Sacred Vow (Angels Halo MC Next Gen #5) - Terri Anne Browning Page 0,35
told Kingston with a shrug. “He paid for it. Let him keep it. I’ll get my own.”
“I’m sure Aunt Kelli will have shit to say about that,” he muttered unhappily. “He’s being such a fucking prick over this whole thing, River. I knew he was going to be pissed about you and Maverick, but I figured he would get over it once he saw how much Mav loves you. This…” He tightened his hands around the steering wheel. “He needs a good knock upside of his hard head, if you ask me.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, fighting off a chill. It wasn’t even cold out, but I still found myself shivering. “I’m just glad no one got hurt at the party. My fear was that Dad would kill Maverick then and there. I call it a birthday miracle that no blood was shed.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said with a grunt as he pulled into the parking lot of Aggie’s. “You take the car. I’ll catch a ride with Mom later. It’s not like I need this damn thing right now anyway. I’ve got my bike, so you keep this as long as you need to.”
Giving him a grateful smile, I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” I murmured and was rewarded with him wrapping me in a tight hug.
“Happy belated birthday, by the way. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to say it at the party.” He pulled back and gently tapped me under my chin with his fist. “Don’t drive fast. At least ten people will murder me if something happens to you in this thing.”
I smacked another kiss on his cheek. “You know you’re my favorite cousin, right?”
Opening his door, he winked at me. “Of course I am. I’m everyone’s favorite.”
Snickering, I climbed into the driver’s seat. After adjusting everything, I pulled my seat belt on and drove the few miles to the Ink Shoppe.
It was still early, so no one else was there yet. The door was locked, so I used my key and opened the back door. Maverick said his mom had gone in the day before to help run the front for his dad, but she normally didn’t do the things I took care of, like count inventory in the stock room and make sure the receipts were in order so I could keep up with the account books.
Locking the door behind me, I walked to the front of the shop and booted up the computer system. While that was getting started, I went into Uncle Spider’s office to see if there was anything in there in need of immediate attention. Sometimes he left me notes in case he needed a certain ink ordered in time for a specific tattoo. Some colors of ink weren’t kept in the shop because they weren’t regularly used and it would be a waste, so we only ordered it if a client asked for it in advance.
As expected, there were a few things I needed to order, so I went into the stock room to see if we were low on anything else.
Opening the door, I was surprised to find the light on. Frowning, I took two steps into the room and froze when I saw the blanket Mav and I used to make a bed sometimes was lying on the floor. I kept it neatly folded up and hidden away, so I knew Uncle Spider or Aunt Willa hadn’t messed with it.
“Someone’s been in here,” I muttered to myself. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought that something was off in the storage room. The week before, when Lyric had come to pick up his package of ink, the box had been in a different location than I remembered placing it originally, and I thought there had been a smudge of what looked like blood on the box.
At the time, I’d just thought I’d moved it and hadn’t remembered because I was so scatterbrained from being pregnant. But now, finding the blanket on the floor, having obviously been slept on, I was sure someone had been in the storage room.
I made sure to lock up every night, so I knew unless the person doing it was some kind of magician with a lockpick, then that wasn’t how they were getting in. And other than a few misplaced things, along with the use of the blanket, nothing else had been off. There was no missing money, no missing supplies, and nothing had been vandalized.