Page 61 of Deadly Little Hearts

Hazen turns around, staring out the window.“Ah, Amirah is coming, and she looks pissed off.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh.These fucking girls will be the death of me.

A few minutes later, my office door flies open, and Amirah storms in, her hair flying wildly behind her shoulders.Her security detail waits outside the door.

“Yes, Amirah?”I ask, cocking my head to the side.

“So, what, now I can’t even go outside our front door without someone glued to my ass?”she snaps, bracing her hands on the edge of my desk.

Fucking hell, just what I need today—another headache to deal with.She’s clearly just found out I’ve assigned a new guard to her this morning.We finally have enough resources with the new recruits.

“It’s for your own protection,” I say, glancing back at the paperwork scattered over my desk.

“I don’t want to be holed up in the house all day.I wanna help,” she whines.

I move around the desk, standing in front of her.“Absolutely not,” I growl.

There’s no way in fucking hell she’s helping us—it’ll get her killed.She’s safer at home, preferably locked up with nowhere to go.As much as I love my sister, this isn’t the life for her.The Brotherhood is run by men, and men only.I can’t risk her getting hurt.Our enemies will use her to get to us, and I’d murder every last person in Daring before I let that happen.

“Please, let me do something.Anything.I’m going crazy,” she says, looking up at me with her puppy-dog eyes.Fuck.She knows exactly how to win me over, much like her best friend, who I’m surprised isn’t here in Amirah’s corner, egging her on.

“Fine.Get Freya and go train with the new recruits—brush up on your skills.You both need to be able to protect yourselves if, God forbid, we can’t,” I say, moving back around the desk.

“Thank you.”

I look up to find Amirah beaming, and I frown.Normally, she wouldn’t be so enthusiastic about self-defense.When I’ve suggested it in the past, she couldn’t care less.I expected more of a fight.

She leaves, and Hazen shuts the door behind her and watches through the window while she crosses the training field with her security detail.

“You know Freya’s not going to back down.She doesn’t want this war,” Hazen says, and I let out an exhale.

“None of us do, but they declared war on us when they blew up our guard station and the town hall.If there was any other resolution, I’d jump at it.But if we back down now, we’ll appear weak to our men, and we can’t afford that.There are a few who still don’t trust us to lead, and I’m starting to question myself too.I won’t allow this to overpower us.We need to make a stand and fight back.We’ll deal with Freya when she comes breaking down our door.”

Hazen nods.“For now, we need to oversee these new recruits.”

Fuck, I hope they are strong enough to stand beside us and fight.There’s a war coming—whether we’re ready or not.

Chapter 32

Freya

Buzz,buzz,buzz.

I groan, rolling over, snuggling back into the pillow.Shut that thing up.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

“Get your fucking phone,” Gage grumbles from next to me, before wrapping his arms around my stomach, holding me in place.I relax into his embrace, ready to fall back asleep.

The buzzing continues.My eyes peel open, and I release a heavy breath before untangling myself from Gage and reaching for my phone on the table next to his bed.

The screen lights up, and I roll onto my back.Seven missed calls from my mother.My stomach drops.I haven’t heard from her since I walked out and vowed to never come back after she relapsed and said all those nasty things to me.I was done, but now, seeing all these missed calls, I can’t ignore her.She might be in trouble.

Without thinking twice, I roll out of bed.Gage’s soft snores fill the room, and I hope to fuck he stays asleep.I’m too tired to argue with him about this.I need to make sure she’s okay.Even though I want to cut ties with her, leave her and let her ruin her life, there’s still part of me clinging to that tiny piece of her that I saw when she was off the drugs.The kindness she showed me.It was so nice to have her care about me and where I was.Yeah, it was also annoying, but at least she gave a shit.

As quietly as I can, I grab my sweatpants and hoodie, put them on, and step into my new Crocs.Lucas insisted that I needed a pair, and next thing I knew, they were on my bed, along with a bunch of other clothes.

Stepping away from the bed toward the door, I check my phone again.I hit dial, and it rings and rings before she picks up.

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