RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,96

floor, leaning up against the wall by the open fire, glaring balefully at me while he tends to his ‘bruised’ windpipe. I barely fucking touched him.

Wren hasn’t said much. He stands by the doorway that leads through to the kitchen, his shoulders tensed, as he watches his two friends. His jade eyes have skimmed over me once or twice, but his main focus has been on Dash and Pax, as if he’s waiting for something to happen. He’s wearing a black hoody and some loose sweatpants, and boy does he make them look sinful. The son of a bitch could make a garbage bag look good, though. I look away from him, only to catch Dash frowning deeply at me.

“What brings you over, love? We adore receiving people, but the place is kind of a bombsite. It’s past midnight and we just got back from a very long trip. We were about to start some party planning.”

The house is spotless. The thick cream rug that Pax’s annoying ass is sprawled out on looks recently vacuumed. The glass coffee table doesn’t have a single fingerprint on it. The beaten brass panel above the fireplace is so polished, it’s as reflective as a mirror. The moody paintings on the walls—black, blue, white, slashes of emotion on canvas—are much more breathtaking now that I’m seeing them properly lit, and don’t have a fleck of dust gathering on their frames. The magazines and books on top of the sideboard are so perfectly aligned that not a rogue corner or dogeared edge pokes out from their stacks. The place looks like a fucking hotel lobby.

Wren coughs into his balled-up fist, apparently trying to muffle his snort of laughter. The corner of his eyes are crinkled, betraying his amusement, though. I never thought it possible for him to smile, but it actually happens pretty frequently. You just have to be paying attention in order to catch it—

I catch something else, as he holds that hand in front of his face: his knuckles are bruised. One of them is split open, red and raw. They weren’t like that the other night in the attic, nor in the library, either. I would have noticed. He’s hit something since I saw him on Saturday, and by the looks of things, he hit that something hard. As if he can feel my gaze on him, Wren unclenches his fist, stretching his fingers out, and lazily shoves his hand back into the pocket of his sweatpants, looking down at his feet.

“Sorry for interrupting your party planning,” I say in a droll tone. “I just…came to return a book I borrowed from Wren.”

I pull A Study in Scarlett out of my bag, holding it sheepishly in the air, as if showing them the book will inexplicably make my excuse less lame.

Wren looks up at me from under dark, banked brows, giving me all of his attention at last. He looks pained, though. His mouth twitches, slanting up at the side. “Ahh. Sherlock Holmes. Yeah. I wondered where that had gotten to.”

“God, you’re pathetic,” Pax laughs. He rips the sock of his right foot, balls it up and hurls it at Wren’s face. “A girl skipped down the hill in the dark, by herself, and you’re standing over there, all, ‘Ohhh, Sherlock Holmes. My favorite book of all time? Credit us with a little common sense. She came here to get some dick, Jacobi.”

Dash laughs down his nose but manages to cut it off pretty quickly. He studiously stares up at the ceiling, looking anywhere and everywhere but at me. The only person who actually does look at me is Wren. He must see the bright red stains on both my cheeks. My embarrassment can probably be seen from outer space. Ducking my head, I crack my neck, letting out a steady, even breath. What does it matter if that’s what they think? Who fucking cares anyway? They’re a pair of jackals, these two. Equally detestable, for a variety of reasons. I won’t be cowed by their stupid, inane comments or their adolescent tittering.

Slowly, I get to my feet, still holding the coffee mug and the book in my hands. “Whatever. I’m gonna go up to your room, Wren. I’ll give you a beat to figure out those party planning duties. No rush.”

The three of them just stare at me as I waltz across the open plan living room area and I begin to climb the stairs. My heart slams like a jackhammer,