“How do you know I volunteer at the—” Maisy snaps her mouth shut, shock flickering on her face before she closes off her expression.
It doesn’t matter, I can still read every line of her body. She barely pays attention to the cookie-cutter dude who’s supposed to be her boyfriend as she squares off with me. For a second, I can’t help the way my heart thuds. The fire in her expression is a small glimpse of the girl who was my entire world.
“You know what, Fox? Never mind, I don’t care. You can get fucked, asshole.” There’s a steel in her tone that makes my pulse pick up. Was I waiting for her to fight me back? A rush of the forbidden desire I shouldn’t feel shoots through me as she continues. “No matter what you do to me, I’m not going to be afraid of you.”
My teeth clench. Keep telling yourself that.
“Whoa, beautiful.” Her boyfriend isn’t glued to his phone anymore. His name is something with a B, but I don’t give a shit. It’s unimportant to me. The wholesome vibe is condescending as fuck while he looks at Maisy in surprise for the bite in her tone. “That’s not like you.”
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Maisy’s mouth tightens and a harsh sigh rushes out when she reins herself back behind her mask. Everyone around here looks at her and expects a sweet, well-behaved girl. They have no idea who she really is, but soon they will.
“If you were paying attention instead of checking your Instagram for likes, you’d know he deserves it,” she mutters with a frown.
An echo of the memory of her nails digging into my skin as she panted for more tingles my nerve endings. I left my marks all over her not that long ago. The marks can fade, but she can’t erase me.
There’s no way this guy knows how to touch her to drive her wild, but that’s her problem. I won’t touch her again. It was just another way to show her what she’ll never have while covering my tracks at the party so no one caught the real reason I was there.
As I stare at her, battling the thoughts of the way she smelled pressed against me, I see another hint of the girl I thought I knew. The only one I’ve ever wanted, but I can’t fucking have anymore because she betrayed me by breaking her promise. That girl is gone and all that’s left standing in front of me is a liar. Anger thunders through me as I cut off the memory of the sounds she made.
Maisy Landry isn’t my friend anymore. I’m the demon she should run from. She means nothing to me other than the weak link in her family that I’m going to break. I can’t forget that.
Pushing back from the engine, I drop the pretense of helping. “Guess you’re screwed. Sucks to be you.”
“Wait, you seriously can’t help?” Boyfriend-with-a-B-name calls as I turn my back to head for my bike. The few people left in the lot give me a wide berth, too scared to get in my way. “Babe, did you have to piss him off? He could’ve fixed it.”
The side of my mouth kicks up and a snort escapes me. I don’t hang around for her answer, swinging a leg over the motorcycle parked nearby and slipping the helmet on. The growl of the engine drowns out all the sounds around me, clearing my head.
Without looking back at the one person I never thought would hurt me, I pull out from the parking lot, the constant searing pain of my decayed broken heart keeping me going.
Three
Fox
Driving along the road that winds through the rolling hills, I clench my jaw hard enough to feel the pressure pulse through my skull. I’m surrounded by tall pine trees, rocks jutting from the ground, and fresh mountain air whipping against me as my bike rounds the bend with a roar. None of it is familiar like it should be. All it does is make me miss the smell of the ocean and the misty cove on the coast of Maine that was my sanctuary from my nightmares.
Colorado doesn’t feel like home anymore. The truth hit hard when I came back last year, but I don’t want to go back to Thorne Point yet. I can’t, not until I’ve accomplished what I’m staying in Ridgeview to do.
It’s the only reason I came back—to destroy every member of the Landry family for ripping mine away from me.
The trees thin out as I near the shipping district. Dusty gravel crunches beneath the tires of the bike when I pull in to the entrance to a row of warehouses. The one on the end is mine. The whole thing.
Colt helped me out, even though I didn’t ask him to. When I got to town without a plan for where to stay, an address pinged on my phone and I followed it here to find an envelope taped to the front door of the warehouse with To Foxy, Love Dolos written on it. A key was inside.
The thought of my foster brother has my head shaking in wry amusement. He’s always got his nose in everyone’s business, from spying on their devices to charming everyone to lower their defenses before they’re aware of it. It’s one of the reasons Wren Thorne gained so much power in Thorne Point, with his loyal band of psychos at his side. The Crows rule every secret in the city, stretching beyond that to control the east coast.
A phantom tingle spreads across my chest where a crow wearing a crown, perched on a skull is inked into my skin, hidden in an intricate ocean design that stretches halfway down my arm.
When the DuPonts welcomed me into their home as their scuffed up project to improve their image to their other socialite friends, I had no idea it would lead me to the Crows. Colton DuPont didn’t have to accept me, let alone bring me into the fold with his closest friends, but he did it with an easy grin and a protectiveness that always makes me feel guilty for being grateful for.
It’s the kind of protectiveness I should’ve been able to provide the little sister I was supposed to have, but I never got that chance because the life I should’ve had was stolen from me.
I park my Harley in the garage on the first floor of the converted warehouse, next to my matte black Charger. The lower level serves as my work space when I need to clear my head by sinking into grease and metal, or whatever odds and ends I can get my hands on. Once I cut the engine, I sit for a second, resting my hand on the one scratch I couldn’t bring myself to buff out of the chrome.
Tracking down my dad’s bike was hell after our assets were split up and sold off, but I managed to hunt it down right before I turned eighteen last year. The DuPonts set me up with a trust fund to make up for everything lost to me with my family’s death. It was a drop in the bucket to them. The money is helpful, but it’s the bike that matters most.
I remember the day I accidentally dinged the gleaming metal, shortly after Dad started allowing me into the garage to teach me how the mechanics worked. He wasn’t mad. I swipe my thumb over the old imperfection as his face fills my mind, the features blurred from time. At least I can still hear his booming laughter.