,” I informed him, then reached up to strip off my mask. It was hot inside it anyway. I raked a hand through my hair. “Just like you three.”

“Bodhi,” Hardigan said.

“Milo,” I responded. If we were going to be on first names, I appreciated his use of my preferred one.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Milo continued.

“That’s half the fun,” I admitted. “No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

Lainey laughed, the sound so abrupt that it fell from her unfiltered. Her smile, the rare true one, lightened Reed’s frown and relaxed Graham’s guilt. For Milo though, he dipped his gaze to her and there was a genuine affection he didn’t bother to shield.

“The family was invited,” Reed said. “You’ve never come to a Masquerade before.”

“You sound certain,” I told him with a shrug. “Isn’t the point to be anonymous?”

“Yes,” Lainey said. “Apparently, we’re all terrible at it.”

“No,” Milo said, as he cut a look toward Graham. “You were doing fine. There are some who don’t know how to behave.”

“Considering you threw the first punch,” Reed countered. “I think you might want to reconsider that accusation.”

With a sigh, Lainey turned toward the others. “Maybe we should table this discussion for another time.”

“Don’t stop on my account,” I offered. “I’m a vault. You don’t want someone to know, I can keep it to myself. I can also kill anyone else who knows too—if you need it that private.”

“Does it cause you physical harm to be serious?” Reed asked me with a shake of his head.

“Who said I wasn’t being serious?” I was curious. “If Lainey B wants privacy, then I have no problem making sure her secrets stay that way.”

“Phillip,” she said as Reed made a face and stalked away from all of us like he needed to pace it off. “Or do you prefer if I use Bodhi?”

I shrugged. “You can call me whatever you want, Lainey B.” I didn’t like Phillip, but it was a name. It wasn’t so bad when she said it.

“Lainey,” Graham said as he took a step forward. Both Milo and Reed snapped their gazes to him, but he ignored them in favor of her. They were between him and her. That was fine. She could handle him. If not, I was right here.

“Ezra,” she said with a sigh. “This isn’t the time or the place. You want to talk, we can make an appointment. But—”

“But what?” he interrupted. I debated taking a seat, but I settled for leaning against the back of a little loveseat. It gave me an easy view and access. “Why can’t we talk now?”

“Because she doesn’t have to do a damn thing she doesn’t want to do,” Milo informed him. Good man.

“It must really burn you to know she wanted me.” That declaration had me raising my brows, but I wasn’t the one who moved.

“Wanted you?” Reed said. Three syllables delivered in the softest voice. Oh, look at that, the lights turned on. His head reared back as he finally put all the puzzle pieces together. I’d figured it out from the way Milo kept his rage narrow and focused. Graham had been playing in Lainey B’s honey pot, which was not okay in Milo’s world. But he wasn’t angry at her, so it wasn’t the fact they had sex.

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