“Rebel is Rush’s, and she’s too old for you and you’re both too young to like girls yet, so cool it,” Tack ordered.
Boy.
The Allen men liked redheads.
“I’m gonna be big like Rush one day,” Rider told his father.
“And Lord help us all,” Tack muttered then gave them both a gentle shake. “You gonna cool it?”
They glared at each other.
“I asked my sons a question,” Tack said low.
“I’ll cool it,” Cutter forced out, not very convincingly.
“Me too,” Rider grunted, totally unconvincingly.
Tack let them go.
They both looked to me.
Rider froze to the spot and blushed.
Cutter raced again to the back of the house and disappeared.
Rider jerked out of his freeze and followed him.
“Yep,” Tyra said loudly. “Time to start taking Valium.”
I turned to the adults in the room and was saved from having my dress yanked down when Rush swooped low in front of me to scoop Playboy up from the floor.
Eyes on Tabby, I said, “I’m so sorry. This is ruining dinner.”
“I didn’t slave over the beef casserole right now in the oven that’s gonna knock your socks off. But even if my man did, you dress great and you’re obviously super cool. I was all geared up to disapprove and throw shade. I’m not gonna get to do that so the night was gonna be boring.” She was looking at me over the back of her chair and I saw her shrug at the same time smile. “Now I figure it won’t be boring.”
Tabby liked how I dressed and thought I was super cool.
I wished I could be super happy about her thinking I was super cool.
Instead, my ticked-off brother was showing out of nowhere at a family dinner, so I could only feel super freaked.
I still shot her a grateful smile.
Shy got up from the arm of her chair, saying, “Best make more salad and get Chill to go out and buy more rolls.”
Oh no.
They were going to ask D to stay for dinner.
“You really don’t have to do that,” I assured him. “I’ll talk to Diesel outside and get him to leave. We’ll connect later and I’ll explain everything.”
“And spoil the show?” Tabby teased.
“Well, yeah,” I said.
Her face gentled and she replied, “It’ll be okay, Rebel. We’re kinda used to drama. If you didn’t bring it, you would so totally not fit in.”
“That’s the fuckin’ truth,” Tack muttered.
Rush tossed an arm around my shoulders and led me back to the grouping, carrying a screeching-with-joy Playboy under his other arm like the baby’s grandfather had held him.
I looked up at Rush and said under my breath, “I think for the first time I’m really freaking mad at you.”
“You’ll get over it,” he replied nonchalantly.
Okay.
Now super really freaking mad at him.
Though I had to admit, he probably wasn’t wrong.
I huffed.
He took me to the couch, handed me my beer and put Playboy on the floor.
I sat.
Rush sat too.
“Need tequila?” Tabby asked.
“Do you have case?” I asked back.
More smiling and, “Sadly, no. But if Chill is going out to get rolls, we can get him to get us one.”
“I’d say with how pissed your brother sounded, it might be a good idea you stay sober,” Rush advised.
I glared at him as I lifted my beer and guzzled down a huge swallow.
Now he was smiling at me.
Jerk.
“Good you got a brother who loves you so much, he hears you’re up to something that worries him, he hauls his ass up from Phoenix,” Tack said, and the way he said it made me realize why his children were so devoted to him.
It was firm, but gentle and kind.
It said he got I was feeling freaked, but I needed to get over it and just deal with the problem that I created my own self.
“Yeah,” I muttered.
To say I didn’t enjoy the next ten minutes of chatting was an understatement.
So when the doorbell rang, I leapt from the couch, even if it wasn’t my door to answer.
I still didn’t get to the door before Rush, who had longer legs and a shorter distance to lift his butt off a seat.
I felt them all gathering behind me as Rush opened the door.
And it got worse.
Because it wasn’t just D.
Mad was behind him.
And Sixx stood next to Mad.
What was Sixx doing there?
And D had already opened the storm door.
Not wasting a second.
Shit.
D glanced at Rush then his eyes swept to me and narrowed.
Shit!
Rush opened the door fully, stepping back, an indication my brother could come right in.
Goddamned shit.
I started to move forward, saying swiftly, “Diesel—”
He stepped in, and his angry energy was so pervasive it made me stop moving.
“Have you lost your mind?” he asked quietly.
“D, just listen—”
“Have you lost your goddamned mind?” he roared.
“How did you find out?” I asked.
“Not from my sister,” he answered.
“D,” I said low.
“Sixx knows people,” he shared. “A body dump in the middle of some sick-ass shit involving death and picnic tables and porn and MCs, people in her biz buzz about. Your name came up as to where the most recent dump happened. She looked into shit. Some of her people know some cops. They shared. She told Maddox and me.”
I turned accusing eyes to Sixx.
I didn’t know her very well. She was friends with D, Maddox and Molly, and to my understanding the relationship was relatively new. But I’d had dinner with her and her man when I was down in Phoenix last month.
I liked her. She was cool.
Still.
“Sister, with this mess?” She shook her head. “No. I had to tell them.”
She might be right.
I still glared at her.
“Do not give that attitude to Sixx,” Diesel ordered. “And I asked a question. Have you lost your mind?”
“Can we talk about this elsewhere . . . later?” I requested. “I’m in the middle of something.” I paused. “And where’s Molly?”
“Bodies are being dumped, Rebel,” Diesel reminded me. “Do you think we’d bring our woman here when bodies are being dumped?”
They would not.
She might be in Australia, they’d want her so far away from something like that.
Probably where they intended to send me.
“Whoa, you’re huge.”
I looked behind me and down and saw Rider standing there, gazing up at Diesel like he was a superhero.
“And you’re like, ripped,” Rider went on. His dazed-with-little-kid-admiration eyes strayed to Maddox, those eyes got bigger and he whispered, “Whoa.”
I looked to Maddox.
Pitch-black hair. Full black beard. Black eyes. Not as tall as Diesel or as big, but he was a seriously fit guy. Wicked nasty handsome face in the sense he looked like a classic villain from a comic strip, the one you wanted to win over the good guy, mostly because he was the one you wanted to fuck.
Another world that didn’t have D or Rush, I’d totally do him. And it didn’t make me feel queasy to think that. Maddox was just that hot.
He turned his angry gaze from Rider to me.
Angry, he went from looking villainous to murderous.
That was hot too.
I couldn’t appreciate the hotness in that moment.
Oh boy.
“We’ll talk later. You’re done here, you come right home, Rebel. Then you’re packing and we’re taking you to Phoenix,” Maddox said.
Uh-oh.
I didn’t get the chance to get justifiably uppity that Maddox was treating me like a naughty little sister.
Rush moved to stand to my side, but partly in front of me.
“We got her covered,” he declared, his voice very growly.
“That’d make me feel a whole lot better if I knew who the fuck you were,” Diesel returned.
“Diesel,” I snapped. “Kids.”