Read Online Blake, Abby - Keen Inclination [A Bride for Eight Brothers 4] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever) by Abby Blake - Free Book Online Page B

matter simply drop now. If Mikayla was able to provide them with enough details to discredit Jessie Evans’s information, then that’s all he needed to know.
    “You—” She cut herself off, looked between the three of them, and tried again. “You don’t want an explanation?”
    “Nope,” Bryce said as leaned against Lachlan’s desk and crossed his ankles. He was the picture of relaxation, and Lachlan grinned as Matt tried to follow his lead. Matt, however, wasn’t quite as successful, and his need to always be in control reared its head.
    “But if you want to tell us…” he said but trailed off when he saw Bryce’s reaction. “Fine, okay, shutting up now.”
    Mikayla smiled at him, her anger completely gone.
    “You’re not going to be happy until you know,” she said quietly.
    Matt shook his head. “No, honey, I’m fine. I know who you are now. That’s what’s important.”
    “So you have no curiosity over what happened before I met you.” Lachlan tried to hide his laugh as Mikayla looked very confused. It was obvious Matt really wanted to know.
    “N–no,” he lied. Mikayla half grinned, half frowned, but told him anyway.
    “It’s not that big a deal,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “You already know I didn’t have any family before meeting you and your brothers. As a kid I was bounced around in the foster system. By the time I was sixteen, I wanted nothing more than to be in charge of my own life.” She ran a hand through her hair, and Lachlan realized with a small jolt that she wasn’t nearly as calm as she was pretending.
    “Anyway, there aren’t many jobs a sixteen-year-old can get that will pay the rent and buy food, so I fell in with a group of people who weren’t exactly honest. By the time I realized what they actually were doing, I was in pretty deep.” She took a big breath as if there wasn’t quite enough oxygen in the air and then lounged against the wall in an obvious effort to appear calm. “So, basically, I turned state’s witness, helped to prosecute the leaders, and got myself and a couple of others out of the mess we were in.”
    Lachlan glanced at Bryce and realized he was probably thinking the same thing he was. The level of security surrounding her new identity meant that the people she’d testified against were seriously high on the criminal food chain. The fact that Bryce hadn’t been able to learn anything through official channels meant that Mikayla was probably lucky to have walked away alive. Thank God they hadn’t tried Bryce’s unofficial channels.
    “Are you safe now?” Bryce asked. Lachlan could see the muscle ticking in Bryce’s jaw and suspected he was feeling as worried as Lachlan. All the color had drained from Matt’s face.
    “Yes,” she said reassuringly. “Even if they manage to figure out who I am, the people who went to jail because of my testimony are long dead. Do you remember the Andromedes Prison ship disaster?”
    Andromedes? Hell, did he ever. While transferring notorious crime bosses, the intergalactic transport ship had been attacked and boarded by members of a major crime family. The captain had ordered the self-destruct, and the explosion had obliterated the prison ship and the ship belonging to their attackers. Passengers on a passing cruise liner had recorded the whole thing. About a year later, the prison ship’s internal security images had been released on intergalactic news channels and left very little doubt as to the fate of both the prisoners and crew.
    “Fuck me,” Matt said on a breathless wheeze as he finally took a seat.
    “Matt,” she said as she moved to sit beside him. “It’s okay. Even if there are any family members left, the government seized all their assets and I doubt they have enough money to worry about seeking revenge. I was a pretty small piece of the case that convicted them, and they didn’t know my part in it.”
    “Then why take a new name? Why not go back to your old