“Did he visit you more often at first?” I asked.
“Yeah. It took a while before I saw any improvement—after it happened I was jumping at shadows, hurting myself, refusing to eat. My omega hormones were all over the place. He stopped by a lot when I was in that really bad place, but once I started to get better…”
“He told me he’s a curse on everyone he loves. That’s why he stayed away, right?”
Violet scoffed. “Yeah. He got that idea from his mom. She was even less affectionate than mine, from what he and Mercer have said. She blamed him for our father cheating on her. Didn’t blame the man who cheated, for some dumb reason. Just her son.”
My pack had a track record of terrible parents. At least Mom and my fathers were accepting them with open arms. Well, open arms and the occasional threat of violence.
They were mafia bosses, so I could cut them a bit of slack on that.
Sliding down to lay on her back, Violet sighed. “So that’s my story.”
I didn’t quite know what to say. I slid to lay beside her, stretching my arms overhead. “I’m sorry you have a story like that.”
“Yeah, it’s not my favourite one. You wanna hear a story thatismy favourite, though?” She snickered.
I grinned. I bet West wasn’t going to like me hearing whatever tale she was about to tell. “Absolutely.”
She launched into it, and it wasn’t long before we were both laughing our asses off at West’s embarrassing older brother moments.
The stories definitely werenotWest-approved.
Chapter
Thirty-Three
CONRAD
“Thanks to you assholes, I’m out $300 of bike parts,” Gears complained.
I leaned against the pool table in the rec room our two friends had taken over. It was outside the main Alfieri mansion, on the ground floor of a secondary house. Blankets made up the pullout couch, and another door led off into a bedroom with a queen-size bed.
I wasn’t quite sure why they were out here and not in the main house, considering the place was massive and had bedrooms to spare, but I didn’t question it.
“Mercer can toss you the money,” I promised.
Gears tugged her curly hair back into a bulky ponytail with an irritated sigh. “Actually, in terms of replacement costs it’s probably more like $500. Have you seen the fucking shipping charges lately?”
“$500, done. I’ll tell him.”
He was going to be thrilled I’d put him in charge of motorcycle part reimbursement. She’d already upped the priceby $200—by the time Mercer went to hand her the money, she’d be claiming they cost a grand.
And I’d be laughing on the sidelines.
“You went back and got most of them anyway,” Hawk pointed out.
She glared at him. “Most. Not all. If I’d lost all of them, they would never be able to reimburse me. Some of them are impossible to get.”
He threw up his hands before grabbing a pool cue and tossing another to me. “If you say so. I don’t know shit about motorcycles.”
“Which is why yours is in my shop almost as often as Conrad’s is,” Gears retorted. “No respect for the machine.”
“It gets me where I need to go, and I look badass in the process. I respect the vibes. Isn’t that enough?”
She rubbed her temples, then snatched the cue from him and made the break shot. Two striped balls fell into pockets, and she lined up her next shot. Gears sank that ball too, but missed the fourth.
“Respecting the vibes isn’t the same as respecting the machine,” she muttered, nodding to signal it was my turn.
