Reign of Wrath (Dirty Broken Savages #3)(76)

My palms are tingly and my heart rate is a little faster than normal, proof that I’m just anxious to get through this without anything going wrong.

It’s a party, so we mingle among the other guests. A waiter passes by with a tray of champagne flutes, and we all take one, scoping out the crowd.

I take a sip of the champagne, letting the bubbles tickle my nose. Hopefully the alcohol will settle my nerves a bit, but it also gives me something to do with my hands.

There’s no sign of Julian yet, and I frown as I scan the crowd. There are so many people here in their finery, glittering and doing their fake laughs and all, but I don’t see the reason we came here.

He would be impossible to miss, since I feel like my body is honed in on him, just waiting.

“Maybe he’s not coming,” I murmur. “I don’t see him anywhere.”

“Neither do I,” Ash says. “But he’ll be here.”

“How do you know?”

He shrugs. “Like we said, it’s more important than ever for him to come to this, considering he needs these connections more than he did before. He’s going to be clinging to whatever he can, and this is a last chance for him to avoid losing everything.”

I let out a shaky breath, reminding myself again that they’re right. I know they’re right. He won’t let the chance slip through his fingers, so he’ll be here.

The crowd starts to part a bit, and I crane my neck to see what’s happening. A little ways off, there’s a tall, handsome man walking through, and everyone seems to be zoned in on him.

Alec Beckham, the host of the party, has made his appearance, then.

Ash snickers when he catches sight of him, lowering his voice so only the five of us can hear. “Do you know how far Julian would stick his nose up Alec’s ass if he had the chance?” he comments. “All that smug bullshit he talks, but if Alec told him to roll over like a good dog, he’d do it in a second. Lick his boots? No problem.”

Gage snorts, and even Priest cracks a smile at that.

“Why is this guy so important?” I ask them. I’ve heard of him, of course. Everyone in Detroit has heard of Alec Beckham. He’s one of the richest men in the state, if not the richest, so it’s impossible to do anything without at least hearing his name and his business ventures and shit.

“He’s old money,” Gage tells me, keeping his voice low. “The kind of money that’s been passed down so many times no one in his family knows what it’s like to not have money. It doesn’t rely on him being clever or good with business, but he probably is. His money makes money, and that’s the kind of wealth Julian would love to get his hands on. He wants to be a part of that echelon of society.”

Priest nods. “We have money to do what we want with, and so does Julian, but he doesn’t have the prestige and reputation that goes along with it. That’s what he wants.”

But we’re still waiting for Julian to arrive, and the longer he takes to show up, the more antsy I get. I tap my foot against the shiny, polished floor, glancing around nervously. Every time someone passes by or comes through that arched door, I look to see if it’s Julian. And so far, it’s never him.

I sigh audibly, and Ash catches my gaze. He grabs my hand and tugs me after him, not really giving me a chance to argue. The other guys let us go, not seeming worried at all. There’s still the plan to execute, and Priest has to go set up the video to play the footage that will damn Julian tonight.

“What are you doing?” I ask Ash as he drags me out of the room and then down a quieter hallway. It’s lined with doors, and he chooses one, seemingly at random to open and then tugs me inside.

We end up in what looks like a storage closet. It’s more spacious than any closet I’ve ever been in before, with shelves along the back piled high with linens and towels. An automatic light snapped on as soon as we walked in, so when Ash closes the door after us, we’re not immediately plunged into darkness.

Ash just grins down at me and pulls me into his arms. Before I can ask him again what he’s doing, he leans down and kisses me.

It’s a surprise, because I definitely wasn’t expecting him to do something like this in the middle of this party when we’re here to ruin a man’s life. But that doesn’t stop me from leaning up and kissing him back.

There’s never really a bad time to kiss Ash, and he makes a soft noise into it, pulling me even closer as our mouths move together.

When we part for breath, there’s a crooked smile on his face and heat in his eyes. “It’s been a while since we’ve done this, huh?” he asks. “Made out somewhere fancy while we’re all done up.”

It hits me then that he’s thinking about the night of the gala. It does seem like that was a long time ago, even though it really wasn’t in the grand scheme of things.

That was the first time we fucked, and he’s probably thinking about how I was using it to try to drive him away. It’s like he’s trying to erase that, to overwrite that moment with this one.

I know we’ll have to get back to the party soon, but the need for Ash rises as strongly in me as his own need seems to be. There’s also something in me that wants to show him things are different now. That I’ll never hurt him like that again.

That things are not the same as they were back then at the gala.