Page 166 of Brutal Collateral

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Ava

We clean up as muchas we can and return to the ballroom. I hold my head up high, adjusting my tiara after my husband gave me an ass pounding I’ll never forget.

He stands a little taller, too, leading us back to our table in time for dinner.

I swear, Griffin bites into his prime rib, tearing meaty flesh from the bone like a primitive Neanderthal, grinning wickedly at Ares. He’s bursting with the secret of what he just did to the Greek king’s sister.

The sister Ares forced him to marry, and now we’re having a ball. I could have sworn Griffin almost told me he loved me. It’s been a few months, we can be in love, right?

Falling in love isn’t something either of us wanted. It crept up on us. So why didn’t he say it? Maybe he thought saying it with his cock in my ass was rude, and I wouldn’t take him seriously. But he’s most vulnerable when we make love.

Yet he madeI love youmy safe word.

Sneaky bastard.

We say our goodbyes before dessert, signaling we’ve had enough.

Griffin reaches for my tiara and gently takes it off my head. He shoves it roughly back at Ares and hisses, “She wearsmycrown from now on.”

Without an actual goodbye, he steers me into the lobby. We drive home in Griffin’s Escalade, Bourne riding with Ace in the third row. My husband kisses me deeply, then gets on his phone to call his brothers.

There’s still theRand Miller thinks I tried to kill himcrisis to deal with. It’s a quick call with the low murmuring of a plan that Griffin will hopefully share with me. Connor, Shane, Trace, and Rhys are waiting for us in the townhouse by the time we get home.

Inside, Griffin openly kisses my mouth in front of his brothers and cousins then says, “Get the hell out of that gown and meet us in my office.”

I half expected him to tell me to go to bed and let the men handle it. Excitement rushes through me as I lift my skirt to jog up the stairs. Tulle rustling around my sticky legs, I feel the result of Griffin’spunishmentwith every step.

I love it.

When I strut into the office wearing jeans and a T-shirt, Griffin is sitting at his desk loading different guns with silencers. Shane is perched in a chair opposite him while the others are pacing like caged tigers hungry for a kill and the taste of the enemy’s blood.

Before today, Rand Miller wasmyenemy and a nuisance to Griffin. But he crossed a line threatening me, and now it looks like he won’t see another sunrise.

Shane invites me to help him and after a few minutes, I realize he’s hacking into the US Navy. Using backdoors I know from my days at the CIA, we’re watching pages of data scroll down on the wall-mounted flat-screen monitor, at a rate that hurts my brain.

---