Risky and Wild(18)

“Hate to be the one to tell you this, but your boy is a sucker for pretty girls.” I keep my smug smile in place, even though I'd hardly call myself pretty. Plain, unassuming, regular. My defense against the world. Somehow though, I feel like Royal can see right through it. “I didn't have to go nearly that far to get him talking. A few cups of coffee, some soup, bread. My information was bought and paid for with food.”

Royal stares back at me, his face going quietly blank before he puts on a smile again. Wow. He might have a lot of rage in him, but he sure as hell knows how to control it. The expression on his face though, it's a little bitter, laced with something that I can't quite place. Guilt, maybe?

“You see anyone following you before all this, Pint-Size?” he asks me, tilting his head slightly to the side as he studies me. There's that gleam in his eyes that tells me we're talking business again. “See anyone strange walking by here or at the office?”

I think for a moment, letting my arms drop by my sides as the smug smile slides off my face. Whatever this is, it's serious. I'll have to find another moment to rile Royal up later.

“I haven't actually seen anything, but there have been a few times this past week when I felt like someone was watching me.” I think about that broken porch light outside and get a chill down my spine. “Why?”

“Brent and your asshole brother brought you into this thing,” he says and then raises a hand before I can protest, gritting his teeth at me. “Don't,” he snarls, but I wasn't going to mention it again, the whole me calling Brent thing. I might be carrying around some guilt about that, but I'm not an idiot. This game that Royal's playing, it's all politics and I understand that better than anyone. Unfortunately, this particular game of politics has more at stake than sullied reputations or failed elections. People get hurt; they die. I swallow hard and refuse to think about what Royal's club would do to me if they found out. Would he let them hurt me? I can't decide on an answer to that question, and that's proof right there that we need to slow this thing down and get to know each other properly.

“Brent was working with the president of Mile Wide long before he decided to take a little holiday to come see you,” Royal says, lifting a brow at me. My heart starts to pound and my mouth pops open. “By the time he got your brother involved, it was already too late. Nothing you could've done would've changed things.”

“So it's …” The rest of my words hang unspoken in the air between us. It's not my fault? This isn't my fault? I feel so relieved, I could puke. But that doesn't change everything, my brain reminds me as Royal glances away for a moment to compose himself. I still made that call, so the intention was still there. Whether or not it changed the course of Brent's or Sully's or the VP's fate doesn't erase my own actions. “I see.”

Royal looks back up at me and takes a deep breath.

“They've been looking at you as a target for some time now. You are still the mayor's daughter,” Royal says with a smile, coming back over to me and putting his hands on my hips, making me bite my lower lip. “Even when you're shagging me.”

“Sure,” I say, but even as I'm pressing myself close to Royal, absorbing the hot heat of his body, my mind is putting things together. If someone wanted to screw with my dad, all they'd have to do was get his daughter and he'd be in the palm of their hand.

I lean up on my tiptoes, putting my mouth in range of Royal's when it hits me.

“Kailey,” I say as I pull back against the strength of Royal's arms. “I'm not the mayor's only daughter.”





“She's not answering,” Lyric says as she taps my mobile against her palm and paces in front of me, her hair waving softly around her shoulders, her body enticing even through the ugly skirt suit she's wearing. I think she might be a tad ticked off with me, but there's not a whole lot I can do. It's going to be hard enough to keep the club interested in protecting Lyric, so there's not much I'll be able to get them to do for her older sister.

“Let's go and find her then,” I say, knowing that there's no such thing as overreacting in this case. Taking out that many of Clayton's guys is going to come at a price. The only questions are when and where. I didn't completely drop a bollock on this one though; I had Glacier drive by that girl's place on his way home. He said she was inside with the lights on, that he didn't see anything amiss. Still, never hurts to be cautious.

Lyric turns to look at me, her face chiseled with anxiety.

“Should we take my car?” she asks, and I raise a brow at her. “I really don't want to get hijacked again tonight.”