Page 31 of Beautiful Exile

I fist pumped to the drumbeat of the song blaring from my speakers as I spotted someone pulling out of a spot up ahead. Iquickly snagged it and hopped out of my truck. Turning to face Brutus, I held up the leash. “You know the rules, buddy.”

His head dropped as he gave me a disdainful look.

“I’m sorry. But you know Trace will write both our asses a ticket if we don’t follow the rules.” As if I’d summoned my siblings by words alone, my phone buzzed in my pocket.Kye has changed the group name to We Know What You Did.

Kye

Spoiler alert. Not only did Arden almost slice Linc’s carotid, she also threatened to have Brutus rip off his hand.

I scowled at the screen.

Fallon

Uh, A? Do we need to go over those play-nice-with-others lessons again?

Jesus.My siblings would never lay off me now. I was going to kill Kye.

Kye

Oh, she wants to play REAL nice with Linc-y Linc. Especially when he’s sparring shirtless.

Oh, hell.A flurry of texts appeared all at once.

Shep

Is he making you uncomfortable, Arden?

Trace

Do you need me to talk to him? Explain things?

Cope

I’m going to kill him.

I opened the camera app, took a picture of myself flipping the bird, and sent it to the group chat.

Me

That was for Kyler and Kyler alone.

Rhodes

Shit. She formal-named you. Duck and cover.

Me

For the rest of my 82 million big brothers, I can take care of myself. Big dog, brown belt in jujitsu, always has a knife or Taser. Remember?

I didn’t wait for an answer, I simply flicked the phone to silent and shoved it into my pocket. I could hear Trace’s warnings about a silent phone being a security risk ringing in my ears. But I didn’tcare. I’d left WITSEC at eighteen for a reason: to live. But I wasn’t sure I’d actually done that.

It was time.

Squaring my shoulders, I lifted Brutus’s leash and motioned for him to hop down. He did as I instructed but sent me baleful eyes as I hooked the clip to his collar. “I know, buddy,” I said, giving him a pat. “I’ll give you some turkey when we get home.”

That had his tail wagging and booty shaking. Turkey and hamburgers were his favorite.

Wrapping his leash around my hand, I headed for The Collective. Brutus was great in town, happy to be at ease with new things to sniff and people to see. Unless someone made a move on me, he would behave just like every other happy-go-lucky pet. But some people gave him a wide berth anyway. I got it. He was massive, but he was also the sweetest dog you’d ever meet.

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