I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Sutton had covered herself before opening the door and pushing through, shutting it firmly behind me as I did.
“I fucking hate you,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Are you coming, or not?”
I stared at him blankly. “That better not be the reason you’re at my door right now.”
When I reached for the handle, he slammed a knife into the door and held tight, preventing me from turning.
“These aren’t our houses, you can’t do shit like that here.”
His expression told me he didn’t give a fuck.
Then again, I shouldn’t have expected him to.
Kieran was raised to speak in blades and blood and lethal expressions.
“I need you with me,” he said in a gruff tone. “This is big, I can feel it.”
“Is that why you’re making Jess sit out?”
He wavered before demanding, “Yes or no.”
“You know where I want to be,” I finally responded in a low tone. “What I don’t know is where you’ll let me be, Boss.”
“Don’t ever fucking call me that.”
“Then stop acting like that’s what you are.”
His eyes shifted to the door before he ripped his blade free. “Not doing this here.”
When he took a step away, I reached for the handle.
The shock and disbelief that ripped across his face floored me.
I wasn’t sure I could’ve ever done anything to put that look on Kieran’s face, and the part of me that loved him and owed him my life felt bad that I could, no matter what shit we were going through.
“You’re gonna have to give me a minute.”
He responded by folding his arms over his chest, letting me know he wasn’t leaving.
I stalked back into the room, already headed for the bathroom to clean up, and found Sutton in there starting the shower.
Her face lit up when she saw me. “I didn’t think he was going to let you back so soon.”
“He isn’t.”
And damn him because that light in her eyes dimmed.
I pressed a slow, lingering kiss to her swollen lips. “I’m going tonight.”
Her sigh told me she both expected and dreaded those words. “I know.”
“If you don’t want me to, I need to know now.”
“That isn’t my place,” she said with a half-hearted smile. “Even if it were, I don’t know that I’d stop you. It’s just something I don’t understand, and it scares me and worries me.”
“I know.” I curled my arms around her, holding her tightly, because there was nothing I could say to ease her worries. “I need to get ready, but you should try to get some sleep while I’m gone.”
A disbelieving laugh left her as she pushed against my stomach. “That isn’t likely.”
“Try. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She nodded, the movement quick but faint as she pulled away from me.
She waited just outside the shower as I cleaned up, and then as I was leaving the bathroom she said, “Please.”
I gripped the doorframe and turned, looking at her questioningly.
“Please keep yourself safe and come back so you’ll see me in the morning.”
I closed the distance between us in a few steps and pulled her against me. Slanting my mouth over hers and pouring everything I had into that kiss.
My strength.
My peace.
My heart.
“So far gone,” I whispered against her lips. With one last feather-soft kiss, I forced myself to let her go and walked away.
I was still shrugging into my shirt as I opened the door to an irritated Kieran.
“That was more than a minute.”
“Fuck off. I’d get a knife thrown at me if I ever tried to pull you from a room with Jess.”
He didn’t respond, just walked away, knowing I would follow.
He ignored the curious stares and Jess’s questions as we moved through the suite, and he didn’t stop moving until we were in the room I was staying in.
As soon as I shut the door behind me, he rounded on me.
“You think I’m treating you like a goddamn boss?”
“Not think. Know.” I slowly advanced toward him, sneering as I did. “I’ve taken orders from you most of my life, so it isn’t as if I don’t know exactly what it looks like.”
“I’m trying to protect you. I’m trying to make you see what you’re refusing to. I’m trying to stop you before you get so deep that it fucking ruins you,” he said, each word a soft threat.
The equivalent of yelling for Kieran.
I stopped as disbelief filled me. “Sutton? This is about Sutton?” A sharp, aggravated laugh burst from me. “I thought we were done with this.”
“We can’t when—”
“No, actually, we are done with this.” I stepped back, hand raised in silent protest. “You’re assholes. All of you.”
“I don’t trust her, and you’re so blinded by her that you won’t see this case for what it is.”
“You gave me the green light,” I nearly yelled. “Did you forget that?”
“A mistake,” he snapped. “I could see where your head already was, and I knew trying to stop you would only make it worse. Then she continued lying and evading, and more evidence turned up that went against everything she had told us.”
“Evidence that she had no idea about.” I gestured to the door behind me. “Were you not in the same room with us?”
“I heard every damn word. I watched every expression. I’ve been watching and listening.” Kieran stepped forward, his voice dropping lower. “Her husband could manipulate Dare, Conor. People who manipulate lie detectors still can’t get past Dare . . . but Zachary could. She could be playing everyone.”
“Jesus, I—” I let out a groan of frustration and rubbed at my jaw. “She is the worst liar I’ve ever seen. We would know.”
“You sure about that?” He rocked back on his heels and crossed his arms over his chest, frustration taking over his features. “Dare, Einstein, me. Nothing has ever gotten past any of us . . . no one, no gang, no anything. These people have. There’s something so damn wrong with this entire case that I can fucking taste it.”
“With the case, yeah, but not her.”
“Especially her,” he fired back.
“Jesus.” The word was a breath. Maybe a laugh. I wasn’t sure.
“If you weren’t fucking her, you would see it.”
“Careful,” I said on a low growl.
“I see what she does to you. She enters a room, and you lose your damn head. She could be playing the biggest game of them all, and you wouldn’t know.” He ran his hands over his head, a huff of frustration leaving him. “I can’t stop you. I know I can’t. Just tell me you aren’t being stupid. That you won’t get yourself in a situation neither of you can come back from.”
My brows pulled low in confusion, but before I could shoot back any of the things on my mind, I grasped what he was saying.
I watched his expression fall as mine turned to stone.
“Conor . . . fucking think, man. You can’t knock up a girl you just met. You can’t knock up someone you don’t know anything about—someone who could be pulling us into a trap.”
“I hear you,” I snapped before he could continue. “Jesus, I hear you.”
Not that there was anything I could do to change the last few hours or how fucking reckless we had been.
I took a step back, trying to gather my thoughts and wrap my head around everything.
I’d been careless.
I was never careless.
But the last thing I thought I’d need on a case was a condom.
The last thing on my mind when I had Sutton in my arms was stopping. I was too consumed by us and the overwhelming need for her to think about anything else but making her feel good. Making her mine. Cherishing her and worshipping her for every minute that I had with h
er.
But I knew . . . I knew this bullshit with Kieran was only happening because it was Sutton. He had never cared what I’d done in my personal life. Never asked, never interfered, until this case.
“After everything we’ve been through together . . . everything I went through to stay alive those first years in Holloway.” Kieran’s brows pulled tight in confusion, but I continued. “I’ve never asked you for anything. I am asking you to just be happy for me.”
He watched me for a minute before shrugging, the motion seeming to weigh him down. “I can’t. I promised Beck I would take care of you, and you aren’t thinking clearly.”
Disappointment snaked through my chest and leaked through my tone. “Don’t do me any favors because of him. He’s gone.”
“I’m protecting the only brother I have left,” he ground out. “You’re my responsibility, and I can’t watch you go down a path that is going to destroy you.”
“That’s rich coming from you,” I seethed. “I watched your relationship with Lily fall apart. I saw what it did to both of you. I heard every detail of your twisted relationship with Jess, including the betrayal that almost got all of us killed. I never said a damn word about any of it because I knew what they both meant to you. Instead, I protected the girls you loved because you asked me to and I trusted you to know what you were doing. Trust me to know what I’m doing.”
“Sutton isn’t Jessica. What happened between us—” Kieran’s eyes slowly shut. When they opened, they were colder than before. “Worst thing I’ve been through other than watching the people I love die. But from the beginning, I could see Jessica’s struggle. Knew something was coming—clear as fucking day. Sutton’s struggling with what we’re telling her, not with what she’s keeping from us. She’s going to annihilate you, and you can’t see it.”
“Then let her.” My chest moved with exaggerated jerks. “She could destroy me, and I would let her. Do you understand now what she means?”
A haunting kind of pain flashed across his face. “Better than you realize,” he said with a forced swallow. “That’s the only reason I haven’t taken the information we need.”
Shards of ice pushed into my veins.
I didn’t have to wonder what Kieran meant.
Kieran gained information one way, and one way only.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Everyone has a breaking point, and we need answers,” he said unapologetically. “No one has ever been able to hide from me, and two people are. Not only that but he also knows where she is. Right now, Sutton is our only way to find Zachary.”
I closed the distance between us, my words soft and lethal and filled with promise. “If one of your blades touches her skin, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
“That limit . . .” His eyes narrowed into slits. “Getting real fucking close. And she’s pushing us closer.”
“No. That one is all you.”
Sutton
I pulled the short, satin robe over my arms as I left the room, unable to stand pacing in there any longer. I was so filled with nervous energy, I hadn’t been able to stay sitting on the bed, let alone lie down on it.
When I made it into the main room, I bent to check on Lexi, and was so thankful for the busy day she’d had.
If they hadn’t worn her out so much, she wouldn’t have been able to sleep through any of this.
Leaving her in the fort that expanded across multiple rooms, I slipped into the kitchen and stopped short.
Everyone was in there, multiple conversations going at once, both whispered and almost shouted, and there were guns everywhere.
Diggs passed in front of me, smiling wide as he took a bite of a muffin. “Hey, Baby Mama,” he said, his words muffled and distorted.
“Uh . . .”
Before I could begin to get my brain working again, Conor was in front of me, hands cradling my face as he walked me backward out of the kitchen.
As soon as we were out of sight from everyone else, he pressed a quick kiss to my mouth before asking, “What are you doing out here?”
I stared toward the kitchen but pointed behind me. “I couldn’t, uh, I couldn’t stay. There. I had to get out.” I finally met his stare and said, “That’s a lot of guns.”
“Yeah, we aren’t taking them all. Just deciding who’s taking what.”
“Oh.”
That hadn’t been what I was wondering when I saw them.
I wasn’t sure why any person, or group of people, needed that many at all.
Then again, I was sure I would have been shocked if someone told me the number of weapons Zachary’s family or my family had.
“We’re about to leave, do you think you can sleep?”
A shiver of fear crept up my spine. “There’s no way.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up, but it looked sad. “Jess and Einstein will be out here. Einstein needs to be on the cameras while we’re gone, and Jess is watching over everyone. You can stay with them, but I think Lexi should be moved to the room.”
“Why?”
“Because if she wakes up before we come back, I don’t want her to see everything in the kitchen.” He hesitated for a second before adding, “And if someone comes, I want her far from the door.”
“Okay, yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”
I started to turn, only to stop when Conor said, “I’ll get her.”
I followed behind at a distance, watching as he carefully, gently scooped Lexi off the bed and held her close to his chest as he carried her to the bedroom.
Everything inside me swirled into chaos.
My heart. The wings in my stomach. My world.
I was sure I would remember this picture for the rest of my life.
This tattooed giant of a man.
Our avenging angel holding my daughter as if she were the most precious thing in his world.
When she was safely tucked into bed, he pulled me against his side and led me out of the room.
In that moment, it could have been just another night. One in which he hadn’t just obliterated my heart, only to piece it back together in the most beautiful way. As though he hadn’t just made me fall impossibly harder for him.
When we reached the edge of the kitchen, he wrapped his arms around me. “I’ll be back soon,” he said, his words saturated with promise.
“Morning?”
“Morning. First thing I’m doing is coming for the kiss I’m not taking now.” Then he slipped away from me and headed back into the kitchen.
It was all I could do to stand there and watch and not beg him to stay, because something about this felt wrong. There was a twisting in my gut that was so much more than worry.
It was dark and ominous and foreboding.
As if I were watching them prepare to walk into a trap, and my mind was screaming at me to stop them.
I flinched when Jess bumped my shoulder.
“You get used to it.”
“What?” I asked, looking into her knowing eyes.
“That feeling.” She tapped the hand that was gripping my stomach, and I dropped it to my side.
“It feels wrong,” I admitted on a breath.
“And you get used to it,” she said just as softly.
“How many times have you watched them prepare like this?”
She snorted. “Never. Kieran also doesn’t leave without me. But even when I’m with him, there is always a point in which we have to separate, because we both have our talents and do them best alone. Watching him slip into the shadows always has that unease tearing at me until he’s by my side again.”
I wanted to tell her this was more than unease, but I also hadn’t ever experienced anything like this.
It was entirely possible that I felt this way simply because this was all so new.
Because I’d never felt this strongly about anyone before.
Because I had only recently found out what Zachary was capable of . . . or maybe it was because I didn’t know what he was capab
le of at all.
“Why aren’t you going this time?”
Jess’s sure stare faltered but never left where Kieran was standing, watching the other three guys arm themselves with guns and rifles. “I can do this in my sleep. I’ve already been in those houses and your guesthouse. I can get in and out of those bunkers better than any of them. He’s just being unnecessarily protective.”
“It’s because he loves you.”
“I know.” She finally looked to me and gave me a quick, forced smile. “But I’ve done this for most of my life. Since Beck died, Kieran and I haven’t done any type of job apart. To have him sit me out hurts and makes me feel restrained—valid reasoning or not.” She loosed a stuttered laugh. “I don’t know why I’m dumping this on you.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s taking my mind off that feeling.”
Her next laugh was fuller, but it ended abruptly when Kieran said, “Absolutely not.”
We both looked in his direction to see the twins staring at Kieran and Conor with disappointment.
“What the hell, man?”
I was fairly certain that was Diggs. It was harder to tell them apart when they were both dressed in dark shirts and jeans and wearing matching expressions.
Usually Maverick and Einstein were by each other’s sides and Diggs was eating.
“No way in hell am I putting that thing on,” Kieran said darkly.
“So harsh. Where’s the love?” Definitely Diggs.
Maverick slowly tied a black bandana around his head so it was resting just below his eyes, and Diggs followed the action.
I might’ve laughed if it hadn’t transformed both of them entirely, if the charge in the air hadn’t shifted to suffocating.
The twins were at least a head shorter than Conor, but they were still tall and broad. But they’d always looked so normal . . . until then.
Both had rifles strapped to their backs and shoulder holsters sporting two guns. With the bandanas, they actually looked terrifying. Maverick looked like the assassin Conor claimed him to be.
“Looking at my nightmare,” Conor murmured, and Kieran grunted in agreement.
“Embrace it,” Maverick said.
“Fuck no,” Conor and Kieran said at the same time.
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