Page 47 of Contracted to the Bikers

My teeth groan as I grind them together. “You considered selling the land.”

“Yes.” Rook doesn’t try to hide behind his words now.

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“No.”

I nod slowly, trying to process what he’s saying while the anger is rising inside me, fast and hot. My ears thrum, my vision blurs. “And you?” I ask, whipping around to face Cruz.

He shifts slightly. “I found out after,” he says. “We agreed to bury it.”

Something inside me snaps. It’s not loud or explosive, but the steady place I usually sit in is gone, the calm and control I’ve spent so long curating slip from my grasp. “You buried it,” I growl.

“We handled it—” Cruz starts.

“No,” I cut him off. My voice is sharp now, hard and alien. “You hid it.”

They don’t respond. There’s nothing they can say.

I take a step forward. The rag drops from my hand. The guys hold their ground but fail to hide the slight flinch. Rook and Cruz may scrap like kids, but I’ve never done that with them; they know that once I lose control, the fallout isn’t good. This is the first time they’ve been on the receiving end, though.

“You decided I didn’t need to know,” I continue.

“That’s not—” Rook begins.

“That’s exactly what it is,” I snap.

My chest feels tight, too tight, there’s no room for the air I’m trying to pull in. “You didn’t trust me,” I say, the truth of it cutting like a knife.

“We were protecting the club,” Cruz says, fists clenched, body in a defensive stance, prepared to fight if he must.

“And I’m not part of that?” I shoot back.

Rook looks wounded, but I refuse to feel guilty. “Of course you are—”

“Then why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

No one answers because there’s no good answer that they can give that will fix this. I drag a hand over my face, pacing, trying to burn off the edge that’s building under my skin.

“You sat on this,” I say, turning back to Rook. “You made the call alone.”

“I didn’t take the deal,” he says, folding his arms.

“That’s not the point. The point is you thought I couldn’t handle it.” I step closer, looming over him. Sloane hovers to one side, uncertain.

Rook juts his chin up. “That’s not what I thought.”

I’m not letting him off easy. “Then what did you think?”

Again, he has no good answer for that; he breaks eye contact first.

I don’t stop, though. “You made a huge decision that impacts us all without consulting anyone, without confiding in your best friend. Then Sloane shows up,” I say, jerking my chin toward Sloane. “And you still don’t say anything.”

Rook’s jaw flexes. “We didn’t know how it connected yet—” The fact that he knew what I meant exposes his lie.

“You knew enough,” I cut in.

Rook winces, the truth of my words landing.