“Do you have anything about this damn move under control?” I bellowed at Katie. She was shoving clothes into a cardboard box that Cade, Bastian, Dante, and I had brought over.
“Oh, shut the hell up!” she screamed, holding up a shirt against herself in the mirror as if this was the time to determine what she wanted to pack.
“Why the fuck are we doing this today?” I growled at Bastian. We should have given Katie a year to pack up her stuff because a week wasn’t long enough.
Ever the know-it-all, he stood stoically and replied with his arms crossed, “Because it has to be done today.”
I didn’t hide my anger as I ripped the shirt from Katie and threw it in the box. “Try shit on later. Throw it in a box, and we’ll carry it down to the moving truck. I got stuff to do tonight, and at this rate, we’ll never be done by then.”
She curled her glossed lip at me and peered around my shoulder to see Cade moving a vase from her table. “Be like Cade. Do something constructive like pack up stuff I don’t need to sort through.”
Cade’s tattoos read Cade on one hand and Chaos on the other. It was a funny contrast, one everyone gave him hell for. Cade avoided most of the chaos and lurked in the shadows. His only job was to swipe data, tinker with apps, and pull intel for the family from security systems. He did it well.
“You’re sorting through everything!” I swear to Christ my mind didn’t work this way. I had precise times and schedules in my life for a reason. You didn’t do what I did for the family without them. I needed some sort of structure, and she wasn’t providing any of it.
On top of that, nothing was organized, which frustrated me even more. She’d known we were coming this afternoon, and her place was still a sty.
“What did you do all day?” I asked, hovering over her.
“Um, are you serious? I went to work, where I discovered that Bastian had announced I was moving . . .”
She paused, and I raised my hands to motion her on. I wanted to hear this story. It had to be a good one if not one thing was packed when we arrived.
“Wait. Why should I tell you? What are you, my daddy?” She raised an eyebrow at me. Then she leaned forward and purred out like a sex kitten, “Just remember, I like my daddies big, sort of like Bastian, and I’m not sure you fit the bill.”
I knew I was going to hell because my dick jumped at her goading me. Cade snickered behind me. I would pummel his ass later, I swear to God. The guy inhabited his own head and got lost in his thoughts ninety-nine percent of the time but chose this moment to listen to our bickering. “Shut the fuck up, Cade.”
He blew a raspberry, and I turned back to Katie to interrogate her some more. I wanted an answer. “Seriously, what did you do the whole day? You knew we were coming this afternoon. Why didn’t you pack?”
Bastian stepped between us, his arms folded over his chest and his head tilted at me in question. “Rome, she worked and had coffee with Brey and Vick. Why are you up her ass? Let her be.”
She bent at the waist to pop her mess of curls out from behind Bastian. “Yeah, Rome. Let me be.”
I wouldn’t have been surprised if steam poured out my ears as I glared at both of them. Katie took her taunting one step further and pushed up against Bastian’s back. She wrapped one of her small hands around his waist and whispered up at him while holding my gaze. “Thank you for telling him to lay off, Daddy.”
Bastian chuckled at her and then patted her arm. “You’re fanning the flame, Katie. You want an explosion today?”
His choice of words, the way I told her that we were a nuclear bomb, it had me backing up as she looked at me with humor in her eyes and replied, “Maybe I do.”
I threw out a retort I knew she would hate. “Maybe you need to stop toying with men that aren’t interested in exploding, Kate-Bait.”
Bastian had the last word, and that word rubbed me the wrong way. “He’s actually right, babe. You appear to be mine now and shouldn’t be goading him unnecessarily.”
I growled, “You know, you’re both a part of the problem. Katie’s in danger, and we’re letting her go to work? She gets to flit around town like she didn’t get knocked over the head a week ago?”
Bastian sighed. “We got people watching Katie, Rome. You know this. We’ve been in contact with . . .” He shook his head as if he knew it wasn’t something he needed to explain. He was the head of the family now, and he didn’t directly answer to me even if I wanted to choke the answer out of him. “She’s covered.”
“She’s being reckless. And her blood in the river isn’t something you want to clean up, Bastian.” I warned him because I was the only one who probably could.
He waited as he stared at me for a couple seconds and then said softly, “Katie, you’ll need to put the coffee job on hiatus.”
She narrowed her gaze at me as if I was the enemy, but she didn’t argue. She nodded and licked her lips like she finally wanted to give me a second to breathe.
The woman was fucking with my head, and I didn’t have time to play games. She was in a lot of danger, and so was my family.
I needed to stay on my game, not get irritated with a woman who wasn’t mine.
I worked with Dante to pack up most of her dishes. I instructed him on the exact way I wanted them organized into the box.
He smiled at me slowly as I did. “You realize I pack shit up for a living, right, man?” He waggled his eyebrows and cracked his knuckles. Dante sometimes got rid of the bodies for us.
Bastian, on the other hand, commanded the damn attention. It never bothered me before. Yet
Katie’s eyes wandered over to him more than I liked. Her smile lingered when he gave her the attention she craved. And she licked her lips when she thought no one was watching. Was she hungry for his touch? Just enjoying the view?
She glanced my way and winked, making me stalk over to her. “You tell the coffee shop you quit yet?”
She huffed. “I text the manager, alright?” She waited a second. “Also, Brey and Vick know too much.”
“That my fault?” I reared back at her accusation.
“Well, it’s not mine. I didn’t tell them anything. Bastian called one of the Stonewoods.”
“You keep pushing boundaries, Kate-Bait.” I shook my head because I loved and hated it about her all at the same time. “You should have never introduced those girls to me.”
“We’re all friends now.” She shrugged and brushed at nothing on her shoulder, but she bit her lip. It was a sign she knew things were getting too tangled.
“Start taking this seriously.” I told her, my voice low.
Her grey eyes narrowed at me before she licked her plump lips. “I always take what Bastian says seriously.”
I couldn’t stop the growl at hearing his name come from her mouth. She smiled at the rise she’d gotten out of me. She was just playing more games.
It wouldn’t be a game if I ripped her away from him, from this whole family.
She needed to be punished for the way she baited men, especially men like me. Yet the punishment I wanted to inflict on her ended with me between her legs because she looked good enough to eat today.
