White Lies (Blood Brothers MC Book 1) by Amy Love

feet when Noel grabbed his hair and dragged Kane towards his desk.
     
    “Don’t be fucking mad at me, Kid!”
     
    Kane tried to respond when Noel brought his head down. Spinning, Kane tasted stale ash. He started to go limp when Noel slammed him once more before bringing his mouth close to Kane’s ringing ear.
     
    “I’m not the one who sent you up North,” Noel said. “You’re little lady did that.”
     
    Moaning through the blood bubbling around his lip, Kane tried to tell him that it was his choice, his alone, when Noel grabbed his collar. Standing him up with a throbbing head, Noel’s eyes were unreadable as he spoke softly.
     
    “This was to show you that she’s a user,” Noel said. “Used you to get out of a jam. Used me when she was lonely. Now you gotta leave this girl alone and get your head back in the game.”
     
    As Noel pushed away, Ben took hold of his arms before he fell back to the ground. Noel was already lighting a fresh cigarette, and he seemed assured of his victory. Kane turned his eyes to Ben and spoke softly.
     
    “Did she come here looking for him?” Kane whispered.
     
    The man slightly shook his dreads, so Kane asked his question again.  Noel was out of the room, probably in search of his aborted blow job when Ben lowered his voice.
     
    “Look, man,” Ben started. “She came here with some other chick. Real big girl.”
     
    Kane’s mind flashed to the pregnant lady.
     
    “Who was she looking for?” Kane asked again.
     
    A roar of laughter peeled through the tape, and Kane could see Noel confident that anything had happened was about to be forgotten. Just because he said so. Kane was a soldier, meant to fall in line and never second guess. But Angeline would have paused at his invitation. He had to have said something—
     
    “You, man,” Ben said. “But why would you want her now? She’s like, untrue, or whatever.”
     
    Ben offered him a smoke as Noel kept laughing from the other room.
     
    “K Man,” Ben said as he took a drag and offered him a puff. “Just let her go. Better for you. Probably better for her that all of us it never happened.”
     
    Kane let Ben’s words sink him. The guy had a point. Kane wanted nothing more than to forget the endless nights in the dark, dotted with other men’s screams. And as for Angeline?
     
    “Give me a drag,” Kane said.
     
    Drawing smoke into his lungs, Kane wondered if it as best to stay scarce.
     

CHAPTER ELEVEN
     
    “Angie?”
     
    Sitting on her front porch, the night turning to day, Angeline held her arms to her chest and waited.
     
    Once he was gone, again, she had fallen to the ground, a sobbing heap wanting nothing more than for him to come back. It fell to Terri to pick her up and guide her back to the car.
     
    “At least you have closure,” she said.
     
    Not at all. She had nothing but questions. How was he still alive? What did he really think of her now?
     
    Would she ever see him again?
     
    “Angie?”
     
    Brent Wilkins, using his cane in earnest, shuffled to her side and sat.
     
    “Honey, you should get some sleep,” Brent said.
     
    Angeline smiled at her dad and groaned into the dawn.
     
    “How can I sleep when I don’t know where he is?” she asked. “When he was in prison, at least I knew…”
     
    Nothing had gone according to their script, and now he was probably lost to a man with whom she could never really compete. Noel had history on his side; Angeline only had, thought she had, his heart.
     
    “At least he’s alive,” Angeline managed as she twisted around her father’s warm hold.
     
    It was something. Not the future that she had imagined, not the dream that she couldn’t help but fall back into when she felt his strong hands on her skin, But she would take it. Try hard not to cry herself to sleep each and every night and remember the times when—
     
    “What the hell?”
     
    Brent’s voice stalled her thoughts. Lifting her head, Angeline heard familiar