“I heard you were a bad girl today.” I toss my jacket on the foot of Delilah’s bed and sit in front of her.

She looks up, defiance in her eyes. “No, not really.”

Her biting tone makes me hard, because I’m a sick man who needs every ounce of pushback she gives me. “So, you didn’t break the projector and you didn’t go to the dining room looking for snacks and you didn’t threaten the Spinner who caught you?”

She shrugs, her bare breasts jiggling slightly with the movement. “Maybe.”

I laugh. She’s fucking adorable. Even if this is a charade. Even if we have an intense, whispered conversation right around the corner. This playful, sharp edge of hers is still the real her, the one that captured my attention from the very start. I want to tell her I love it—her sass and her fire—but that’s not a word I get to utter. Not to her. I don’t deserve it.

“Did they send you to discipline me?”

“You do have a lot to learn.” I lean back on my elbows. “Up.”

She stands.

“Straddle me. I want to feel the heat of your cunt on my cock.”

The knock on the door throws me out of my headspace—the only one I want to be in.

“What?” I shout.

“It’s me.” Noah’s voice passes through the wood.

“Shit.” I spent the better part of my day in Birmingham collecting drug money and enforcing agreements whenever necessary. I haven’t had time to track him down and try to make him see my side.

“Who?” Delilah raises her eyebrows in question.

“Noah.”

“Noah.” Her voice hardens, and she stands, snatching her dress from the bed and throwing it over her head.

“What are you—”

She bolts to the door, opens it, and launches herself at him.

I rush after her.

Noah has her by the wrists, but she isn’t giving up, screaming and doing her damndest to break free.

“Hey!” I grab her around the waist and wrench her back, but it’s like trying to hold a greased pig.

She flails and manages to scratch Noah’s face before I subdue her and drag her back into her room.

“What the fuck is going on?” My yell overcomes even her shrieks.

“He did it. He—” She lunges again, but I have her tightly in my grip.

“What did you do to her?” I lock eyes with him, but he looks perplexed as he touches the scratches on his cheek.

“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “What the fuck is wrong with her?”

“I know what you did!” She’s still wild, doing her best to get to him.

Her violence and noise has dormitory doors flying open, Protectors in various states of undress walking out as their Maidens peer from behind them.

“Noah, get in here.” I drag Delilah backwards until we’re in her bathroom.

Noah closes the hall door and follows, but he eyes her warily.

“I need you to calm down for just a minute and let me sort this out. Can you do that?” I talk in her ear.

She doesn’t respond, her body still tense.

“Delilah, please.” I release my hold just a bit, giving her room to breathe.

“Fine,” she bites out.

“In here?” Noah peeks into the bathroom. “No way. She’ll rip my face off.”

I reach over and flip on the shower, then open the sink faucets so the room fills with the sound of running water.

Delilah doesn’t move and lets me hold her again.

“Come in. She’s calm.”

Noah doesn’t look convinced and runs a hand through his hair before following my instructions and walking in, shutting the door behind them and then leaning against it, as far from her as possible.

“What the hell is going on?” I keep my voice even with the noise of the water. “Delilah?”

“Nothing.”

I spin her around and force her gaze up to mine with a tilt of her chin. “Trust, little lamb. Not lies. Now tell me what is wrong.”

Her eyes are gray marble, hard and unflinching. “He knows what he did.”

I meet Noah’s gaze over her crown. He throws his hands up and shakes his head, then mouths I didn’t do shit.

“Okay, but I don’t know what he did.” I refocus on her. “So you’ll have to tell me.”

“No.”

“Delilah.” I glower. “You need to tell me. I can’t fix it if I don’t—”

The outer door swings open so hard it slams into the wall, and then someone’s beating on the bathroom door.

“Get out here. Prophet wants to see you and Noah. Now!” It’s Gray, followed by some unintelligible squawking from Grace.

“Shit.” I stare at my obstinate Maiden as Noah keeps shaking his head.

“I said now!” Gray bangs on the door.

“We’ll continue this later. For the moment, Noah, open the door.” I push Delilah behind me, pinning her between the toilet and the wall.

Noah swings the door open and steps outside. Gray is red in the face, and a few other Protectors mill about in the main dormitory hall.

Gray reaches for my arm.

I glare at him. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

He drops his hand.

The crowd in the hall parts as I walk past and into the main Cloister corridor. Noah is at my back. We don’t speak until we’re out into the rainy night, the droplets pattering on the road and through the trees.

“You drive?” he asks.

I point to my car, and we both head for it. Questions pile up as I sit and start the engine, but I don’t ask him anything. He already made his choice last night. Maybe I was a fool to think I could change his mind earlier. Then again, he did come to Delilah’s room—presumably to speak to me.

He turns the radio up and clears his throat as I aim the car toward the main house.

“Look, I know you want to save her, okay?” He holds a hand out, palm up, as if reiterating that he’s saying something utterly reasonable. “I can see why. And I know she’s different for you. The way she looks at you. The way you’ve been acting ever since she got here. I get it. She’s different. I know what that feels like.”

“Where are you going with this?” I don’t mean to say it as gruffly as I do.

“Well.” He drops his hand. “Maybe we can get a message to Mom, you know? Maybe we can see if she can do something to keep Delilah away from that senator guy?”

“There’s nothing she can do.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I won’t risk Delilah on a hazy guess of what Mom can or can’t do. Not to mention the fact that being here, being married to Dad, has driven her batshit crazy.”

“Don’t say that.” He faces me. “Don’t talk about her that way.”

“I don’t want to, trust me.” I slow as we approach the house. “But I need you to understand that Mom’s vision for Heavenly is never going to come to life. Never. And I can’t entrust Delilah to her.”

“Do you love her?”

“Mom? Yeah.”

He shakes his head. “You know who I mean.”

I sigh and slow to a stop next to a set of golf carts parked at the rear of the house. “I can’t answer that.” A lie. I kill the engine but leave the radio on.

“So you’re still dead set on throwing away your real family for a girl that you don’t even know if you love?”

“What did you do to her?”

He doesn’t catch the subject change, and answers, “I didn’t do a thing. I have no clue what the fuck all that was.”

“You swear you don’t know?” I look into his eyes, needing the truth from him. If he’s innocent of whatever she thinks he did, I should be able to work this out.

“I swear on Mom that I haven’t done anything and don’t know what she’s talking about.” He holds up his hand like he’s swearing on a Bible instead of an old woman driven mad by grief and captivity.

“I believe you.” I open my car door, but he grabs my arm.

“I meant what I said about Tuesday. We can’t do it. We need to give Mom a chance.” He lets go. “But I’m sorry about how it went down.”

I sigh. “I’m sorry, too. And you need to change your mind.”

“I won’t.” He gets out, and we slam our doors.

“We aren’t done here.” I stride to the back door.

He mumbles something. I ignore it and climb the staircase to the main floor.

“Boys! Get in here!” my father yells as soon as I swing the door open to the foyer.

“What are we going to tell him?” Noah whispers.

“Just tell him you grabbed her or something, made advances.” I shrug. “And that’s why she’s pissed.”

“Okay.”

We stride in and sit down as Dad watches a replay of Delilah trying to take Noah’s head off. I smirk. When she gets wound up, she fights like a banshee. It’s fucking hot.

“What the hell is going on with you two?” My father slams a hand on his desk.

“I made a pass at her, and she’s mad,” Noah blurts.

Jesus. I want to slap him on the back of the head.

My father pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why would you make a pass at another Protector’s Maiden?”

Noah shrugs. “She just, you know … She’s really pretty and, um, I like her ass.”

“That’s not like you.” He narrows his eyes.

Noah shrugs. “Just something about her, I guess.”

“What is it with this girl? First the senator and now you?” His demeanor changes to bemused and he pulls a cigar from his desk. “Maybe I should’ve charged more for her, huh?”

“You would have gotten it.” I lean back in my chair.

“I think I may have.” He lights up. “I do indeed. What about you, Adam? You seem to have taken a shine to her, too. I see you in her room, cuddling her instead of fucking her in the ass.”

I shrug. “She’s a fun little toy. I may as well spoil her a bit before Evan gets his hands on her. That’s not going to be a picnic.” Keeping my tone nonchalant has never been harder. Fuck, I want to kill that goddamn senator right along with my father.

He laughs, the sound scratching across my consciousness. “You got that right. He gets into some shit that even makes me blush. She’s going to be in for a whole new world of pain as soon as she walks out those doors with him.” He takes a big puff. “But she seems to cause a lot of trouble, that one. Maybe it’ll be good to get rid of her. Especially since she’ll be off our hands even sooner than I thought.”

“What?” I dig my fingers into the arms of the chair.

“Oh, Evan is back from D.C.” He takes another puff. “Going to come claim her at lunchtime tomorrow.”