Rein In (Willow Bay Stables #3)(13)

Loafers dragged her toward him, and my eyes focused in on the way her skin went white under his touch.

“Wells, no,” she hissed as he leaned down to kiss her.

The loose grip I maintained on reality gave way and I lunged in their direction, but I was met by Dirt’s iron grip around my waist.

“That’s enough,” Fun Bobby intervened, stepping behind Aurora.

Wells shook his head. “This is a private conversation.”

“And it’s over now.” He glared at where Loafers still held on to her arm.

His grip didn’t budge.

“You do realize I’m a felon.” Fun Bobby laughed. “And so is he.” He nodded in the direction of Glitch, who waved. “And so is the big one.” He motioned towards Dirt. “And see the one that looks Marilyn Manson’s godson?” I growled when he pointed at me. “He is, too. So best you be on your way, kid.”

He assessed the four of us, as I struggled against Dirt’s hold, before finally letting her go. “I’ll call you later,” he said, backing up toward his car.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” she called after him.

Fun Bobby tucked her behind him, and I felt my heart rate settle to an even pace.

“You good?” Dirt asked in a low whisper.

I nodded.

“You be fightin’ and shit, Grant will have you sent back in, Crow,” he said as he let me go. “Be smart, dude.”

I nodded again as Loafers roared out of the parking lot.

My body was pulled toward her of its own volition. So much so that when Dirt completely released me, I almost fell face first onto the driveway.

“Are you okay?” The words came out like sandpaper on my throat as I stood beside her.

“What’s it to you?” Her eyes dropped to my bare chest, which was small in comparison to Dirt and Fun Bobby’s.

Speech died on my lips, and suddenly I felt suffocated standing so close to her.

“You never liked my country club boyfriend anyway, Rhys White.” She smiled like she knew all my secrets and liked them.

My heart swelled against the barbed wire that surrounded it.

She knew my name.

“Rhys.” I heard her saying it in my head even as she walked away.

Just saying it brought her light closer to my shadows.

I guess sometimes, angels do fall.





I’D BEEN PORING OVER these files, one in particular, for a week straight. I knew all the information written inside by heart.

Glitch had robbed a liquor store with his little brother, who’d only been nineteen at the time, a mere two years younger than Glitch himself. It was the third time the brothers had been arrested and the judge, who I’d googled, was a hard ass. She’d sentenced both the brothers on the same day. It was Glitch’s brother who got the most time. During the robbery, he had hit the store clerk when he hit the panic button and broken his nose. He was still in jail.

Fun Bobby was a cocaine dealer, or had been. He dealt to all the local bars in town but had a strict no minors policy when it came to purchasing. If someone he dealt to turned around and sold to a minor, Fun Bobby would blacklist them, and though no one had ever been able to prove it, beat them to a pulp. When the cops arrested him on distribution, he was high himself and knocked out one of the cops in a single blow, which resulted in two extra years on his sentence.

Dirt was a car thief and a picky one at that. Every vehicle he’d stolen had a purchase price of no less than eighty thousand dollars. His file listed ten counts of grand theft auto since the year he turned thirteen. He was arrested on his eighteenth birthday in a Tesla V8, which from what I’d found on Google, was a big deal. During the police chase, he hit a man crossing the street. The prosecutor had pushed for vehicular manslaughter, but the man survived and charges were reduced. Dirt pled guilty to attempted manslaughter.

I knew as much about those three men as I did about the fifteen volunteers and the twenty-two youth cases we currently had, including Josh.

Despite all of this—the skeletons in all these closets—I kept coming back to one file.

Rhys White.

In fact, I half wondered if I’d become a bit obsessed with it. The edges of the folder had started to bend from being shoved in my backpack repeatedly.

I flipped it open for the umpteenth time.

His file was lighter than the others. During his prosecution, Rhys never once spoke in his defense. He pled guilty to both charges of assault with a deadly weapon and the charge of attempted murder. It was noted that his lawyer requested he be tried as a minor, but Rhys declined. There were no notes listed in his prison records other than the indication of good behavior which resulted in his granting of parole after eight years.

Eight years.

If I rewound my life eight years and thought about being stuck in a cage all that time, my heart rebelled. What a life that would be.

Reading about them, especially Rhys, who I’d become so enthralled with from a distance, one would expect to feel the basic remnants of fear, but I didn’t. These men were dangerous, of course. You’d have to be ignorant to think they weren’t, but I wasn’t sure that I believed that was all they were.

Glitch was nerdy and hilarious in a self-deprecating kind of way. Dirt, under all those muscles, was actually quite brilliant, and Fun Bobby had a heart that was as big as his shirts were tight.