Broken Crescent (Devil's Sons Motorcycle Club Book 2) by Kathryn Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

wake him.
     
    “What?” he grunted, disoriented.
     
    “I cooked for you. Come eat, brother. We have things to discuss, and I didn’t want to talk about this stuff at Maman and Baba’s home. You’re at my place.”
     
    “Your place?” he scowled and sat up, swinging his legs around to the floor. He seemed a little better in charge of himself. Afia stepped back and cautiously watched him amble to the kitchen area where the countertop served as a bar with stools on the side of the living room. She gestured for him to sit and moved into the kitchen to fix their plates.
     
    “This is getting out of control between us. We never used to fight like this,” she muttered. Afia served the rice, kebabs, and vegetables. “What’s happened to us?”
     
    “You think I want this?”
     
    She moved to the kitchen sink and poured a glass of cold water. He’d need it to flush the alcohol out of his system. “I think you rely too heavily on booze to cosset you from real world problems, and you jump at shadows, ready for a fight at every second as a result of it. So, yeah, I guess I do think you want this, because you keep it going.”
     
    She slapped the brochure down on the counter next to his plate. Rayan glanced at the cover. The navy blue pamphlet pictured a sparkling steel and glass facility on the front overshadowed by a smiling practitioner. “What’s this?” he asked.
     
    “It’s help. Like the rehab facility Maman and Baba got you admitted into the first time.” She picked up her fork and started to eat though she wasn’t hungry. She encouraged Rayan to do the same.
     
    “You’re worried about the wrong things. I’m a man. I can handle myself. It’s you I worry about. These American ways have subverted you, changed you from the wholesome, virtuous woman you used to be into someone I barely recognize. You leave me no choice, Afia. I’m telling Maman and Baba you have been consorting with the biker.”
     
    “You don’t know of what you speak,” she hissed angrily. Her fork clattered out of her fingers, and she turned her body on the stool to face Rayan. “I stopped seeing him because of you, because of my respect for you and in an attempt to do what I thought must be right. But, I have prayed, brother. I have sought counsel and studied the Word.”
     
    “Then, you must know that to be with him puts your soul in danger,” Rayan countered. He wasn’t about to back down. He knew that he was right.
     
    Afia sighed and averted her gaze, having nothing she could say to defend herself. There was little uncertainty to it. She was wrong, religiously, to be with Sam. Yet…she didn’t care. “It’s my choice,” she whispered. “My soul is mine to bear.”
     
    He pointed at her with the fork. “Which is exactly why I’m telling our parents. Maybe they can talk some sense into you.”
     
    Afia’s eyes flashed. They were the color of shifting sands and sunrises, soft brown with golden flecks, and ringed in rich brown. She told him seriously, “If you tell my Maman and Baba about Sam, then I will tell them about you and your drinking.”
     
    He faltered, his fork lowering to the near clean plate, appetite sated. Rayan wiped his mouth and muttered expletives, furious at Afia for leveraging his drinking against him. “So what if I drink!”
     
    “So what would Baba say, eh? What would he think about you throwing away everything he has invested into your future, our future! At some point, you have to grow up and realize there is more at stake than reputations where your alcoholism is involved. You steal from our parents to support your habits. You gamble away the money they give you, and now you live off of them like a child. You’re not a man, Rayan. You’re a leech. And, you worry about my soul? What about yours?”
     
    Her scathing commentary fired through him like missiles, cutting Rayan to the core. It was one thing to suffer in privacy with his demons. It was quite another to realize they