Page 60 of Face Off

Briggs closed the door. “You dragged her stool across the floor.”

“It was loud in there, so I pulled her closer.”

“That explanation creates more questions,” Rider said.

“I’m comfortable with your confusion.”

Easton leaned against the wall and folded his arms. “You were flirting with her.”

“I was breaking the ice.”

“You defended her from Lyric,” Briggs added.

“Lyric was being a bitch.”

His mouth tightened, taking some of the entertainment out of the room. I pulled my watch off and set it beside the tie-bar box. “I’m sorry.”

“For calling my girlfriend a bitch?”

“For putting you in the middle when she was already doing a fine job of making sure you landed there.”

Briggs stared at the carpet before looking at me again. “She started it.”

“Charm finished it,” Rider said. “With Spanish.”

Easton pointed toward him. “That’s the part we need to discuss.”

“We don’t need to discuss any part of it.” I opened the closet and removed the black trousers and jacket waiting inside the garment bag. “Cállense, carnales.”

Easton looked at Briggs. “That didn’t feel affectionate?”

“He told us to shut up,” Briggs answered.

“That tracks.”

I hung the jacket from the back of the door and turned toward them. “No questions tonight. No conversations about Charm, no staring every time we speak, and no analyzing what happened downstairs like you’re reviewing game footage.”

Briggs shoved both hands into his pockets. “What did happen?”

“We drank, caught up, and managed to exist in the same room without me rage fucking her on the first available surface.”

That shut them up for a minute, but that reprieve only lasted so long when Rider spoke.

“You looked like you were having fun.”

“I was.”

The admission quieted them more effectively than the rage fuck comment.

I scrubbed one hand over my jaw. “It stayed surface level. I need it to stay that way so I can get through this weekend without four assholes watching every move I make.”

Rider’s expression didn’t change. “Surface level might be safe with Charm, but her father tried to destroy you, Ry. You sure the same rules work when he gets here?”

My mind returned to the conference room at Inferno headquarters and the men seated across from me sliding photographs over the polished table beside allegations of violence and emotional abuse. Every page carried Lance’s certainty that if he presented a lie formally enough, someone would mistake it for the truth. “I’m not afraid of Lance Harlen.” I dragged my belt from the garment bag and tossed it onto the bed. “He gave destroying me his best effort and fucking failed. Proof doesn’t lie just because Lance does.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s finished,” Easton said.

“It means I am.”