Page 338 of One More Kiss

Of course he wasn’t going to answer me and now I needed to check my phone for a tracking app or something though it was possible someone saw my car there.

I looked over, but it was dark. All I could make out was the fact that they were motorcycles. But I didn’t need to see them to know why he was so mad.

“No,” I lied.

“Those belong to some Splintered Souls. Is that why you came here? You’re fuckin’ one of them, aren’t you?”

It was a question but sure didn’t sound like one. He sounded more like he already knew and I was left grasping at a way to deny it all so that I wouldn’t sound like I was lying.

“Whoa, Cowboy.” Diana stepped between us, likely because, like me, she thought my brother was about to slap me. “We came here to get a drink. Nothing more. We didn’t see any Souls in there and Trinity didn’t talk to anyone but me. You can calm the fuck down.”

My stomach clenched at her challenging my brother. No one talked to any of the brothers that way. Not even the old ladies.

“Back the fuck up, Diana,” he pressed, but she just put her hands on her hips and didn’t take a single step.

“No. You’re mad. We get that, but Trinity didn’t do anything wrong.”

His jaw tightened, but he at least backed off a little.

“You should’ve taken someone,” he said instead.

“I did,” I told him. “I took Diana.”

“Your best friend doesn’t count, Trinity, and you know it. You need to take someone who can protect you. Diana couldn’t take down a paper bag.”

Diana scoffed. “Please. You don’t know what I can do.”

He shook his head and continued. “You know you need to at least have a prospect with you when you go out at night. That’s not negotiable.”

He was right. It wasn’t. I knew the rules and I blew it.

Now, that didn’t mean I had a shadow watching my every step. I went to work, grocery shopped, and did other mundane things all by myself, but going out to a bar… that was a different story.

“I’m sorry,” I told him, but the words hurt as they came off my tongue. “I won’t let it happen again.”

He nodded, but his muscles didn’t relax. “Ryder,” he called out.

A young man, maybe around our age, with blond hair and a prospect cut ran up to us. “Take my sister and her friend back to her apartment. No stops.”

The man nodded then fell back to wait for me.

“I can drive—”

The glare from my brother stopped me from saying any more. Instead, Diana and I hurried over to my car. The prospect got into the back seat. At least I was going to drive myself home like a big girl.

All of this had me feeling like a little kid being babysat all the time.

I didn’t even ask how they were going to get Ryder’s bike back to him or anything. That was for them to figure out, but I knew that he wasn’t coming into Diana’s and my apartment.

Not with the way that I was going to be freaking out about the fact that minutes after I drove away, Miles and his club brothers were going to be walking out of that bar and my brother, along with a few others, were going to be there waiting.

Nobody could predict what was going to happen. It wasn’t like they fought every time that they crossed paths, but my brother was already worked up and angry.

Now all I could do was wait to see if I heard something.

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