Page 90 of Explode
I gave Kai a reassuring kiss and told him he had nothing to worryabout, before Miles and I headed off.
I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Miles after Kai told me whathappened in the weeks after he was shot. As much as Kai had been the one to agree to the ruse continuing, it had been Miles’ idea in the first place, along with the bullshit about me having to break and coming back stronger. Something I was still a little bitter about. But being stuck in the car with him would give us the opportunity to clear the air.
For the first part of the journey, we chewed the fat over what hadhappened since he and Kai killed Max. The FBI had indeed issued an arrest warrant and had stormed Hollows Bay HQ looking for Max, only to be told he hadn’t turned up for work. They went to his home, and lo and behold, he wasn’t there, and so he was now deemed a wanted man. Funnily enough, they weren’t putting a whole heap of effort intolooking for him.
As soon as Graham Shaw got wind Max was ‘on the run,’ he blew upmy phone demanding to know what was going on, and as soon as I told him Max had been dealt with, he demanded to be made chief.
Patience was a virtue, but that man had none. He refused to wait,claiming he’d waited long enough. No matter how much I tried to tell him he had to wait a little longer, the man wouldn’t listen. Cue a late night visit from Kai warning Graham to watch how he spoke to his wife, and that Kai would tell him when he would be made chief.
Kai had returned back to the house, laughing his ass off at how hescared the living shit out of Graham with his ghostly appearance.
Ernie, who had been working damn hard behind the scenes, hadtaken a step closer to joining Hendrix’s inner circle. He wasn’t quite at Hendrix’s side yet, but he’d impressed Carlos and Markus enough to be clued in on a lot more of what was going on. As a result, we had regular intelligence coming in that would help us take the next steps in our plan.
We were putting a lot of faith into Ernie, something which took a lotseeing as we’d all had our hand bitten once before, but Miles and Kai were confident we could trust him, and figuring they knew best, I put my worries to one side.
From the intel Ernie passed to Miles, we knew Hendrix wasn’t ahappy bunny at learning the depth of Max’s deception. In fact, that was putting it lightly. He was downrightmurderous.
You’d think he would be jumping for joy with Max out of the way, afterall, he intended to bump him off at some point, but it seemed Hendrix was not impressed at learning Max had been stringing him along.
What a shame.
My biggest concern though was that Kimmy would be the one to feelHendrix’s wrath, but until Miles had figured out a way to disable the security system, our hands were tied. But now he had managed to get into the computer, with any luck, by the time we returned from the dinner party, Ash would have figured out the rest.
Then we could start formalizing a plan to get Kimmy the heck out ofthe hell she’d been living, and deal with Hendrix once and for all.
As Miles drove us across the border into Forest Point, an awkwardsilence descended on us. I stared out the window, knowing now would be a perfect time to clear the air with Miles, but before I had a chance to say anything, Miles beat me to it.
“Things seem good with you and Kai,” he said, not taking his eyes offthe road.
“Yeah. We’re getting there,” I replied. He nodded his head, but whenhe didn’t say anything else, I bit the bullet. “Kai told me what happened on the night he was shot, and what happened in the following weeks.”
I paused, and Miles finally pulled his eyes away to meet mine, agrimace pulling onto his face as if he was waiting for me to go postal on his ass. A small spike of anger flooded me, but memories of how worried I was for both him and Kai when they were off murdering Max sprung to life. I took a deep breath and swallowed the anger down.
“Miles, I can’t pretend I’m not pissed off about it, and honestly, it’sgonna take some time for me to move on, but I get it. At least, I get why you told me he’d died to get me out of Hollows Bay. I know you did it to protect me. As for continuing with the lie when Kai woke up? I’m not sure I’ll ever understand that line of thinking, but,” my voice wobbled as a ball of emotion started creeping up my throat like it did anytime when I thought about the days, weeks, and months I spent thinking Kai was dead. “I don’t want to be angry about it anymore.”
I turned to look at him, holding his eye. “Miles, we’re family.Sometimes family does fucked up shit with good intentions, and deep down, I know you and Kai had good intentions. You wanted me to learn to survive even the toughest storm.”
Silence descended once again, and just when I thought Miles wasn’tgoing to respond, he reached out and grabbed my hand, holding it tenderly in his.
“I hated seeing your pain, Riley. Every day I wanted to tell you, butevery day you got stronger, every day you became more and more determined to take back the city. Even if you were in denial about taking the lead,” he paused with a smile on his face, and I snorted because there was still some part of me that was in denial even now. Miles turned serious again, giving my hand a squeeze. “You were the only woman to tame Kai Wolfe, Riley, and that means you are the only woman fit to rule at his side. You just had to learn that for yourself. You had to know you could survive with or without him.”
Miles’ words settled deep in my bones, and a feeling of pride washedover me. Both Miles and Kai believed in me. No matter where I had come from, the fact that I was just a runaway pole dancer without a pot to piss in when Kai and I first met. The two of them believed I was so much more than that. So yeah, I couldn’t help but bask in the warmth of their trust in me.
“So,” Miles said, his lip curling into a mischievous smile on one side.“Am I forgiven?”
I gave him an exaggerated sigh. “I suppose so.”
“Thank god, ‘cos quite frankly, I can only deal with one moody womanin my life, and I have a feeling I’m gonna have my hands full with this one,” Miles replied, taking a turn that would lead us to the Bianchi mansion.
“Why do you hate her so much, she’s actually really nice when youget to know her,” I said, leaping to Sofia’s defense.
“She’s a brat,” Miles replied, his mood souring.
“You keep saying that, but I don’t see it,” I folded my arms across mychest and glared at him.
He sighed. “She’s a typical spoiled Mafia princess, Riley. Doesn’twant for anything, and thinks everyone is at her beck and call. She’s not my type.”
“Gorgeous and sassy aren’t your type?” I said, cynicism dripping frommy tone because I’d seen the girls who worked at Sapphire who Miles used to regularly fuck. They were stunning, but they weren’t a patch on Sofia.
