Chapter 23 #2
“Hm,” he hums, leaning down to kiss me again. “We better go,” he murmurs, deepening the kiss. We start getting lost in each other. Ryder bangs on the door again, and we spring apart.
“Come on!” Ryder yells.
“We’re coming!” Gage yells back, then looks at me again, waggling his eyebrows. “Well, we already did.”
I shove him off me with a laugh. “Let’s get cleaned up.” I go to slide off the bed, and Gage grabs my arm.
“You okay with what just happened?” he asks with so much worry that I can’t help but kiss him again.
“More than okay,” I tell him and feel that tug on my heart again.
There’s something about Gage that’s drawing me to him, and it has from the first time I saw him, even tied in Alessa’s basement.
Now I just need to figure out what it is.
Les sits across from Gage and me at the table on the patio.
Her elbow is on the table, and her chin is propped in her hand, just staring.
Her brow is furrowed, and her eyes are swinging between us.
It’s unnerving, and I feel myself fidgeting in my chair.
Gage is relaxed and leaning back in his chair, staring her down the same way she’s staring at us. I wish for his level of calmness.
“Something happened,” she finally says, and I can’t make out the expression on her face.
“It did?” Gage asks, sitting up and leaning his arms on the table.
She props her chin in both hands and looks cuter than hell. “Uh-huh. First of all, Ryder said he went to get Leo, and you answered,” she says, talking to Gage. “Second, Leo is looking forty shades of guilty. Third, you look like you just won the fucking lottery.”
Gage grins. “I did when I got you, Pretty girl.”
She rolls her eyes. “Cut the shit. What happened?”
He leans back in his chair and throws an arm on the back of mine. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he says.
She drops her hands. “I would.”
“How bad?” Gage asks with a smile.
“Please,” she begs, realizing she was messing with me a minute ago. She turns her pleading eyes to me when Gage doesn’t answer. “Please,” she says again, poking her bottom lip out.
I exchange a look with Gage, and he shrugs, letting me know he doesn’t care what I tell her. I look back at her; she has the cutest, most hopeful look. “We got…acquainted with each other.”
“How acquainted?” she asks, crossing her arms on the table, all ears.
“We messed around,” I say, unsure how much I should tell her.
Gage snorts. “If you call coming all over pretty boy, then yeah, we messed around.”
Her mouth pops open, and her eyes go wide. “You did?”
I can feel my face flush with heat, but it isn’t from embarrassment. I’m remembering everything that happened upstairs. If Ryder wouldn’t have interrupted us, what would have happened? That thought has my dick rock hard again.
“I should not be this turned on by that,” she laughs.
“You like that idea, don’t you? You dirty girl,” Gage replies with his own laugh.
“Duh,” she deadpans. “Two hot as fuck dudes sweaty and giving in to their desires? Holy shit,” she says, fanning her face with her hand.
I adjust myself discreetly as I can. “Shut up,” I tell them with a laugh. I look at her harder when she glares at me. “Are you mad?” I ask with worry. She said she didn’t care. Did she change her mind?
“Yeah. Actually, I am.” She flips her hair over her shoulder, and my heart sinks. “I’m pissed because I didn’t get to watch.”
A relieved laugh bursts out of me. “Fuck, you scared me for a minute.”
“I told you I don’t care as long as it stays in this group.” She shrugs. “I wasn’t lying when I said it’s hot as fuck.”
“Why did you need him downstairs, anyway?” Gage asks with his arm still on my chair.
“Oh,” she laughs. “I forgot I actually had a reason. Tell your brothers to come over for dinner.” I raise an eyebrow. “That okay?” she asks.
“Yeah. I’ll message them. But why?”
She shrugs. “It’s time to put a real test to this alliance. They’re your brothers, Leo. I’d like to get to know them.”
I pull out my phone and send a group message to Evander and Mateo.
She returned my actual phone but told me it’s fitted with the same tracking as theirs.
There’s an underlying warning that if I fuck up, they’ll be able to find me.
She also said they use it in emergencies when someone isn’t picking up or thinks something might be wrong.
I let that fill me with the warmth that she’ll be worried about me instead of dwelling on the fact that if I skip out, they can find me.
Alessa wants you guys to come over tonight for dinner.
Evander
Why?
Mateo
She probably plans on stabbing us. ‘insert knife emoji’
No, dumbass. She wants to accept this alliance and get to know you guys.
Evander
What time?
“What time?” I ask Alessa.
“Six is fine.”
Six.
Evander
We will be there.
Mateo
Speak for yourself, bro. I don’t want to die today.
I roll my eyes before answering. He reminds me so much of Gage that it isn’t even funny.
She’s not going to kill you.
Mateo
How do I know this isn’t her and Leo is already dead?
Evander
You’re an idiot.
See you at six.
I lay the phone down. “They’ll be here.”
“Okay,” she says with a smile. “You looked like you were struggling there.”
“Mateo’s an idiot,” I laugh. “He said you were the one talking and luring them here to kill them.”
She grins. “If I were to kill them, I wouldn’t get blood in my house.”
“That’s reassuring,” I say with an eye roll.
Gage laughs. “You’re too easy to fuck with.”
“Who said I’m fucking with him?” Alessa asks with a perfectly straight face.
The longer I stare at her, the more she struggles to keep her composure.
She finally laughs, and I breathe out. Today made me nervous as hell of her, but not enough to back down.
My small fight with Gage opened my eyes to the fact that no matter what she does, I’m not going anywhere.
Whether that makes me fucked up, I don’t care anymore.
Now I have Gage too. No way in hell I’m walking away from the feelings they both give me.
I hear the patio door slide open, and Ryder steps out and walks over to the table.
He pulls out the chair beside Les, sits down, and lays a kiss on her lips.
She just smiles at him, and I don’t feel as much hate toward him anymore.
If these guys can make her as happy as she deserves, I can suck it up.
Dex ambles out behind him and takes the seat on her other side.
“Holden already knows about this, and he’s already looking into it,” Ryder says, pulling his phone from his pocket.
Les turns towards him. “Knows about what?”
“I got a picture of us from The Games and didn’t think much of it.” He slides his phone to the middle of the table, and we all lean in to look. It’s the perfect shot of us standing around with Alexey and Dmitri.
“Who’s it from?” I ask with a frown.
“It was sent anonymously,” Ryder answers before scrolling again. “These came in today.”
He scrolls through several pictures. One is Gage and Les on the bikes with me on the back, us walking out of Moretto’s bar, talking to Lucas and Landon, and one shot from Les and me walking into her beach house.
“Someone is following us?” I ask, looking around the table.
Ryder shakes his head. “I thought that at first. They aren’t following us. They’re following her. “
“How do you get that?” Gage asks, scrolling back through the pictures.
“What’s the common theme of those pictures?” Ryder asks, looking at Gage.
I frown, confused until it hits me. “She’s the only one in every one of them.”
Ryder snaps his fingers, pointing at me. “Bingo.”
“Come on,” Alessa snorts. “You really think I have a stalker?”
“I found this when I ran to Maximus earlier,” Dex rumbles, laying a folder on the table. He slides it to her. “It was under my windshield wiper.”
She frowns but opens it. When the pictures come into view, all color drains from her face. “How the hell did they get these?”
She hands them to me, and I flip through them with a queasy feeling. They are shots taken through the window of us the night at her beach house and then ones of me, her, and Gage at the cabin. Both show us in the throes of passion.
“That proves you have a stalker, Baby girl,” Dex says, and I realize he saw these pictures already.
I pass the pictures to Gage. “What does this mean?” I ask the table.
“Holden has my original phone, and he transferred everything to a new one so he can track it back to who sent them.” Ryder shrugs. “If anyone can find them, it’s Holden.”
“What does this mean for her?” I clarify. Who the fuck stalks the leader of the Mafia?
“She doesn’t go anywhere alone,” Dex says, looking at Alessa, waiting for her to argue.
“I don’t need someone to hold my hand, Dex. If I want to go alone, I will,” she replies, the frown on her face deepening.
“This isn’t something to mess with, Pretty girl,” Gage says, slapping the pictures in front of her. “Those are personal fucking pictures, so that means this is very personal. Stalkers are unpredictable.”
“Why are you explaining that to me like I’m fucking stupid? I can handle myself,” she says defensively.
“No one said you couldn’t, Il mio sole,” Ryder says, picking her hand up and kissing the back of it. “It would just make us feel better.”
She shrugs, but I know that’s far from an agreement. Alessa is going to do what she wants when she wanted. No matter what any of us have to say.
“Someone has to be fucking crazy as hell to stalk you, Baby,” I add. “That means they are capable of anything.”
“Exactly,” Ryder says, shocking me by agreeing.
She rolls her eyes. “It’s just some pictures,” she says dismissively.
It would take more than us to convince her she needs someone with her more than ever. I just hope she didn’t get hurt in the process.