“I really am sorry.” His voice deepened, and I heard the emotion there. “I had to get things ready, for this war.” He hesitated before adding, “For your sister.”

My sister. My mouth fell open. Why hadn’t I considered that before? “I saw her.”

“What?”

“Outside the club last night. She was there. She saw me.” She’d been crying. “I think she felt bad. She was across the street, part of the crowd watching everything.”

“What?” He sat up, staring down at me now. “She was there?”

I nodded, and fuck—that hurt. “Yeah. Carter, she looks just like me. I thought it was me for a second. I was confused, but now—it was her. I know it.” I thought for a moment. “I might’ve been recognized when I went in. Maybe? It’s not that long of a trip from home. One hour on plane. Maybe…” But that felt odd. She was crying. I couldn’t get that out of my head. “Carter, she looks just like me.”

I couldn’t get her out of my head.

Then I noticed the wall—it was gray. The walls at Noah’s place were tan. I kept looking around. A closet. A fireplace across from our bed with a television mounted on the wall and a desk built in. There was a door that I assumed led to a bathroom or a closet, or both. I didn’t know, but I turned back to Carter. “Where are we?”

“My place.”

“Your place?” The one he’d kept a secret.

He nodded, hesitating for a moment. “I brought you here to be safer.”

“I wasn’t aware you had a place,” I lied.

He grinned. “Yeah, you were. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before. I meant to, but I was renovating it. Better security measures.”

“Better security measures?”

He nodded.

Someone knocked on the door. “You have a phone call, Mr. Reed.”

“I have to go.”

I rolled my eyes. “I thought we were going to have passionate mad sex here.”

The amusement fled from his face. He grew somber. “Are you okay?”

I swallowed a burst of emotion, hearing the tenderness from him. “I’ll be fine. I want to know what happened, but I’ll be fine for now.”

“Okay.” Carefully so he wouldn’t hurt me, he pressed his lips to my forehead. The entire thing was so tender, so gentle, that I felt like crying again.

“I have to go,” he said. “It started last night. I have to make sure everything will be okay, for us.”

War.

He didn’t say the word, but that’s what it was. I knew what a bomb in Cole’s nightclub meant.

Carter slipped from the bed, going through the door I’d wondered about into the bathroom. I watched him, taking in his trim waist and the way the muscles in his back moved, gliding seamlessly under his skin. He was beautiful to look at, from behind as well as from the front. And he was all mine.

But I was terrified.

The war had started.

When I walked into the Mauricios’ house, the conversations grew silent. I knew Cole had moved his base of operations here, taking the library as his office. Ignoring looks from the men and a few of the women, I headed straight there. Cole had told me to stay out when we spoke last night. He was the leader, but that was the thing—if I wasn’t in the family any longer, he wasn’t my leader.

Shavon met me outside the closed doors. A serene smile on her face, Cole’s cousin looked sultry and dangerous all at the same time. “Carter, Carter, Carter.”

I narrowed my eyes. I’d been coming to this same house, smoothing over Cole’s initiation, almost every day for the last month and today she met me like I was a long-lost stranger? “Don’t press me, Shavon.”

A smooth chuckle came from her. She cocked her head to the side, studying me. Her smile never slipped from her face. “Press you? Why? You’re more family than he is.”

I got it then. She wasn’t doing Cole’s bidding. She was going against him. I shook my head. “I’m not interested in that.”

As I moved around her, she stepped with me and blocked me. “Come on, Carter. Can you hear me out?” Her hand rested on her slim hip. Moving closer to me, she trailed a finger down my chest. “You used to have all the time in the world for me. Remember those days?”

Pre-Emma and never again. “Back up, Shavon. I’m not in the back-stabbing business.” My eyes flashed a warning, and this time, I physically held her in place so I could go around with no problems. I ignored her swift intake of breath and walked inside, thrusting both doors open. Not waiting for them to close, I announced, “Just so you know…” Cole looked up from the desk, as did the three other men in front of him. “Your cousin is plotting your demise.”

“Carter!” Shavon gasped from behind.

The doors slammed shut, and I didn’t need to look to know she was scurrying out of the house.

Cole grinned, standing up from his chair. “Did you just take care of a problem for me?”

“Knowing Shavon, she’ll be on the plane for Florida in the next thirty minutes, and she’ll be there for the next six months.”

“Well, then.” Cole’s gaze slid to one of the men and lingered there. “I hope your daughter doesn’t play with knives, Leo.”

Shavon’s father chuckled, shaking his head. “My daughter, well, what can you do about her? She does what she does.”