letting someone in my life know where I was going. If we found her hiding out, afraid for her life, I might feel differently. If that were the case, I could understand her not making contact with me or someone else in her family.
It’s hard to feel bad about what happened between Deacon and me when she didn’t respect me enough to reach out to let me know that she’s not dead, not cut up in tiny pieces and tossed into the Mississippi River because she got involved with the wrong man and then stole from him.
I have a million questions, and it’s with that resolve—the knowledge that I’m going to finally stand up to her and let her know what a shitty friend she is—that makes it easier for me to ignore the man a handful of feet away that’s glaring out the window and close my eyes.
I’m no longer going to be the friend that gives and gets nothing in return, and I get the feeling that I’ll be leaving the Maldives with a little less baggage than I showed up with. As much as that hurts my heart, I feel like it’s been a long time coming.
Chapter 29
Deacon
He’s just fucking with me.
I’ve told myself that every time Flynn leaned over and spoke to Anna on the plane, and every time he’s whispered something in her ear that made her smile once we landed. It’s what keeps me from reaching around his neck and choking the life out of him on foreign soil as he sticks close to her side, leaning in and winking at her every damn chance he gets.
What I hate most is that my oldest friend can read me like a book. I don’t even have to say a word and that fucker knows that Anna means something to me. She’s more than a client, more than just some woman I knew in a past life. And fuck me if I can pinpoint when that shift occurred. At this point, I don’t know if it was a gradual shift, or if it hit me all at one time.
“I’m going to fucking kill him.”
“What was that?” The sound of Wren’s voice in my ear reminds me that I’m not alone.
“Nothing,” I mutter, hating that the Air Pods in my ear picks up every damn sound I make. “Where is she?”
“She headed out the east side about fifteen minutes ago. I lost visual, but the only thing in that direction is the beach.”
Dani thinks she’s safe here, and as hard as it was to track her, it’s possible that she was until we arrived. I’m in the frame of mind to wring her damn neck, too. I might just do that with every one of my guys, so I might as well add her to the list. The hardest part will be deciding who will go first. Flynn is the current front-runner of course, but each time Finnegan cuts his green eyes in Anna’s direction or brushes his palm against her lower back he jumps up the list.
Jude and Quinten split off from us a few minutes ago to scope things out and make sure we won’t intercept any trouble. I don’t anticipate a problem, but it was too damn easy to gain access to this resort. A single reservation for the night is all it took for the security guard lazily working the front gate to allow seven men and one woman to enter the property. I grind my teeth at remembering the salacious look he gave to Anna as we drove through. The glint in his eyes told me that he thinks we’re going to have a grand time running a fucking train on her or something, and it makes me wonder just how different my ex-wife is now than she was when we were together. What kind of shit is she into that she’s staying on a property that would be okay with a wild orgy? She sure as hell wasn’t into any form of kink while we were together. Hell, just convincing her to do more than lay on her back was an exercise in futility.
Goddammit. Why does that bitter memory make me think of the expert way Anna arched her back when I was taking her from behind? Getting a hard-on right now is the last damn thing I need. I refocus on my bitterness, on the anger that’s been building up since we discovered just how put out Dani has been