Page 90 of Awry
“And you.You fucking let him in there.”
“How would you have kept him out?”
Rath’s nostrils flare.Yeah, he’s got no answer to that quandary.The same as I hadn’t when Reck stormed in after Grinder got called away.
The timing was too perfect.Reck was obviously tailing Grinder, had seen him bring in the unaffiliated bikers, then waited.But now that I had all of Reck’s bugs identified, he wouldn’t be able to gain such easy access to any club-related business.
I need to check all the club members’ phones, at least those of the inner circle.And vehicles.That would take days.More days away from Zaya.Because she’s secure on the oceanside property, and my eldest brother is a fucking asshole.
Rath and I are both staring at the fuzzed-out vid feed to the interrogation room, in which Reck might be slowly and methodically beating our prisoners to death, as if something might miraculously appear on it.
A notification flashes at the top corner of the monitor, informing me that my script has finally broken through the last layer of encryption on Reck’s phone.
A picture fills the screen.
The item that Reck deemed so valuable that he hid it under at least ten years’ worth of encryption is … a single picture.
No.Not just valuable.
Cherished.
Doc clears her throat.
“Um …” Presh says, her voice suddenly far away because every atom in my body, every sense, is trained on the photo stretched across my monitor.“Is that … Zaya?”
Zaya Gage, age seventeen, her skin as sun kissed as it ever got, her light-brown hair streaked blond — she’d tied lemons in it that early summer — is sprawled out on a towel … on the beach.Sunlight catches in the dusting of sand that is the only thing covering her.No tan lines.Nothing but miles of smooth skin, punctuated by small fucking perfect breasts tipped by dark, tight nipples.
I’m instantly and inappropriately hard, straining against my suddenly way-too-fucking-tight pants.
Just staring.
Because Zaya is gazing up at whoever is taking the picture — Reck, obviously — a vibrant purple ringing her bluish-purple eyes, lush lips slightly parted on a moaning smile.And that flush across her cheeks … that look in her eye … she’s either just orgasmed or is in the fucking process of coming.
I tear my gaze off Zaya’s face — before I fucking come in my own pants.Because apparently, her orgasming in a fucking picture can trigger me almost as much as it can in person.My gaze traces down past the nipple that Zaya is pinching, to … the picture doesn’t show anything much lower than her belly button, but she has her other hand pressed there … pressed over someone else’s hand … long fingers, slightly darker, suntanned skin splayed across her stomach … holding her in place …
And the angle is wrong for it to be the hand of the person taking the picture …
“What the fuck!”Rath snarls, lunging forward, his hands on my desk as if he’ll be able to refute what he’s seeing if he gets closer to the monitor.
He put it together quicker than I did.
In my defense, Zaya is fucking stunning when she orgasms.
It’s the three red-jade rings, worn on the first three fingers of the hand partially hidden under Zaya’s hand, that click the image together with the act that’s been immortalized and hidden on Reck’s phone.Rath’s rings.A gift from Zaya that summer, from a trip to Hong Kong with Disa the winter before.
Those rings shattered, I believe, that night when we fought for Zaya’s life and lost … lost everything.At least I’ve never seen Rath wear them after.
“I’m going to fucking murder him!”Rath shoves back from the workstation, knocking the stool aside and almost clipping Presh with it.
In the days leading up to the day that Zaya died — was murdered right in front of us — Reck somehow snapped a picture without Rath knowing, while Rath was eating Zaya out.Likely the three of them had been fooling around together, totally consensually.And Zaya could have easily stopped Reck from taking the picture …
“Whose picture is that?”Presh asks, getting pissed now.“That’s private.You shouldn’t be looking at it.You shouldn’t have been looking for it in the first place.”She leans around me, reaching for my keyboard as if she can somehow delete the picture.
There is no fucking way I’m deleting that fucking picture.
“It’s not ours,” Rath says.“Leave it, Presh.”
Precious rounds on our brother as if she wasn’t just totally babying his wound a moment before.She’s tiny against his huge bulk, but she glares up at him defiantly.“She saved me!She’s my friend … my mentor.”
