CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
“I pretended that I was on a date with Zara in the Underground.” When her eyebrows rise just a hair, I stress the key word again.
“Pretended. It was fake. Axel is not allowed down there, so I made it uncomfortable when he stormed the place.” I think she’s questioning my character, so I go back to dialing the man himself.
“It’s not important. But this is definitely payback. ”
Axel’s text about there being more than one way to skin a cat makes a lot more sense now. I’d applaud him if Sylvie wasn’t here.
She spins in a circle, as if she’s about to climb through a vent. “Or I walked into the lion’s den.”
More endless ringing.
“Goddammit.” I’m going to lose my fucking mind.
I deserve this because, occasionally, I’ve been kind of an asshole—a fun, creative, entertaining asshole, whose schemes have resulted in at least two marriages, but an asshole nonetheless. Still, why the hell would they put her through this? She is completely flipping out.
“I have to get out of here,” she mutters, and that anxiety plaguing her is my undoing.
Without completely thinking it through, I grab her by the throat and crash my lips to hers.
She’s shocked at first, but then she whimpers with what sounds like solace and relief, her body growing more pliant and relaxed with every stroke of our tongues.
This morning was not a fluke. Pure fucking sparks and magic in a simple kiss.
And purring. She’s absolutely purring.
She tastes like rich vanilla and a shot of luxury whiskey. Crème br?lée and the river card that wins the whole goddamn game.
Her pulse batters under my fingertips—maybe from the adrenaline of being caged, but, fuck, I hope it’s because she knows this is where she belongs.
Since we’re still dealing with sirens, flashing lights, and her claustrophobia, I pull back and rest my forehead against hers. “You’re okay. I’ve got you, Sly.”
“You have to stop doing that,” she whispers, just loud enough for me to catch above the racket, her eyes glued to my lips.
“I’m not sure I can. I’ll do whatever is necessary to take care of you. If you need a knee-weakening kiss to calm the hell down, then I’m your man. Devoted to the cause.”
She smiles, but it’s brittle. More of that pain from this morning.
I could kill that asshole for what he did to her.
Once I get her out of this mess, I probably will kill him.
Maybe with his game-winning hockey stick.
That would be a nice touch. And still, I don’t think that will be enough retribution for everything he stole from her. She’s terrified of trusting anyone.
Her sister isn’t a whole lot better, but I’ll try to hold my tongue since Sylvie wants to forgive her.
Eventually, even the strained curve of her lips fades. “Once something is left on the table, you don’t keep picking it back up.”
“Well, there’s the issue.” I pause because my hand is still on her throat, and we’re having this conversation in what might as well resemble a lockdown cage at a bank robbery, though none of that seems to matter.
“I am a card shark. I never lose. I know when to fold and when to go all in because there’s a windfall at stake.
And I would never leave you on the table, Sylvie Palmer. ”
She gapes at me for a good twenty seconds, her chest heaving and her eyes flecked with conflict and red and blue speckles from the swirling alarm lights, until she finally shakes her head.
“I couldn’t hear you over the sirens, so let’s just stick to the original plan.
And please don’t allude to us being anything more in front of your family. ”
Knife in gut.
“I need you to leave it on the table,” she tacks on, her voice quavering. A plea.
And the knife twists.
As if to punctuate the prank angle at the most perfect moment, the chorus of Steve Miller Band’s “Take the Money and Run” blares over the speakers as the penthouse door finally opens.
“Go ahead,” Maddox croons with Axel standing by his side, grinning like the Joker, “clean us out, Little Bandit.”
“I swear to fuck, man.” I swat for them to move so I can bring Sylvie inside. “I told all of you that I wanted her to feel at home, so you staged a damn sting?”
I’ve barely finished snapping at them when Sylvie and I both spot the massive Welcome banner on the family room wall.
“Dear fuck,” I hiss.
“Is that a …” She trails off because you’d really need to either be part of this insane family, have been on the text thread earlier, or have stared at a lot of therapist ink splotches to be capable of finishing that sentence.
“A Venn diagram?” I throw my hands out, my gaze skating across every one of them—all trying to appear as though they’re deep in analytic thought over this obscene art.
“In the shape of hearts,” Jax supplies. “It kind of looks like”—he stalls there, and that’s an appropriate place for one of his pauses—“something else. And given the subject matter …”
“It’s not a blue female body part, is what he’s trying to say.” Tessa huffs with her trademark irritation for moronic moments. “Despite the labels.”
Yeah, the labels.
The left side of one blue heart reads friend, the right side of the other reads foe, and the overlapping area, which is a slightly darker shade, is inscribed with the word feline. Naturally, they titled it, The Saga of Sylvie and Cash.
Sylvie’s jaw drops open with a quiet little whine. “Is it blue for a reason?”
Ryker and Mercy are so undone; they can’t even look this way anymore. Mercy’s going to pop that baby out. Or, at the very least, pee.
“Jax likes blue,” I volunteer while glaring at my family.
“Like the ocean,” he sings with a creepy-ass grin, as if he’s fucking Willy Wonka.
Sylvie shivers beside me, and I can’t blame her. We might as well be trapped in a trippy funhouse.
Enter Remy. Apparently, no one is too young to be an active participant in this bedlam. He blasts through the great room, his hands stained blue and Bernard—the dog—nipping at his heels and wearing a T-shirt with the same illustration.
“You had Remy help paint the vag—Venn diagram?”
“His talent knows no bounds,” Maddox quips.
“I swear to fucking hell,” I start, my hand diving into my hair, only to be interrupted by Zara stepping forward.
She opens her arms to Sylvie and laughs hysterically. “That was a beautiful performance.”
Sylvie hugs her back in a long-lost-friend embrace. “Thank you for including me. It was the highlight of my day.” She peers over at me. And winks. “You ganged up on me with my mom first.”
Evil. Vixen.
“She’s got one hell of a poker face,” Axel commends, hands in his pockets and donning the pride of the duplicitous godfather.
Ryker piggybacks on that. “And she’s a damn good bluffer. It was a convincing panic attack.”
Maddox feels mildly guilty, so he finishes by laying out the brutal reality. “She really had you goin’, but it’s all good, man.”
They set me up and sat in here like hysterical schoolgirls, watching it all play out on some security screen.
And Sylvie jumped at the chance to give them a show.
Of course, the only moment I wish were part of the ruse wasn’t.
I wonder if them alluding to us being more—like she was against—is bothering her.
Maybe they didn’t fill her in on all the particulars.
“You were in on this?” I wave my hand around, from the no-longer flashing lights to the weird vagina diagram.
“Zara gave me her number in San Francisco. I contacted her earlier, and she added me to a chat. We’ve been texting since I decided to come.
I wasn’t sure about staying with you, but they assured me it would be worth my while.
” She beams, practically glowing, too cute to strangle—or not. “It definitely was.”
The family greets her with hugs that seem far more familiar than I expected, and she laughs the whole time, proud of pulling one over on me, while I simply observe. Although, once in a while, she shoots me a skeptical glance.
When she gets to Jax, he wraps her up with an ear-to-ear grin. “Got the bike. I love the new paint job.”
I arch an eyebrow in question because I haven’t heard shit about this.
“Sylvie sent me the Yamaha, painted blue.”
My pulse ratchets higher, and my throat dries. “And you failed to mention this because …”
Jax does that thing where he sees too deep. He flicks his pale blue hair off his forehead, gathering his thoughts. “It was before Cinco de Mayo. She was just … returning what she’d borrowed. It slipped my mind.”
It didn’t slip his mind. He mentioned when it was because what he doesn’t want to say is that he thought I’d get in my head about it, which might have kept me from going after her in Texas.
He’s right that it would’ve fucked with me—her sending him something, even for a valid reason, when she kept brushing me off.
But I don’t think anything could keep me from chasing this girl.
It’s like there’s a force propelling me toward her.
The same force that’s pushing her away maybe.
Of course, this afternoon, she chased me down in that hallway to tell me she’d come here. And whether she knows it or not, that had something to do with our kiss in the ocean.
She thinks I’m pissed that she bonded with my family and conspired against me, but she’s got it all wrong. Her fitting with the people who mean the world to me only has me ready to double down.
I shrug off my jacket, fold it over a dining room chair, and lean to rasp in her ear, “You aligning with my family makes this a whole new game, Sly.”
She rolls her shoulders back, her fierce confidence meeting me toe to toe. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Welcome to La Lune Noire, baby. All bets are off here.”
Fuck leaving anything on the table. She’s mine.