Feeling as though this is getting far too personal, I go to walk away, but the slight movement has Roman’s gaze shifting to me. He holds my stare for a moment before dropping it back to Ariana’s, and for one blazing second, a rush of memories come flooding back, each of them forcing me to clench my thighs.
“I wouldn’t go back to you if you were the last woman on earth, not even for a quick fuck. I’ve moved on,” he says, his gaze quickly sailing up to mine again before dropping back to the woman who stabbed the knife straight through his chest. “You and I were over a long time ago. Get the fuck out and don’t come back.”
Roman steps toward the door, gripping the handle and tearing it wide, allowing the cool morning breeze to violently slam upon her, blowing her hair back off her face. Roman doesn’t say another word as she tries to capture his stare, but he refuses and allows a bored expression to rest over his face.
The seconds tick by and being completely out of options, she lets out a pained cry and walks out the door, dragging her Louis Vuitton behind her. The moment she clears the threshold, Roman slams the door with a loud BANG and steps aside to watch her from the window, making sure she goes.
Minutes tick by until I hear the subtle sound of a car, and not a moment later, Ariana hits the gas and takes off, hopefully to never return again.
Certain that she’s out of our lives forever, Roman turns back to face me, his deep stare lingering on my blue eyes, then all too soon, he tears his gaze away, turns on his heel, and walks away.
21
My mouth barely fits around my burger as I struggle to take a bite. I don’t know why I made it this freaking big, but there were just too many options. What can I say? I’m a girl who likes a little bit of everything … or maybe a lot.
Sauce dribbles out the bottom and I try to catch it before it can make a mess all over the marble floors, but naturally, coordinating myself, a burger, and a spill at the same time is like building a rocket ship and learning how to fly the stupid thing.
Juice spills right down the front of my cropped tank, and as I try to avoid fucking it up even more, the essence of the burger falls straight out the bottom. “No, no, no, no, no,” I shriek, as the meat patty splatters on the ground in a mix of tomato, lettuce, and cucumber, leaving me holding nothing but the empty burger bun.
My heart aches as I stare down at what was supposed to be the burger of a lifetime. I even drizzled the sauce just right. “Clean up on aisle twelve,” I call. “Dill? Doe? Where are you big bastards?”
At the sound of their names, the enormous jet-black wolves barrel through the mansion, the clicking of their claws on the marble floor sounds through the house, telling me exactly where they are. Their big wolfy asses come hurtling around the corner and bounding toward me.
Seeing the mess of food on the ground, their pace picks up and my eyes bug out of my head. They’re going too fast. “Fuck,” I panic, not even allowing myself the chance to fuss over the way Dill is running at full speed, despite the fact that he’s still supposed to be taking it easy. “Slow down. SLOW DOWN!”
Dill’s tongue lolls out of his mouth and I remember who the fuck I’m yelling at. There’s no slowing these big bastards down. It’s either get out of their way or risk being trampled.
Getting closer to the mess of burger, the wolves hit the brakes, underestimating their speed, and sliding right along the polished marble, barreling straight past the burger and into my legs before I can make a full escape. A piercing shriek tears out of me as we turn into a mess of limbs on the ground. I narrowly miss slamming into the opposite wall as the wolves immediately get back up and pounce on the burger as though they didn’t even realize that my life just flashed before my eyes.
I flip both of them off before crawling across to the massive window and reaching up to grip the small ledge so that I can haul myself up, only as I reach the window and stretch up, a flash of movement catches my attention. My head whips around, gaping out at the long driveway to where three big black vans are pulling up.
Panic tears through me as my eyes widen with fear. “UMMMMM, GUYS,” I holler through the big house, yanking myself up off the ground and racing through the house to where I’d last seen Marcus. “WE HAVE VISITORS.”
I get as far as the front foyer when I find all three of the boys barreling toward me, their sharp gazes sailing over me before landing on the front entryway windows. They peer out to see the black vans while I silently panic.
“Fuck,” Roman grunts under his breath, probably irritated with himself that all four of us had missed the vans coming through the front gates, but the only way they could have gotten in was if they knew the code.
“Who is it?” I rush out as Marcus doubles back to grip my hand, pulling me away in some ridiculous bid to keep me safe from whatever threat is about to come barging through the door.
He shakes his head. “I’ve got no fucking idea, but from my experience, a van ain’t good. Bringing three of them … now that’s just showing off.”
“What?” I breathe, my eyes bulging out of my head as Levi settles into the corner of the big floor-to-ceiling window and pulls the gun from the back of his pants, giving him the perfect vantage point to take out any threats.
He watches them for a moment, his back straightening as the drivers get out of the vans and make their way to the back. Levi’s brows furrow, watching them carefully as Roman prepares an onslaught of weapons. “Something doesn’t feel right,” Levi mutters, “I don’t think this is an ambush.”
Roman scoffs, still preparing the weapons. “You really want to take that risk?” he questions, giving his younger brother a hard stare.
Levi shakes his head. “I’m ready to go either way. I just don’t think it is what we’re all thinking,” he comments, turning his gaze back to the window. “They’re opening the back of the first van.”
A silence fills the foyer and Marcus immediately pushes me out of the room again, but there’s no way in hell that I’m going anywhere. I’m staying with the boys, right where I can see them at all times. I’ve had way too much bad luck on my own. “Would you stop fighting me?” Marcus spits.
“Then stop pushing me,” I fire back at him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His jaw clenches, the sharp set of his cheekbones only making him look like a fucking demon right out of a nightmare. “I’m not fucking around, Shayne.”
“Neither am I.”
“Wait …” Levi says slowly, his brows drawn as his tone has Roman easing up on the weapon. Hell, he even stops what he’s doing to glance up at his brother. “It looks like some kind of delivery.”