For a moment, no one spoke. What the fuck should I even say to that? I’d had no clue Cass had any history with the Lockhart family. No wonder he'd backed off so hard when I’d mentioned having previously been engaged to Chase. Cass would, understandably, despise that family.
"Here." Zed held out a bottle of whiskey to Cass. "You need something harder than coffee."
Cass gave a lopsided smile, accepted the liquor, and took a long swallow straight from the bottle. "Fucking oath."
"So, you want to get the egg back for Nadia?" Lucas asked, propping his chin on his hand and watching Cass thoughtfully. "That's sweet."
Cass's gaze turned to daggers. "Fuck you, Gumdrop."
Lucas just rolled his eyes. "I wasn't being snide; I meant it. You obviously care a lot about your grandmother, and this was a piece of her past that meant a lot to her. It's admirable, you big grump. Take the fucking compliment."
"That's why you got into the Reapers?" I asked quietly, processing the information he'd just shared.
Cass slid off the counter and approached me, threading his fingers into my hair as I turned my face up to look at him. "Yeah," he replied. "Without my mom... I lost my way. Ended up in a bad crew and then got taken in by Damien D'Ath. He raised me like a son, so I felt like I owed it to Zane to stick by him when he took over."
It made sense. But...
"Why didn't you tell me any of this, Cass?" It hurt that he hadn't told me about such pivotal parts of his childhood. Did he not trust me? Or just think I didn't care?
His lips downturned, and he stroked a thumb across my brow. "Because of this expression," he rumbled, no louder than a whisper. "Because I didn't want to see this look of fear and uncertainty in your eyes, Red. Not without hard evidence."
I took a breath. "I'm not—"
Cass gave a huff of humorless laughter. "Don't even try telling me you're not thinking Chase and I could be related. I know it was the first thing I thought, too."
"You think Channing could have been your bio-father," Zed commented, his tone neutral. "Easy enough to check, now that we have DNA samples from you and Chase both."
Cass nodded sharply, his focus still entirely on me. "I wanted to get your lab to run the test before bringing any of this up. I never wanted to be another weapon in Chase's psychological warfare against you, Angel."
Did I believe that?
My chest ached as I searched Cass's dark eyes for any sign of deception, but all I found there was sincerity. Love. He was telling the truth, I was sure of it.
Releasing my breath, I gave a shallow nod. "That's understandable," I murmured. "I'll call the lab and get them to compare your sample against Chase's."
Cass's shoulders relaxed as I said that, and his fingers applied pressure to the back of my neck, urging me to tilt my face back so he could kiss me long and hard. "Thank you," he murmured against my lips. "Thank you for trusting me."
I swallowed. Trusting anyone other than Zed was still such a daunting experience. For so long, he'd been the only person alive worthy of my trust, but now I was expanding my circle to include Cass and Lucas. To some extent, even Dallas and Hannah and Gen... they were all earning small pieces of trust. It felt good.
Maybe I'd been missing out all these years because Lucas and Cass had made me realize Zed wasn't the only one anymore. But he was still the first and the best.
Meeting my best friend's eye across the kitchen, I gave him a reassuring smile. "Okay, let me eat this pasta before I turn into a raging, hungry bitch, then Zed and I should head over to Anarchy."
"I need to get some training in, too," Lucas commented. "Maybe Cass can teach me a thing or two while you guys are gone."
Cass gave a light chuckle, his hand still buried in the back of my hair like he didn't want to let me go. Not just yet. "We'll see, Gumdrop. You look pretty rough already; I'd hate to mess up that pretty face."
The two of them started bantering like friends, and Zed gave me another pointed look. I knew what he was asking without him having to say a word, so I gave him a firm nod. Yes, I trusted Cass.
Zed gave a faint nod back and left it at that. But I knew we were on the same page.
34
Our event that evening at Anarchy was a relatively big fight night set up by our marketing team as a trial run for the high-profile main event we had scheduled for two weeks away. Before we even left the house, though, Zed got a call from Rodney over at Club 22.
"Couple of drunk suits got handsy with Maxine," he told me when he ended the call.
I frowned at him in the mirror as I applied my makeup. "Maxine's capable enough to handle them, even without security."
He smirked. "She did. But now they're shouting about pressing assault charges against her. Rodney needs me to come in and have a chat with the idiots."
I couldn't help smiling back at that. "Go. Let Maxine know she's got our support. No one touches my staff and gets away with it."
"You got it, Boss. I'll meet you at Anarchy once I'm done." He dropped a kiss to the back of my neck that warmed me all the way through. "Maybe bring Gumdrop. It'd be good for the Wolves to see him with us."
I paused my eyeliner, giving him a surprised look, then nodded my agreement. "Good thinking. I'll see you soon. Don't have too much fun, though."
Zed's devilish grin told me he was already planning on a whole lot of fun with the handsy bastards over at Club 22. I expected nothing less.
I finished getting ready after he left, then made my way down to the gym in search of Lucas. Seph hadn't reemerged from her loft room, and the loud music that thumped through the floor said she had settled in, at least for the time being.
What I found when I pushed through the gym door shocked me speechless.
A few days ago I'd overheard Lucas talking to Zed—joking, I thought—about getting a pole installed in the gym to get him back into shape for shifts at Club 22. Apparently, Zed had taken him seriously and installed a fully bolted-in, brass spinning pole.
Except, it wasn't Lucas hanging shirtless and upside down on the pole. It was Cass.
"What the fuck?" I muttered aloud, and Cass jerked. His grip loosened, and he crashed to the mat, just narrowly tucking his chin to protect his head.
Lucas started laughing, and Cass scowled absolute death at him from the floor where he'd landed.
"Gumdrop was talking smack," Cass grumbled. "I had to prove a point."
Lucas was laughing too hard to add any further information and had to scramble out of Cass's reach when he swiped at him in retaliation.
"Alright children," I drawled. "As much as I want to see a repeat of whatever just happened, we should get over to Anarchy. The first fight starts in half an hour so the venue will already be filling up."
"Who's fighting?" Cass asked, grabbing his t-shirt from the floor and tugging it over his head.
I scowled at him. "No one important, and no, you can't sneak out to watch. I need you here to keep an eye on Seph."
His shoulders slumped, and he hung his head in disappointment. "Babysitting. Again."