Charring Bones (The KORT #4)

CHAPTER FOUR

GAGE

T he off-white string lights over our back entertainment area twinkle. The fire bowls blaze into the indigo sky. And the pool fountains bathe the space in a comforting gurgle. It’s late. Nearly midnight.

My mind is stuck in another life though, my days as Josh Ricci.

“Run away with me.” I cradle her gorgeous face in my palms, pleading with her to listen.

“What?” she scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve talked about this. My life is here. Our life is here.”

“Your life is with me. It can be anywhere we’re together.” Releasing her, I stride away, peering out at the secluded park behind the senior recreation center—the shade trees we’ve picnicked under, the bench where I first told her I loved her, the lake we skinny-dipped in one warm spring evening.

Christ, she was beautiful that night, like always. But bathed in moonlight and pressed up against me, prattling on about anything and everything to banish her nerves, she was stunning. And mine. She’s this perplexing mix of an old soul and a wild spirit in the same radiant package.

Nearly our whole relationship has been relegated to this place. Puzzles and Bingo played with those who are three or four times our age. I volunteer here four days a week so that when George brings her on Wednesdays and Fridays, it isn’t obvious to anyone else why I’m here. And I live for the minutes we can sneak away.

I need a second to breathe. I can never think straight in her presence, and time is ticking. Time is never on our side.

Her raspy voice softens. “Of course my life is with you. But why would we settle?” She pauses there until I turn, granting her my attention again. “I can’t be a Morelli anywhere else, and that’s kind of my entire skill set. Plus, once you complete the mission my father is sending you on, we’ll get to be together. Openly. Why would we throw it all away when we’re finally getting what we want?”

A jagged exhale falls from my lips as I place my hands on my hips and decide to disclose exactly what we’re in for. “It’s the Navy.”

“What?” she gasps, bewilderment creasing her forehead.

That was my first response too. Neither of us could have seen this coming.

This isn’t the first time I’ve pleaded with her to run away with me. The last time was shortly before she begged me to go to her father, request her hand, and tell him I would do anything to prove myself to him. I anticipated something grueling or challenging, possibly getting dragged out to the woods and executed. But not a four-year station.

“That’s what he’s insisting I do in order to earn you. I’m not supposed to tell you. But …” I dash over to her, whisking her into my arms so she coils herself around me like a koala. “Years, Ains. Years away from you.”

“Years,” she parrots, shaking her head in disbelief before burrowing her face into my neck. “I don’t get it. The Navy doesn’t make sense. What would my father—”

“His reasoning was extensive.” I huff out a sardonic laugh, holding her against me and petting her silky hair. “He said we’ll have an in with the government, that there’s no training as thorough, that I’ll emerge more deadly than any of his men, so I’ll be his number one asset. He’s also got someone he wants me to check out while I’m there, and apparently, he knows an officer who’s going to offer my name to the SEALs.”

She bolts upright in my embrace, and her face glows with something like pride, squeezing my chest. “Wow. I don’t know much about the Navy, but I know the SEALs are impressive.”

I want her to be proud of me—more than anything. That’s why I risked my life to petition her father. But I don’t think she understands what this entails.

Setting her back on the ground, I try to convey the seriousness of the situation. “I still have to do the work, pass BUD/S and Hell Week, which most don’t. If I don’t make SEALs, he won’t support us being together. And … none of that matters.” I step back and fling my arm into the air. “It will be at least four years before I’m back, Wicked. If I make it back. He doesn’t even want me to return on leaves because it will draw scrutiny. This is a plan to get me out of the way.”

She flaps her hand, refuting that. “If he wanted you out of the way, he’d kill you.”

You’d think. That’s been a concern since I started secretly seeing his daughter, but as cold as that man is, he values lineage. His hopes hang on the beauty in front of me.

“Not at the risk of losing you,” I argue. “This is a clever work-around.” I know it in my bones.

She rolls her lips together, considering. “It’s unexpected, but he wouldn’t go to the trouble of sending you there just to piss me off later. I think it’s a good sign. This sounds important, and he’s sending you. That’s big. It means he sees how brilliant you are and knows you’d be amazing in one of his leading roles. He sees what I see.”

Everything gets fuzzy when she talks like that. No one has ever referred to me as brilliant or believed I would amount to … anything. But Ainsley thinks I could conquer the world, and I’d gladly sell my soul to prove her right. But only with her by my side. Which is why her next words flay me open.

“It will be terrible to be apart, excruciating. But I’ll be here. Waiting.”

“With Nick,” I retort.

That’s who her family wants her with. How can she not see through this? Once I’m out of the way, they’ll engineer everything so she falls for him. I’m not blind to the way he and every other man in this town drool over her. And Nick can give her the life she wants easier than I can.

“No,” she insists, rushing to me and wrapping her arms around my neck. “I’ve been very clear with my parents that Nick isn’t an option. No matter how long it takes, I’ll be here waiting for you.”

Staring into her eyes—the Arctic blue my whole world resides in—I’m lost because I don’t know who I’d be without her. The feel of her melting into me, the lens in which she sees the world, the unlikely hobbies she’s gotten me addicted to. Aside from the puzzles, Bingo, and Scrabble that I’ve come to love, there are the black-and-white films and thriller-esque documentaries. And the fire inside her. She’s lethal, and I love it. Love her.

“How do I know that?” I ask—or more like accuse since she’s Ainsley Morelli, the Mafia princess who will own this town, with or without me. We both know that.

“Because you know I love you.” Her pillowy lips press to my jaw, sprinkling kisses across it. “More than anything.” On my cheek and hovering a hair’s breadth from my mouth. “There’s nothing more important to me than you.”

Everything in me wants to give in to her, to lose myself in her embrace, soak up every touch. But she’s being so naive, and I can’t let it go. “It seems like your family might be.”

Maybe that’s shitty. I’ve never had a family. My dad left us when I was four. No explanation. I don’t remember much about him, except that he was a mean son of a bitch. So, it was only my mom and me. She was great, until she wasn’t. Until her next fix was more important. More important than rent or food. Or me. Even on the good days, I could never have sacrificed Wicked for her though.

“They aren’t more important but …” Her eyes brim with tears. “My father accepting you, promoting you—we’ll have the world at our fingertips. We’ll be able to plan a future and have our own family. If we run … we’ll die running.” Her voice is so cold with that.

Maybe her parents aren’t much different from my mom, if what’s really happening here is that she’s afraid her father would kill us both. I doubt he’d ever put out a hit on his daughter, but that’s exactly what would happen to me if we ran. I’d still rather risk living a tentative existence with her in my arms over enduring a single day without her.

“The fuck we will,” I protest. “They come for us, and we go all Romans in Carthage.”

She holds her temples, as though she thinks I’ve lost my damn mind. “What are you talking about?”

“Tried-and-true method, Ains. You know the story. The Romans wanted to be sure Carthage couldn’t challenge their dominance. They didn’t just destroy them; they demolished that city so nothing could ever prosper again. We do the same. Scorch everything they touch—smoke those motherfuckers out.” I point, like I can see it, hoping she can envision the victory with me. “If they keep coming for us, we pick ’em off one by one. Stack the fucking bodies. And finally, we salt their goddamn land. Extinction.” I tick it off on my fingers, like a list. “Scorch. Stack. Salt.”

“You’re stunad .” Her arms fly out as she insists that I’m out of touch with reality. It’s never good when she starts spouting Italian American slang. “That’s my fucking family you’re salting.”

“The same family you just claimed would hunt us down and kill us, Wicked.”

She hangs her head, hands dropping to her hips, cloaked in utter defeat that cuts through me. “There’s two of us, an army of them, and we’re practically kids.” Her head snaps up with a sigh. “Even if we weren’t, no one makes it out. We’d struggle, and eventually, it would destroy us. Maybe even before they tracked us down.”

I’ve got nothing to debunk that. I’m twenty and uneducated beyond high school. She’s nineteen and accustomed to being pampered. Life wouldn’t be as cushy as she’s used to, but I’d find a way to spoil her, to give her everything she wants. And even if I couldn’t, it still doesn’t mean this scenario is better, alive or not.

“What if this destroys us anyway? You are the only reason I am even close to being whole. My missing piece. I’d rather die than live without you.”

“You won’t live without me,” she promises, caressing my cheek while her other arm wraps around her middle, probably sick, like I am. “Sometimes, loving someone means making hard choices, sacrifices. Make this one for me. For us. It will pay off in the long run. I know it.”

The memory is swallowed by the clinking of glasses. My breather amounted to a slow trek of our hundred-sixty-acre grounds, sputtering curses until I came back to the house to snatch a bottle of Knob Creek Bourbon. And got ambushed by the guys.

None of that encounter at the shelter was what I’d expected. My chest is cracked wide fucking open. I’ve waited years to seek revenge on Ainsley and her family. Fantasized of seeing regret and anguish paint her features.

But …

I’m not mad that her father is dead, that the assholes in his administration are dead, or that the sniveling creep she married is dead. Overjoyed. Wish I could’ve done it myself, but still …

I didn’t expect my heart to stutter when it got close to her, for my veins to pump harder when her coconut-seaside aroma invaded me, for my arms to ache in her presence. Not because I punched the wall or she stabbed me with a damn fork, but because my body is drawn to her. Apparently unable to recognize what a traitor she is. Even though she admitted it. Right to my face.

“She owned it all,” Wells says as I pace before him.

It’s not surprising that he’d respect that. He hates when people apologize or make excuses. He appreciates an individual strong enough to back up their choices, even when they’re unpopular.

She certainly nails that.

Ainsley never cowers. She’d hold her chin up while being executed. Tougher than most men I torture. That used to be a trait I admired in her. Now it proves how untrustworthy she is. Everything is a ruse. A manipulation.

“Ted Bundy confessed to his crimes too.” I slam the remainder of my drink with that logic, unwilling to entertain any angle where he sees her side. “We wouldn’t have considered harboring him.”

“She’s a hell of a lot cuter than Ted,” Liam quips, lazily sprawled out on a daybed, Modelo in one hand, Zippo flickering in the other.

My eyes slice to his in warning. No shame on his face. Eyebrows bouncing. Goading smirk in place.

It’s a lingering gibe from our Navy days when I showed them a picture. He made a smart-ass comment about his dick waiting in the wings when she dumped my ass. That was long before we knew she was two-timing me, but I still punched him. And he cackled like an asshole while blood spilled from his lip.

It was all a front anyway. Liam is one of the most loyal people I’ve ever known. He’d lay his life down for any of us—and has. And now he’s utterly obsessed with Celeste, his wife.

Not a threat.

Plus, the comments are expected. Catcalls, drooling, and salacious remarks are part of the package with Ainsley. She’s the kind of beauty that no one can ignore. Irresistible and unnerving, like a hundred-proof tequila ready to knock you on your ass. No matter how much you know you should, you can’t stop drinking her in.

That’s only intensified over the years. Her always-tan skin has a warm, golden summer glow from days in the sun. Her curves are slightly fuller, muscles more defined. Chocolate hair, highlighted with honey ribbons. Eyes a crisper glacial blue than the Arctic Ocean.

But I can’t bear for anyone to say it. No idea why I still care after what she did. I’m more fucked up than I realized. Fucking weak.

“She’s scared,” Ty interjects from his lounge chair, skirting anything about her appearance to jump right to his misplaced compassion.

“She should be. They won’t stop until she’s dead.” I pause there for a second because in all the ways we’re different from the psycho Morellis I once idolized, we’re also the same. “We wouldn’t stop hunting someone who took out members of our family either.”

They can’t dispute that.

Wells swirls his scotch. “Which begs the question, what made her do it?”

“Does it matter?” I return, peering out toward the shelter, not that I can see it from here.

I don’t want the reason to matter. I don’t want to sympathize. I don’t want to feel anything toward her but hate. That’s what she deserves.

“Of course it matters,” Wells bites out. “We’ve got a damn mess on our hands. One the two of you started.” He wags his index finger between Ty and me, as if we forgot that we were the ones who set this all in motion. “And Jared and Payne were apprised of it because we piggybacked the Noire trials off it. There’s no glossing over this. It’s ours to clean up. And I don’t have time for this shit. There’s a media conglomerate wreaking havoc. We’re trying to discreetly distance KORT from the Balzanos. Axel is still finding his footing. It’s been one thing after another.”

Jared and Payne are two other chairs on KORT—there are five total. And the problem with them knowing is, anything that puts the organization at risk is punishable by death. So, Ty and I—high-ranking KORT members—starting WWIII between three Mafia families is bad.

And the trials Wells is referring to were those held for Axel, Jax, and Rena. Axel took the fifth seat on KORT, but all three are permitted access. The reason it played a part is because the below-board dealings that we discovered regarding the Balzano foot soldiers were the catalyst to ousting Johnny Balzano—the chair who Axel stole the seat from. It’s still not common knowledge that the Balzano empire isn’t part of KORT anymore. They don’t make it a habit of announcing their inner workings. It’s all rumor mill. Right now, no one in the connected world would suspect that Axel holds that seat, which offers the organization advantages.

“What we know is, she’s a goddamn snitch,” I bark, caring very little about any mess other than the one in the shelter. “We’ve never aided snitches.”

Even Ty—our resident bleeding heart when it comes to mistreated women—would hedge on that. There are codes in these organizations. Defecting is one thing. Understandable. Helping the Feds take them down—unacceptable.

“Again, she’s a pretty little snitch,” Liam jeers with every intent of getting me to snap.

This time, my self-control wanes. I whirl on him, my delivery so calm that it should chill his bones. “Say it again, and I’ll rip out your tongue so you spend your days with only the memory of what your beautiful wife tasted like.”

He dips his chin to me as he raises a surrendering hand. “You win, Big Guy. I’d rather be dead than never feast on Ace again. Just wondering where your head is at after seeing her, and now …”

He swigs his beer and stares at me. So on-brand. Poking me until I lose my mind would be his preferred method of coaxing my psychological state out of me.

“Dipshit,” I snarl, halting at our outdoor bar to pour myself another glass of bourbon and flicking my gaze to Wells. “How’d she pull it off?”

“No idea,” he sighs. “I told you, she’s not talking. And it’s more complex than her being a snitch.” There’s a worry divot between his eyes, one I recognize. He’s conflicted. “Vargas claims she never gave them anything, which means the Bureau will prosecute her. She’s wanted by everyone.”

I groan, irritated by the nonsensical circles. “Then how does Glines’s death relate to her?”

“Vargas doesn’t know the specifics.” He swills the last drops of his scotch, setting the glass on the table before him. “But she was Glines’s contact for the last year or so, listed with Vargas as one to protect should anything happen to him. And Glines was building a case against the Morellis.”

So much about that gnaws at me. Ainsley is smart. If he was taking care of her, she may have had something Glines wanted. But he definitely had something for her.

“Glines called me,” I muse. “When I was out west. I was supposed to meet with him, but he never showed.”

“Not far from where you ran into the Morellis,” Ty adds. “That explains why they were out there. Not such a coincidental run-in after all.”

I found them at a tavern in Lake Tahoe that was near a house they used to convene at every August. It’s where they took their foot soldier recruits—spoiled them while simultaneously scaring the shit out of them. I took a trip down memory lane and was greeted with real-life mementos.

It was an odd time to stumble upon them there. A few months early. They must have been chasing Glines down.

“All signs point to Glines knowing your original identity,” Wells spits out. “That’s why I agreed to take Ainsley, even after I realized who she was.”

That effectively snatches my attention. I shake my head. “How would he have known that? No one other than General Denton knows and probably his team at the time.” I shrug, pondering who would have that information beyond the crew that erased us, and only arrive at one other source. “And the KORT chairs. None of whom would share that intel.”

Liam hops up to grab another beer from the patio fridge. “Could your feisty little Wicked have figured it out and told him? Maybe that’s what she wanted from him.”

“No. She was shocked,” Ty insists. “Looked like she saw a ghost.”

“The call. His murder. Her working with him and the Morellis being out that way. Too many coincidences. We need to get to the bottom of it. If someone knows who you used to be …” Wells dives a hand into his hair, patently stressed about this. “You know what a nightmare that is.”

He’s right. And Ainsley is a threat now, simply because she knows who I was and that I’m alive. We’re required by our agreement with the CIA to report anyone who identifies us. She has no idea how tangled up she is.

“And you didn’t get anything from her?” I probe, knowing he must have grilled her more than once since realizing who she was.

“Nothing, aside from the names of the deceased and that they were shot.” He whips out his Sour Skittles bag, mining for the reds and yellows. “Neither did Vargas or the girls. She never outright admitted that she did it before saying it to you. So, until we know what’s going on, what she’s hiding, she stays.”

And then what?

Ivy twists the measuring cup face down into the flattened dough to cut a biscuit while I knead another batch beside her. Flour everywhere. The house quiet. The world beyond our French chateau dark and still.

We spend an hour together almost every morning. Some days are reserved for conversations about the treats we’re whipping up. Others, she needs to work through something. It’s been one of the greatest honors of my life to be the one she shares her dawn awakenings with. Especially after she confessed to us what her mind was like after her PTSD. She’s introspective, and in the chaos of a bustling day, she can’t get all her deeper thoughts out. But here, they flow.

“Is it hard”—her head tilts to obtain a better view of my face as she frees the cut dough and tosses the circles onto a prepared baking sheet—“knowing she’s out there?”

It’s been four days since I discovered Ainsley was here. I’ve been avoiding her, which isn’t difficult. The shelter is at the far end of the property. Apparently, she was a flight risk after our run-in, attempting to sneak out and threatening to call Vargas. Ty and the girls managed to get her calmed down, but I’m not ready to see her. She’s already cut me into pieces. Part of me wants to kill her. Part of me wants to fuck her. And part of me wants to hold her. I’m losing my damn mind.

So, in the dim kitchen light, I tell Ivy the truth because that’s what we do here. “It hurts.”

She nods, edging a few inches closer to me to nuzzle my bicep with her head. “I bet it does.”

I slap my mound of dough down and begin rolling it out while she places her completed tray in the oven. We’ve been baking together for so long that we’re a well-oiled machine. That’s why, as she lines another baking sheet, I know she’s got more to say.

“Any chance you’d hear her out?”

That’s been rattling around in my mind for the last few days, so it’s a reasonable question. I’m sure Ainsley had her reasons for all the choices she made, just as she said. I’m even more certain that she was probably in an impossible situation, which evidently led to her flipping out and murdering the despicable men she had considered family. But regardless, she had known where I was in my Navy days, that I’d do anything for her, and she still didn’t contact me. Nothing was too impossible for that. I would’ve gotten her, brought her on base. She would have been safe. Cared for. There’s no excuse. We had methods in place. Plans and promises. So, whether she intentionally set me up or not, again and again, she chose someone else.

“I’m not a big enough man to forgive that,” I admit.

“Very few people would be.” She gathers some flour on her hands to banish the stickiness as she prepares to cut some more. “I’d kill Wells.”

That makes me chuckle. “ I’d kill Wells.”

She stops and smiles at me, eyes glossy with reverence. “I know you would.” After a few long beats, she switches directions. “Her eyes are telling.”

“A lot of people find them unnerving,” I agree, deciding not to mention that I never did. For me, they were the mark of a warrior with the vulnerability of someone who’d been forsaken, which felt like belonging. Maybe that was my problem all along.

Ivy’s focus is set on her task—slicing into the dough. “I’m sure that’s what the world sees. That’s not what I meant though.”

She doesn’t expand on that, and I don’t ask her to. My greatest truth is that I can’t go there right now. For a while, we don’t say anything. The house will be rising with the biscuits in about twenty minutes, so we simply enjoy the company, the work, the silence.

Finally, Ivy loads the last tray in the oven and breaks the quietude. “I think my mom is seeing Daniel.”

She mentioned something about that last week, but it was a flippant, off-the-cuff remark in one of our ridiculous, encrypted group chats. It was clear she wasn’t ready to discuss it.

Daniel O’Reilly is Ivy’s birth father. She only met him about a year and a half ago. Tom and Natasha Kingston raised her, but Tom passed away shortly after Ivy became acquainted with Daniel. Natasha was initially very standoffish with him, but it seems that’s changed.

“How do you feel about that?” I ask while wiping the workspace, grateful for a change in subject.

“It’s weird, you know?” She loads the mixing bowls into the sink and flips on the faucet. “My father wouldn’t have wanted my mom to be alone. In a way, I wish that could be me—the one who takes care of her. But realistically, I have to put Felicity first—this family first—and with my role … it’s complicated.”

She sighs, using her forearm to move a rogue hair off her forehead. “Her involved with anyone is complicated. Except Daniel because he’s lived it too. And then there’s the kids. She wanted a houseful and couldn’t have them … and she is the best mom. Besides, I’m sure she’s been lonely. And Daniel is good and kind. I guess I’m sad that my dad is gone, but also happy for her. I just hope it works out.”

That was a little jumbled, as her explanations tend to be when she’s shouldering everything. Daniel is also raising his orphaned niece and nephews, who Ivy worries about a lot. Honestly, she’d adopt and protect everyone she saw an ounce of good in if she could, but she’s right. KORT makes it all exponentially more complicated. Her mom knows too much to be with just anyone.

“It’s messy,” I commiserate.

“It is.” She hums, consumed by her dishwashing. “Anything worth fighting for is. Sometimes, pain is a sign of privilege. We only grieve because we got to love. Every time my chest aches for my dad, I remind myself to be grateful for it. Because I had the joy of being loved by him first.” She glances up at me, and the excruciating hole that Tom left in her is written all over her features, but still, it feels as though her words are meant for me. “This might not always hold true, but hardships can be reminders of the gifts. Tokens of a beautiful life.”

I curl her into my side and plant a kiss in her hair as Wells tromps down the stairs. His eyes meet mine with an awareness that his Little Storm is weathering a tough one today. He nods his appreciation and slides in behind her, taking my spot.

A few times a week, I venture out to the guards’ house to have a morning cup of coffee with Rex, Dante, and some of our other security guys. It fills the time in between my dawn baking and the tortuous workout Wells forces us to endure. I’m not a sissy. My day consists of various workouts that would make most grown men sob, but the Chief likes to run us, and in this heat, that often results in one of us puking.

So, I pluck a loaf of banana bread off the counter—that was the first thing we made this morning—pour myself a thermos of coffee, and head out. Thanks to Wicked, I haven’t been out there at all this week. The guards reside close to the shelter. But I’m done hiding out on my own damn property. She’s in my world now.

It doesn’t take long to get there in the golf cart. I park in their driveway, but hear voices out back, so I grab my sweet-bread contribution and amble around the side. But the sultry warble that twists everything inside me until my balls jump into my throat seizes me.

What the fuck is she doing over here?

Standing at the edge of the house out of view, like a damn creep, I watch as she blatantly flirts with both Rex and Dante. The shelter girls rarely talk to the guards. Most are too spooked by the entire male species when they first arrive, having been through unfathomable torment at the hands of one.

But not Ainsley. Her silky locks are cascading around her shoulders like a lion’s mane. She’s in a cropped tank top that leaves little to the imagination. Her cleavage is on full display, along with her taut midriff. Every muscle on her is both soft and chiseled to perfection. And her shorts are barely more than panties—a thin strip of material covering her pussy—showcasing her toned thighs, round ass, and the sun-kissed glow of her tan skin tone.

Jesus Christ, I want a fucking taste.

Dante sips his morning brew, chuckling at something she said, his eyes roaming over her above the rim of his cup. His stance is relaxed, elbow casually perched on the lip of the deck railing. I know fucking drop-your-panties posture when I see it. I’m going to rip his limbs off and make her watch.

Rex is lounging in a chair, eyeing them both suspiciously. He doesn’t know who she is, but he could tell the other night that she belonged to me. No doubt he’s uncomfortable.

“So, another woman came and left in the last couple of days. Weird, right?” She bats her lashes and licks her lips, and Dante eats right out of her conniving palm, following the motion. “Everyone else gets a placement. It’s starting to seem like I’m being held captive rather than being sheltered.”

“I’m sure it’s all with your best interest in mind,” Rex replies, kind but stern. “You’re in good hands here.”

“And if I wasn’t?” Her fingers glide down the strands of her hair in a subtly sensual sweep as she locks on to Dante—the weaker prey. “You’d help me if that weren’t the case, right?”

He smirks. “I get the feeling you’re not the one in need of protection. You’ve got an undeniable wild streak.”

Blood flow whirs against my eardrums like a siren. I’ve seen enough. I really don’t want to kill Dante this morning. I’ve always liked him. But the drool forming at the corners of his mouth is visible from here.

I storm toward them with my coffee in hand, my banana bread tucked under my arm like a football, and my temper flaring. “Morning chitchat is fucking over, guys.” Glaring at her as my feet stomp onto the porch, I add a clipped, “Wicked.”

Her shoulders slump slightly. She’s clearly unhappy to see me. But then there is the briefest second when her icy blues find mine and the world stops spinning. There’s pain and grief, regret and rage, all swimming inside them. Glaciers of pleas. I’d do anything to be the one to thaw them like I did back in the day. It’s gutting.

My heart rate ratchets higher, thrumming in my temple and neck and chest. Siphoning all the air from my lungs and blinding me to everything but her.

Thump-thud. Thump-thud. Thump-thud.

What happened, Ains?

And I loathe myself for that urge.

But I hate her more. For playing me, discarding me, setting me up. For the bewitching spell she seems to cast on me.

I drop the banana bread on the table with a resounding clatter , pluck my knife from my pocket, and snick it open, never taking my leer off her as I slit open the plastic wrap.

She swallows and lifts her chin with a sugary smile to the guys. “That’s my cue to leave. I’ll see you later, Rex, Big Guy.” Her benevolent expression drifts to me, lingering for long enough that I question if I’m being too harsh. But then she flourishes a coy grin and peers at Dante beneath the fringe of her thick lashes. “Same time tomorrow?”

Like he’s in a trance, he bobs his head. “You got it. I’ll bring the coffee.”

When Hell freezes over, motherfucker.

But in true Wicked fashion, she senses my objection and goes in for the kill.

“Coffee is good,” she purrs, offering me the slightest side-eye before planting her ogle on him again with a cocked brow. “But don’t be afraid to bring something stiffer .”

She flashes me a triumphant smirk with a wink and trots back to the shelter as we all watch her go—that plump ass swaying with a mouthwatering taunt. And I know right then, I have no interest in forgiving her, but I’ll be damned if I let someone steal her from me again.