“Anyone know where Dallas is?” My gaze went to Linc because he was whom I was really asking, but I knew that he wouldn’t answer. Linc was loyal to Dallas to a fault and that only made me respect him more. The fact that he hated me right now didn’t bother me. As soon as I got Dallas back he would be my friend again because he supported anything that made Dallas or any of the other women in his life happy.

It was Natalie that raised her head. “Her dad is in the area. She went over to visit with him.”

“Where?” Maybe I could go out and meet her. I liked her dad, and he had seemed to tolerate me the few times I’d gotten to meet him.

Natalie frowned, trying to remember. “Huntington Estate? Yeah, I think that was it.”

Zander’s head snapped up in time to watch the blood drain from my face. “Fuck, man.”

I suddenly felt like vomiting. No. No. No way. I wasn’t going to let her get frostbite from my bitch of a mother. No way was I going to let that hoity-toity bitch sink her teeth into Dallas. My girl’s skin might be tough, but if Sharon Huntington got her teeth into her she would leave . My jaw suddenly hurt and I realized that it was because I was clenching it so hard.

If Dallas was at Huntington Estate, then that meant I was going to have to do something I had sworn never to do again in my lifetime.

Go home.

I didn’t say another word to the three sitting on the couch. Instead I found the keys to Wroth’s SUV and drove like the hounds of hell were behind me as I raced toward the other side of town. I passed the run-down streets that Devlin and Zander had grown up on, the new high school that had been built only a few years ago—but that I hadn’t ever attended, since my mother had insisted on a private school an hour’s drive away—and then the country club members’ homes. All of those pretentious assholes were friends in one way or another with my mother and I hated them simply by association.

A drive that should have taken twenty minutes ended up only being nine. When I skidded to a halt in the driveway, the tires squealed. The SUV was barely in park before I was running up the steps to the stupidly big house. Seriously, when I was a kid there had only been my parents and I living there. Who needed a ten-bedroom house when you only had one kid?

The door was locked and I had to either ring the doorbell or kick the damn door down. I would have rather kicked it down and would have done exactly that if the housekeeper hadn’t answered the door so quickly. When I focused on the older woman standing there in her maid’s uniform, I felt a small kick to my heart that it wasn’t Margret, the housekeeper who had basically raised me.

“May I help…” I pushed past the woman, “…you?”

“Dallas?” I called her name as I stomped through the house. If she was here then there was only one place to look first. My mother only entertained her guests in that stupid formal sitting room of hers. When I reached the door I heard the cold voice of my mother.

“…degrading your body.”

I entered the room to find Sharon Huntington looking down her straight nose at Dallas as she stood beside her father. It was obvious that she hadn’t been there too long if Dallas still had her coat on. The coat covered up most of Dallas’s tattoos, but that didn’t disguise the facial piercings.

“I don’t believe I asked for your opinion on what I’ve done with my body. Actually, I don’t remember asking you anything. So let’s try to keep our opinions to ourselves. If you keep your dislike of my piercings and tattoos—by the way I have twenty-two—to yourself, I will keep the fact that you are a snotty bitch to myself.”

I froze in my tracks. Had I really worried about Dallas being unable to stand up against my mother? If I had, then I had surely lost my mind. Dallas could stand up to anyone or anything. She was stronger than anyone I knew.

“Austin, darling, please tell me that this rude girl is not your daughter,” Sharon commanded, turning her disdainful eyes on the older man.

Suddenly I was very glad I had come, if for no other reason than to watch as Austin Bradshaw went from calm and collected to raging daddy bear in the blink of an eye. Even though I didn’t know much about the man, there was one thing that he made clear to anyone that he met. Austin worshipped Dallas. She could do no wrong in his eyes. Her tattoos and piercings? They just made her more beautiful. Her ballsy attitude? Damn, she sure did remind him of himself.

My mother had just made the ultimate mistake where this man was concerned. “She is, actually. She also will inherit every penny I have when I die. That little fact didn’t sit well with her momma, and it probably won’t sit well with you either. Dallas is mine, and I love every inch of her. I tend to make it a rule not to hit women, but you keep insultin’ my girl and I will make an exception.”

Sharon’s face turned blood red and her mouth opened and shut like a fish for a long moment before she narrowed her eyes on Austin. “Why you…”

“Well, it seems that I didn’t have to worry after all,” I spoke up, finally forcing every eye in the room on me.

Dallas’s eyes widened when she saw me, but she didn’t say anything. Austin inclined his head in greeting while my aunt stepped forward and embraced me in a tight hug. “Anthony! Oh my goodness. It’s so good to see you.”

I hugged her back for a brief moment before stepping back. “It’s good to see you too, Tink. And the name is Axton, remember?”

“Your name is Anthony,” Sharon snapped. “It’s the name I gave you.” I rolled my eyes at her as she gave me a once over, taking in the sight of my still dyed black hair, my pierced lip, the tattoos on my neck and the sleeve on my arms visible because I hadn’t stopped long enough to put my coat on in my rush to get to Dallas. “Don’t expect me to acknowledge you by any other name.”

“No one asked you too, mother,” I assured her, not sparing her another glance as I turned my gaze on Dallas. “Are you okay, baby?”

“You have got to be kidding me?” Sharon raged, but no one paid her any attention.

Dallas raised a brow, her lips starting to twitch as she tried to keep from grinning. “Your name is Anthony?”

I grimaced. “It was, once upon a time. It used to be Anthony Xavier Huntington. But I couldn’t see anyone in the rock world taking me seriously so I shortened it to Axton, added on the Cage and here I am.” I winked when the grin finally broke through. “Which do you like better?”