Takedown Teague (Caged #1)(75)

“I must say”—he turned to Tria—“you are most surprising.”

“How so?” she asked.

“Just your being here with my nephew,” he answered. “Apparently, any sort of insult toward you warrants quite a nasty right hook. I didn’t realize Liam had someone else in his life. This is fairly recent, I take it?”

“Cut the shit,” I said. “Do you want something, or did you just come all the way out here to annoy me?”

Michael stopped talking and smiling. He glanced down at the table for a second before pushing his chair back and standing up.

“I thought you might be in trouble,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I’m fine.” Once again, I found myself snapping at him.

“Liam!” Tria clenched her teeth as she said my name. She grabbed onto my arm again, like that was going to change what I was doing or saying.

“I’ll just go then.” Michael grabbed his jacket, tossed it over his arm, and headed toward the door.

Tria stood up as well, but when she tried to haul me up with her, I shook my arm free of her grasp. She glared at me as she followed Michael to the door. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why…”

Michael chuckled, but there was no happiness in the sound.

“It’s not the first time,” he told her. “This has certainly been an enlightening little encounter though. Full of other firsts.”

Michael reached up and rubbed his chin.

“He’s not usually like this,” Tria said quietly.

“Do you think I can’t hear you?” I asked. I reached forward and grabbed my glass of plain orange juice, wishing it was the one from last night with the vodka additive. I hated mimosas.

“Well,” Michael said, “I’m glad to hear that since this is all I ever see.”

“Fuck off,” I muttered under my breath.

“Liam! What is wrong with you?”

Michael huffed another laugh through his nose.

“I’d invite you over for Christmas,” Michael said as he opened the door to the suite and headed out into the hallway, “but I already know your answer.”

“Bye!” I called with fake enthusiasm. I wriggled my fingers sarcastically.

Yeah—sarcastic fingers.

“What is wrong with you?” Tria said as she came back and sat down across from me.

“Nothing,” I said. I stood and grabbed the last muffin off the tray. I shoved the whole thing into my mouth at once and then answered all her questions with incomprehensible mumbles for the next three minutes while I threw all our shit back into the bag.

“Liam,” Tria continued as she carefully placed the last of her toiletries in the Dragon’s Duffle, “he came all the way out here just to make sure you were—”

“You got everything?” I interrupted her to prevent her from making the comment that was surely coming. “We need to get going.”

With the last of our personal belongings accounted for and a couple of bagels stashed in Tria’s purse for later, I announced that we were leaving. I stood at the door waiting for her, ignoring her protests about how we still needed to talk.

What the f*ck was it with women always wanting to talk about shit that no one else thought was important?

“What’s this?” Tria said, and the tone of her voice caught my attention.

I looked over to where she stood by the table where we had eaten breakfast and watched her raise her hand. Gripped in her fist was a handful of cash.

“Fucker,” I muttered. “How much did he leave?”

“Three hundred,” Tria said in a hushed whisper as she thumbed through it.

“Leave it,” I said.

“What?” Tria’s head snapped back to meet my gaze.

“I don’t f*cking want it.”

“Liam, we don’t even have enough money for gas on the way home.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed the back of my neck.

“Fine,” I growled. “You keep it. Let’s go.”

I didn’t even bother to stop at the front desk to tell them we were checking out. I figured they would notice soon enough. Tria said nothing else as she stashed Thor’s Tote and lifted her leg to straddle the motorcycle. I climbed on behind her, extremely conscious of how close my ass was to the purse that could potentially suck me inside of it, never to be seen again. I shuddered as I wrapped my arms around Tria’s waist.

We took off north of the city, and before too long, I felt like we were right in the middle of the f*cking jungle. Even as a kid, I had always lived in the city, and the only vegetation around was what you planted yourself. This was completely different.

I had never seen so many trees in my life, and they were all huge. Even though there was snow on the ground, the trees were still green. As we flew past them, I decided I didn’t like trees—not one bit. Part of it was just because there were too damn many of them, but mostly because I couldn’t see anything around them. Unlike buildings in the middle of a city block, no one could sneak out from behind one except if there were a corner or a door—places easily defended.

The forest made me feel exposed and vulnerable.

I tightened my grip around Tria’s waist and leaned the front of my helmet against the back of hers. I didn’t know what she must have thought about the gesture, but she released one of the handlebars and reached behind her head to touch the edge of my jaw just below the rim of the helmet.