Kaz threw an arm around Miles’s shoulders, and he slowly turned his head to glare at him. Kaz’s smug smile had him rolling his eyes.
Kaz leaned closer, his words low, and that husky voice sending delicious shivers through him.
“Keep looking at me like that and they’ll all find out exactly what we’ve been up to.”
His jaw clenched so fast and hard he heard a pop from the joint.
Kaz chuckled low.
He caught a look flashing across Kaz’s face. It was gonealmost instantly, but it didn’t take a genius to decipher it.
“You weren’t allowed to go, were you?”
Kaz stared at the bikes as they disappeared down the road.
“My dad doesn’t want me too involved yet,” Kaz said. He turned his head, inquisitive gray eyes finding Miles’s gaze. “I don’t know how much you know about what we do…”
Miles flinched. He couldn’t help it.
He turned away from Kaz, running a hand through his hair, and exhaling shakily as he considered how much to tell Kaz.
“We were what the Kings call a level five,” he said, and though his voice was low, there was no way Kaz would miss the anguish in it. “My sister and I.”
A hand on his shoulder had him looking up and he damn near forgot how to breathe. Kaz was looking at him with understanding in his eyes. With compassion and warmth. Kaz was looking at him as if he wanted to wrap him in a hug and never let go again.
He’d never seen anything like that from Kaz before and fuck if it didn’t make him want him more. Especially because he knew the only reason he wasn’t in Kaz’s embrace yet was because Kaz understood and was letting him set the pace.
He stepped into Kaz’s arms and buried his face in his neck, the smell of leather and cologne filling his nose. Kaz held on tight, resting his head against Miles’s.
“I didn’t know,” Kaz whispered, sorrow seeping into his voice, and Miles knew… knew he’d forgiven every bad word, every violent action there had ever been between them, right then and there.
“We don’t go by levels, but I know what the Kings’ mean,” Kaz said, squeezing tighter. “I’m so sorry.”
Miles lifted his head and leaned back, a small smile finding his lips when Kaz didn’t let go of him.
“Our parents were murdered in front of us. I made sure Emma saw as little as possible but…”
Kaz nodded, his Adam’s apple moving as he swallowed and drawing Miles’s attention to it. He let his gaze move further down to the leather cut, looking over the diamond patch with 1% inside it, the club’s name below it, and that dread he always felt when he looked at his father’s cut and remembered the danger that came with it never surfaced.
“The ones who did it…” Kaz’s voice was rough, his gaze blazing.
“Dead. He came after us while we were under the Kings’ protection. He couldn’t hurt us anymore, but neither of us felt safe, so they sent us back to the only person who’d made us feel safe.”
Kaz’s brows jumped, then scrunched together for a moment before he seemed to have figured it out.
“Zayne?”
Miles nodded. “He took us home to Nash, and we never left.”
A soft smile spread on Kaz’s lips.
“Ares and Jace had to drag me kicking and screaming,” he said, an amused look in his eyes.
Miles chuckled and, with a shake of his head, he said, “I can just imagine that.”
“I kept running away, too.”
He slid his hands up Kaz’s chest, relishing the warmth the man exuded.
