Page 106 of Explode
Kai hadn’t said anything about Graham coming to the house so Iwondered what his visit was about. Once James stopped the car outside the house, I went inside to find Kai.
Even though we’d lived here for nearly two months, I still wasn’t usedto the grandeur of the house, it was a far cry from the crappy apartment Angel and I had lived in only a year ago.
“Kai?” I called when I walked through the foyer, only to be met withsilence. I carried on through the house intending to find Laura and ask her if she knew where Kai was.
Laura was our new head maid. She’d worked for Kai previously butquit when Hendrix took over and was one of the lucky ones to get out of Hollows Bay and not lose her life for going against Hendrix. When she heard Kai was still alive, she returned to Hollows Bay.
Because of her loyalty to him, Kai had offered her the head maid’sjob. She’d snapped his hand off accepting it.
As I was about to walk into the kitchen, two arms wrapped around mywaist, and I was pulled back against a firm body. Kai’s scent, my favorite smell in the world, wrapped around me, and I couldn’t stop the smile from breaking out on my face.
“You’re late,” he whispered in my ear, the promise of a spanking formy tardiness evident in his voice. He nuzzled his nose against my hair and took a deep inhale.
“Angel didn’t want to leave Edgar. I let her stay with Dean, he saidhe’ll bring her home later.” I spun around in his arms, immediately looping mine around the back of his neck. “I missed you.”
Kai smirked. “Don’t try and flatter me, baby, you know your ass isgoing to be punished later.”
“Why wait until later?” I said, my voice husky. I reached up andpressed my lips lightly against his.
His eyes darkened and his hands moved round to grab my ass. “I’dlove nothing more than to take you upstairs and fuck you until you’ve learned your lesson, Star, but there’s something I want to show you.”
Kai moved out of my arms but grabbed my hand and led me throughthe house. Nervous excitement zapped through my body. With Kai, I never quite knew what I was going to get, he could surprise me with a bouquet of flowers or my enemy’s head on a platter, it really could go either way.
He walked us to the door that would lead us outside, and as heopened the door, he gave me a gentle push so I had to walk into the garden first.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” The shouts from all around made me jumpback, but Kai’s hands grabbed my waist to steady me.
“What the hell?” I asked in a daze, looking around the garden to find ithad been decorated with bunting and balloons, and all the people I loved were here. “It’s not my birthday until next week.”
“I know, but we have plans, and I wanted you to celebrate with yourfriends,” Kai said from behind me.
“Our friends,” I corrected him as my mouth watered from the delicioussmell of the barbeque that had been set up in the garden.
“Hmm, not all of them,” Kai grumbled, and although I couldn’t seehim, I knew he was glaring at Rafe, who was glaring right back at him.
There was no love lost between Kai and Rafe, but the two of themwere going to have to sort their shit out sooner rather than later. Rafe had earned an early promotion to Georgio’s 2IC after Antonio was shot dead during the attack at the Bianchi mansion, and was now working closely with Kai and me on securing business deals.
The two of them bickered like cat and dog during negotiations, and I’dcome close to banging their heads together on more than one occasion, so it was in everyone’s interest that the pair of them grew up.
“Go enjoy your party, baby,” Kai said, kissing my neck before givingme a light slap on my ass. I didn’t need to be told twice.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had a birthday party, certainly notin the years after Angel and I had run away. In fact, I hadn’t even celebrated my birthday during those years.
My face ached from where I was smiling so much as I spent the restof the afternoon catching up with all the people who had come to celebrate with me.
Sofia and Rafe kept to themselves for the majority of the party, mainlybecause Sofia was avoiding Miles, and after she was kidnapped, Rafe rarely left his sister’s side.
You’d think Miles taking a bullet for Sofia would change their views ofeach other, but no, the two of them seemed to hate each other even more. On the night Kai waged the war on Hendrix, Miles and Rafe had separated from Kai so they could rescue Sofia and Kimmy from the cell in the basement. They’d got the two women free, but as they were leading them to safety, they were ambushed by a group of Stags.
By then, Rafe had run out of ammo so ended up fighting two of theStags, while Miles took on another three. But when Markus appeared and pointed his gun at Sofia, Miles knocked her out of the way and took the bullet.
Thankfully, Markus was a shit shot and only got Miles in the thigh before Miles fired his own shot straight through Markus' head.The bullet went straight through Miles' leg, avoiding any main arteries. Miles was damn lucky, and he now had an impressive scar on his leg to show for it. But after, his hatred toward Sofia increased. It was almost as if he blamed her for him being shot.
His attitude toward Sofia only served to piss her off. She spent mostof her time going out of her way to avoid him, something which had been easy to do while Georgio was grieving the death of Antonio. But in the last week, Georgio declared he’d grieved enough, and now plans for Miles’ and Sofia’s wedding were in full swing.
It was going to make an interesting marriage, that was for sure.
Miles spent the majority of the party talking to Kai and avoidinghaving to spendanytime with his future wife. Every so often I caught him glancing over at Sofia though, most of the time with a scowl on his face, but at times there was a look of something else.
