Kings of Anarchy (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #3) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,148

was calling him that with the aim of softening him, it still set my blood alight.

There was a long pause that followed where it was clear all of us wanted to argue against this further, but none of us could deny that it was her right to go.

"Fine," Kyan ground out, his posture rigid as he placed his hands on her ass and gripped her tightly. "But you won't leave my side for a single second. You'll do everything I say and if I decide it's getting too dangerous you promise to cut our losses and run with me."

"I swear it," she agreed and I bit my tongue against the rest of the protests I wanted to make, my gaze meeting Blake's and seeing the same concern in his eyes. How had this girl won so much loyalty from us four dark creatures in such a short span of time?

"That's settled then. I'll formulate a plan and you can go this week," Saint said like this whole thing wasn't utterly insane. "In the meantime, I'll continue to pursue the club financially. I have already made a list of likely members from my knowledge of the city's worst assholes and the names you remembered from when you were initiated, Kyan - which would be a lot easier if you’d paid more attention I might add-"

"It's not about me paying attention or not," Kyan growled. "I have purposefully spent my life having as little to do with the kinds of mean motherfuckers my grandpa involves himself with as possible. Whenever I've been forced to work with the family, I've focused on the grunt work, the bloody work, not the posturing or money grabbing and I've never cared to make friends with old rich bastards who want to rule the world with their wallets."

"Hail to that," I muttered, giving Saint a look to let him know I thought of him as one of the aforementioned bastards, but he just ignored me.

"The point is not about you making friends with them, Kyan, it's about knowing who your enemies are,” Saint said in an exasperated tone. “I know you like to think of yourself as the biggest, baddest beast in the woods but you forget that a thousand wasps can take down a bear if they work together and a pack of wolves would do it with even more efficiency. Sometimes I feel like you refuse to allow my influence to take effect on you out of sheer determination to remain ignorant."

Blake laughed at that and Kyan shrugged like there might be some truth to the statement.

"I'm still getting over the shock of finding out that there are things the great Saint Memphis can't uncover alone," Blake teased as the mood lightened slightly. "And I'm looking forward to Kyan and Tate figuring it all out for you. Will you be awarding them some kind of prize or will the reward just be in knowing they managed to do something you couldn't?"

"I'd like to see you do as much as I have to track down an elite secret organisation with endless funding and countless powerful people working to protect it," Saint snarled at him like casting shade on his capabilities was the worst thing anyone could do to him.

"I still don't like it," I said, earning myself a glare from Tatum, but I ploughed on regardless. I wasn't ever going to apologise for trying to protect her. "Two people in a sea of serpents doesn't sound like good odds to me."

"I wasn't sure if I should suggest this or not," Kyan said hesitantly. "But I think we could get my uncle Niall on side to help us look into this. He...well he's an evil motherfucker with a mean streak that would make even you assholes shit your pants if he turned it on you, but he also has an axe to grind against people like the sadists running Royaume D’élite. He hasn't made any move against them because he also has no intention to stand against his pa for the position of head of the family so he doesn't like to openly defy him, but I think he would help us get the information we need to take them on. He’s a member too and he'd have our backs if he attended the club with us."

I considered that, liking the idea of them having someone else there on their side even if it was a member of Kyan's criminal family.

Tatum scrunched her nose up. "I dunno,