My family laughs.

“Oh man.” Victoria smiles. “To see the look on her face.”

Yeah, it was pretty fuckin’ fun.

“So she’s at the house now?” Raven climbs out of the pool, Maddoc at her back in case her belly knocks her over.

“Yup.”

“What happens if she name-drops you?” Raven watches me closely.

“If she walks up in there and announces I’m the reason behind it, she’ll never survive here.”

Raven’s hands find the towel Maddoc’s draped over her shoulders, and she nods slightly, a hidden smirk teasing at her lips. “I’m trying to figure out if you want her to or not.”

“Well, uh... you might want to figure that out pretty quickly.” Victoria’s squints past me. “’Cause I spy the new girl breaking her very first rule.”

I whip around, instant tension toughening up my veins.

A streak of silver and black bottoms is really all you can make out, but it’s more than enough to know it’s her.

She’s walking up the driveway toward the mansion, maybe twenty feet from the porch and headed right for it.

“Royce,” Maddoc edges, but I’m already moving.

“I know, brother.”

That’s close enough.

Brielle

I stomp my ass up the short steps, only to freeze when a familiar shout meets my ears.

“That’s far enough!” Royce calls out.

I whip around, searching, and spot him on the right.

I make my way back down and move toward him, but my feet only carry me a few extra inches before they pause altogether.

Guess they want a seat at the show too.

Royce stalks toward me in long, resilient strides, high, straight shoulders and an angry tip of his chin. He somehow comes across both unconcerned and unbalanced.

His muscles, trim and taut and visible without flexing, only tighten more with each step, the art decorated along the sharp edging of his body shifting with them and forcing my attention to the intricate designs.

They twist and curve and curl from one side of his arms to the next, color his upper chest and part of his neck, leaving you to wonder what they mean, where else they might lie.

How a body from the neck down is capable of coming off cross and controlled, let alone anything at all on its own, I don’t know, but his is equally both.

Royce Brayshaw, a wanton wild one.

A shirtless Brayshaw, the eighth wonder of the world.

A sight all should see at least once in a lifetime.

He stops a few feet away, his tone dull. “You lie to me, little Bishop?”

I pause my own advance. “What do you mean?”

“You said you followed the rules, like a good little robot, and here we are a second time.”

“Am I supposed to understand the hidden message in your insult, because I don’t.”

“First thing Maybell does when there’s a new arrival at the house is lay out the rules.”

“Well, then, yay her.” I lift a shoulder. “She did her job, give her a bonus.”

He narrows his gaze. “Then you know good and fuckin’ well nobody’s allowed back here. Maybell’s damn good at making you girls obey, and she won’t hesitate to toss you out when you don’t, day one or not.” He crosses his arms. “I’ll help if I have to.”

Nobody is allowed...

Ohhhh.

That’s right, I’d heard their home is their sanctuary.

It’s in part why the group homes are at the very entrance of the acreage, to keep them as far away as possible, but still close enough to control.

Wait, then why would she...

“Why would who what?”

My eyes snap back to his and the corner of his crease. “Finish your thought.”

I glide my fingers along my temple, slipping them farther into my hair and he follows the movement.

“Why, you won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

I don’t.

His glare flies to mine rapidly, and after a moment, grows heavier, but this time there’s a hint of skepticism he tries to hide. “She sent you down here.”

I shrug, answering without completely throwing her under the boots of a Brayshaw.

Wait.

Maybe she wants me to get kicked out?

Royce’s shoulders seem to loosen, and he runs his tongue along his lips.

He cuts a glance over his shoulder and I remember I came down here for a reason.

“So are you done, because it’s my turn.”

His head whips around quick, and knowing him, he’s about to pop off, so I speak before he can.

“Did you really insist I have my own room when literally every other person in that house shares with one to two other people?”

He blinks at me. And then he blinks again.

“Are you for real?” He widens his stance. “You’re complaining right now?”

“Well, I didn’t come back here to say hi.”

His eyes narrow, his chin tipping the slightest bit. “That right?”

“I mean, I figured I’d see you later or, you know, eventually, but no, and we’re off track.” I hook a finger over my shoulder, pointing somewhere behind me. “Those girls are my cousin on crack, I can sense it, and here I come, riding my brother’s coattail, and boom. Special treatment, just like that? I don’t want it.”

That seems to piss him off. He pushes closer. “If I was balancing you with your brother, it’d have been the shed out back for you, little Bishop, so don’t get bent.”

“Don’t pretend my brother isn’t everything your family’s asked him to be and more.”

His jaw flexes and shifts in more. “Let me clear something up for you, yeah?”

“Please do.”

Based on the way his eyes seem to flame up, he didn’t want a response, but he keeps talking anyway. “You’re in your own room, ‘cause that’s where I want you. ‘Cause there, in that room, I can get to you when the fuck I want.”

“When you want?”

“When.” He takes another step into my space, and my stomach twists low and fast. “You’re not a group home girl like they are. I didn’t come to your fuckin’ rescue, I hired you. You’re an employee. My employee, baby girl, so be ready to work, to jump, to fetch, when I tell you to, and before you ask me why, the answer is ‘cause you got in that car. You came to my town. Now here you stand, in my reach. That makes you mine to regulate.”

He’s practically huffing and puffing, all angry and annoyed and trying to intimidate. I do my best to allow him to believe his irate boy dramatization was effective, but I can’t hide the way it gets to me.

My smile is instant, my hand flying out to latch on to his arm. “Wait, seriously?”

Royce’s features pull, his focus quickly moving from my hand to my face. “Wait, what?”

I squeeze. “Am I really your employee? Like I work here now? You didn’t just move me in... you need me?”

Royce is stuck for a moment, unmoving.

His hand jerks from mine, flying forward before I see it coming, and he pushes my glasses up onto my head.

The glare is testing, gauging, and ever so slowly, his features smooth out.