Page 52 of Savage Hearts

We had been prepared for it when we’d decided to attack Daniel Hayes and his men, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow that we had been ambushed leaving that restaurant, or that Maverick had gotten hit.

A few more inches, and he could have been taken away from us.

I shook my head and exited my car, taking in the huge-ass mansion.

It was as ostentatious as it was big. It made a fucking statement to anyone driving by, and that was the way we wanted it.

It was better than the fucking house we grew up in.

I had vowed the night we were forced to leave that I would never step foot into that place again. Not until we were able to take back what was rightfully ours. And I kept that promise. The first time I stepped foot on that property was the night my brothers and I destroyed the Heartless Saints MC and killed Daniel Hayes.

We should have burned the house down after. It was still standing, and I didn’t think I could go back and resist the urge to burn it to the ground.

It was the place where the old bastard stabbed our mother to death and left her body on the bed for Maverick to find.

A fucking lesson, he called it.

All it taught us was that we were the children of a monster.

Perhaps that was why the house was still standing now.

To remind us we were nothing more than the savages the world said we were.

I went inside and looked around the quiet place.

It was barely nine in the evening.

Maverick was off at one of our clubs, trying to find the men who had attacked us, and Killian was off fuck if I knew where, doing fuck knew what.

He wouldn’t be coming home until late into the night, trying to avoid our little captive.

He would learn sooner or later that there was no avoiding her, so why bother trying?

I certainly wasn’t going to.

I grinned as I made my way up the stairs and headed directly to her room.

The light came through from the crack underneath the door, which told me she was still awake.

I opened it without knocking, and Mila jumped from her place on the bed, staring at me with wide eyes.

I grinned at her.

A hint of apprehension entered those fascinating sea-colored eyes of hers. Like every time I looked at her, I was hit with the urge to lose myself in them.

I was sure a man like me could drown in them if I wasn’t careful.

Without saying a word to her, I walked up and grabbed hold of her hand.

I tightened my grip a fraction. Not hard enough to hurt her—I didn’t want to hurt my little bird—but enough that she couldn’t escape me, and drew her close to my side.

She glared up at me, and I could feel my smile widening at the sight.

God, she was such a breath of fresh fucking air.

And that fire of hers… I was so fucking glad it hadn’t extinguished from everything that had happened so far. I was going to keep that fire alive for as long as I breathed, I vowed.

I couldn’t get enough of her.

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