Page 115 of Brutal Collateral

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Ava

“Get back to the house,” Griffin hollers at my guard. “She’s coming with me.”

“Don’t yell at Bourne,” I mutter.

“I pay him, I’ll yell at him. I’ll beat him to a pulp if he fucks up, and I’ll even kill him.”

“Now you sound like my psycho brother Ares.”

“He’s starting to grow on me.” Griffin pushes me against the car. “You, on the other hand...”

“Yeah?”

He shoves his sweatshirt at me. “Put this on.”

“Aw, you’re jealous.”

“Get in the car.” He leans forward. “You don’t want strangers hearing what I have to say to you.”

“Yikes.” With the car door open, I climb into the backseat of the Escalade. “I like my Lexus better.”

“Deal with it.” Griffin slams the rear passenger door closed.

I shudder, thinking it’s lust bubbling in his veins making him all edgy and irate.

“Can you just tell me what I did to annoy you?” I hold the sweatshirt against my chest.

He barks a laugh and slaps his grass-stained knee. “I only wish I had a damn whiteboard to write them all out with big letters. First, you left the house without me.”

“You’re kidding? I’ve been in and out on my own for weeks.”

He grips the back of my neck. “When we go to an event, we go theretogether, and we sure as shit come home together.”

“Events? This was a soccer game, and I went to get ussnacks,” I argue, even though I left to do exactly what he’s accusing me of.

Irritating him, when I know he would have liked to fool around more. So did I. But I can’t get close to him. He’s giving me a gift of freedom. After we get married, I have to figure out how to get a new solid fake ID. One that will prevent both Shane with his cyber skills and Atlas with his tracking methods from finding me.

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