Brodie sniggered before pushing the sole of his boot against his older brother’s chest, forcing him onto his back. “So, Saint, what have you got to tell us?”
“You’re all dead,” Grant croaked. “You’re all gonna die. Syn are going to—”
“Do we look like we’re afraid of Syn?” Brodie asked, maintaining the pressure on Grant’s chest. “We took you down, no problem.”
Snarling and unafraid, Devon was impressed that he wasn’t more snivelly as she might have expected. “Because that snake Caine probably bolted the minute he saw you. We should never have trusted him, he’s a coward.”
So Caine was at fault for Grant being kidnapped because he didn’t stay to back him up? That might be true, except the Kindred knew Caine wasn’t loyal to Syn. But it was good to get confirmation that Grant hadn’t realized that. Believing him a coward was better than believing him a traitor. “Caine’s irrelevant. You believed you were invincible,” Zara said. “That was always your biggest flaw, Grant.”
Grant’s attention pounced to her. “I preferred it when you called me sir.”
Putting an arm out to his wife, Brodie requested her hand, and Zara gave it without hesitation. “Those days are gone, brother,” Brodie sneered. “We got married.”
His disgust was a continuance of the previous revulsion that Devon didn’t understand. “I heard,” Grant said. “You guys have just made the biggest mistake of your life. What do you think is going to happen now? Mitchell will have sent Jennifer to the cops already.”
Brodie stepped off, and Grant managed to wriggle onto his elbows so he could shuffle back to lean against the side of a chair.
If Jennifer went to the cops, then they would come for Zave. It wouldn’t take them long to figure out where he was because after they’d checked KC and the city apartment, the next logical place was the island.
Worried about her husband’s liberty, she tried to call Grant’s bluff to get some kind of assurance that her man was secure. “You won’t send them to the island,” Devon said. “If they come to the island looking for him, they’ll find you.”
They’d known there was a chance that Syn weren’t bluffing, that they planned to take down Zave and Brodie, although they probably planned to do that anyway, no matter how compliant the Kindred were.
Grant barked a laugh, and his glower touched all of them before he spoke. “Guess you guys don’t get the message no matter who delivers it. If they find me, I’ll blame you people. You fucking idiots were the ones who faked my death for me. I’ll tell the cops I’ve been kept prisoner so you could get your greedy hands on CI, and all the evidence is in my favor.”
Never showing weakness, Brodie responded, “Until we start singing about Mitchell, about Syn, about Caine and Leatt.”
“Oh, you think they’re going to back you up?” Grant asked to his brother. “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll thank you for naming them to the cops. You want more enemies? I’ve got no problem with you saying their names. Caine and Leatt end up in cells with you? I don’t give a fuck. I’m not the one who has to worry about getting my naked ass shanked in the shower.
“What’s the worst thing that will happen to me? I’ll end up back in my corporate office, making millions, respected. The world will sympathize with my trauma, I’ll make a mint just telling my story. While I get famous out here, you’ll be rotting in there, listening to the media worshiping me.”
“Man,” Brodie laughed. “You have some fucking imagination, Saint. You think you can’t go wrong? You still think you’re golden? You still think you’re gonna get out of this alive?”
“I know I am. Because after Jennifer takes her story to the cops and they arrest your fucking cousin, the rest of you will fall apart. You’re going to be right there, little brother, for the cops to pick up, too. You don’t think Mitchell’s already emailing all the evidence we have about what you’ve done?” Twisting to look Swift up and down, his lip curled. “And they’re going to cuff you too. They should arrest you just for being loyal to these fuckers. That should be a crime. You’re sure not squeaky clean.”
This was it, her breaking point. Devon smacked a hand onto the table as she thrust to her feet. Kadie hurried out of her way to let Devon stride past Rig to come to a stop at Grant’s feet between Brodie and Zara.
Unafraid and unintimidated by the pathetic man sitting on the floor, who was boasting about his superiority, Devon snapped, “If you take down the Kindred, you’re going down too. I’ve known you two minutes, and I’ve learned, all you do is ruin lives. You think that Syn are gonna make the world a better place? That they’re gonna be better than the Kindred because they’re gonna think bigger? I’ll let you in on a secret, Mr. McCormack. You think smaller than every person on the plane because the only thing you’re concerned with are the grapes between your thighs.”
Rig whooped and Kadie was laughing. “Fuck you,” Grant said.
She wasn’t done and didn’t care about his insult. “All you care about is proving you’ve got the biggest balls. You think you can be like the Kindred overnight. They don’t want respect or notoriety; the idea of telling their story or getting famous repulses them all. You can’t be like these guys because you don’t have a decent, selfless bone in your body, and the Kindred is all about putting your own needs after what’s best for the group.”
“That what your husband told you?” Grant asked.
His flippant attitude infuriated her more. “You took Thad from his mother and everybody who cared about him. You didn’t need him. Neither did Mitchell. It was all about power, but that stupid boy believes he matters to you, that he’s important. You played on his insecurities by promising him that you’d go after the cartels that took the woman he loved. You’re playing with a confused, traumatized mind, and you don’t even care. If you can’t care about your own blood, you can’t care about a stranger with any compassion, and you definitely aren’t qualified to save the world.”
He didn’t like being derided. “You don’t know anything about me! You don’t know what I’m about, you don’t know what I care about!”
She knew exactly what he cared about whether he admitted it or not. “Sure, I do. You care about you… and right now, you should, because if you don’t do what you’re told by us and do it right, we’re not gonna play games, set you up or call the cops or involve the media, that’s bullshit. You want to know what happens if you fuck with the Kindred?”
Zara looped her arms around her shoulders, and Devon felt the warmth of belonging in her friend’s embrace. That acceptance made the heat of her ferocity intensify. Kadie approached her other side, slotting herself into the space between Devon and Brodie. Reaching around Devon, Kadie stroked Zara’s hair as she laid her head on Devon’s shoulder.
“We’ll slit your fucking throat,” Zara said.
“Our men don’t need theatrics,” Kadie murmured, rubbing a hand up and down Devon’s back.
Kadie rested a hand on the arm Zara had across Devon’s chest. “We don’t make idle threats,” Devon said.
“You do as you’re told,” Kadie said.
Zara finished the thought, “Or you die.”
Their synergy was enlivening. “You might be given a chance to talk to Mitchell,” Devon said, recognizing how important it was to maintain eye contact with Grant even though it was clear he was fuming.
The women held center stage, coiled around each other, but with Brodie at Kadie’s back and Tuck not far behind Zara, they had plenty of force nearby to subdue the prisoner if he tried to lash out. Although with his hands tied at his back, they could probably handle any threat alone.
Devon kept going, “If you are, you’ll be told what to say, what our terms are, and you better pray Mitchell hasn’t sent Jennifer to the cops or forwarded any emails.”
Kadie and Zara pulled tighter around her, and Devon hooked an arm around each of their waists. Zara’s next words were serious even though they were said through a smile. “Or they’ll never find your bo
dy.”
None of her trio showed weakness; right now they were nothing but strength in stark contrast to Grant’s frailty. “Forget Dateline,” Kadie said. “The world thinks you’re dead. That’s an opportunity for us, not you.”
Zara showed a similar kind of perverse optimism that Devon had seen in Brodie, but she began to understand its power. “ ‘Cause we can do whatever the fuck we want with you and nobody is watching.”
Sneering, Grant still didn’t back down. “You three are fucking crazy,” he said. “You’re crazier than the bastards you fuck.”
Insults weren’t going to dent their confidence, and Grant had just shown that he didn’t understand the gravity of where he was or what could happen to him. “You better hope not,” Devon said.
Zara picked up her thought. “Because we’re the only thing standing between you and them.”
The empowerment was immense. These women cared about her and stood with her. If their men were taken down, they would remain as the Kindred unit and they had to be formidable. Building that bond was vital to this mission and every mission that would come in the future. Devon wasn’t scared. She didn’t need to rely on her man to be her liaison to the Kindred. She had support from every angle. They didn’t judge her, they embraced her.
Kadie took a deep breath. “All it would take is one word from any of us to any of them, and you won’t take another breath.”
Zara laughed. “We don’t even need to give them a reason.”
Devon shrugged and wasn’t able to fight her own smile any longer because it was true. Accepting that power was liberating. “We can get rid of you and just come up with a new plan. One that doesn’t involve a pathetic prick like you.”
Tuck got up and went to the storage locker again. He opened the door and did something inside that none of them could see. But the women were still holding each other, looming over the belittled man on the floor who was furious that these feeble women were more powerful than him here and now.
Tuck came over to crouch at his side, and that forced Grant to look away from them. “What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded, trying to wriggle away.
The women stepped closer in front of him, and Brodie put a foot against his opposite arm, blocking him in from the side, giving Grant no means of escape as Tuck injected him. Grant protested and bucked for another minute but eventually passed out and slumped.
“Well,” Tuck said, resting his elbows on his crouched knees. “That about gave me the boner of the century.”
Instead of looking at his woman, he looked at Brodie, who bowed to bump fists with the hacker. Each of the women were snatched by their men, and Devon laughed when she saw the fervor in the kisses they were blessed with.
Modesty made her turn away to give them privacy, and her laugh faded when she noticed her own man standing there in the mouth of the kitchen. His attention consumed her, and she didn’t need for him to touch her or ask for her. She went to him, and with a single hand, he took her waist, turned her and slammed her back against the storage unit.
He came in so close that his heat made her temperature rise by a full degree or maybe more. His nose grazed her and he rubbed her hips and waist. “A single word,” he whispered, touching his lips onto hers. “I’d do anything you told me to. Anything. I’d comply with any command that left those lips.”
He was as aroused as the other men were, and she enjoyed coiling her arms around his neck. “I get it now. It’s not my family, my brother, my worry; it’s ours, it’s the Kindred’s. Because everything that’s mine is theirs.”
Picking her up, he pinned her to the compartment at her back, and her new height allowed him to straighten and kiss her deeper. It was so rare that he would touch her like this, be intimate with her when there were other eyes in the room. But she didn’t think he even considered them as he tilted his head.
When he put her onto her feet again, her ragged breath ricocheted back to her from his throat, because she couldn’t stop. Her mouth was still pressed to him, it was hungry for his neck, his jaw, his skin. Undoing some of his shirt buttons, she intended to kiss his chest, but a voice to her side stopped her dead.
“I don’t fucking think so.” Zave didn’t give her space, but he did turn to her brother who was with them now. “What I just saw, sis. I don’t even know where to fucking start.”
She didn’t know if he meant the kiss or what had happened with Grant. Lowering her arms from Zave’s neck, she wrapped them around his waist because it was more comfortable and she didn’t want him to leave. Although her brother probably didn’t like seeing her enjoying her husband, she wasn’t going to let Rig scare Zave away.
“I’m happy here, Rig,” she said. That was true of her marriage and of her alliance with the Kindred. “These people care about me and I care about them.”
He wasn’t sneering. “I guess I’m not the only family you’ve got now.” This time when he looked at Zave, he didn’t have any annoyance or confrontation in his gaze. “I’m always gonna be around and I’m always gonna be watching. I don’t give a fuck who you’re related to, if you hurt her—”
“We’ll take him down ourselves,” Brodie said, coming up behind Rig to slap a hand between his shoulder blades. “Bess is cooking dinner tonight, she says she’s got us a real treat.” Brodie looked past her brother to his cousin. “How long we got?”
“Came back to tell you we’ll be landing.” Zave glanced at his watch. “In less than a minute.”
He hooked his finger beneath her jaw to lift her mouth to his for a brief kiss, and this was one situation where she couldn’t object to him leaving her. He went back to the cockpit, and Rig took her arm to pull her back down into the cabin. Brodie and Tuck were taking the still unconscious Grant to the back of the plane again, probably to hog-tie him and cover his mouth.
Everyone else was seating themselves and putting their belts on. “The Kindred is about as dangerous as you can get,” Rig said, putting her into a seat next to his on the couch. He made sure her seatbelt was fastened before he touched his own. “But it’s funny, I don’t think you’ve ever been safer.”
The first time she’d spoken to her brother from Zave’s island, he’d told her that she was safe with the Kindred. His own confidence in that must have been shaken up after learning about what had gone down since then.
Everyone here was different, but they’d all been brought together because they had love for each other. It may have started as an uncle’s love for his nephew or a parent’s love for their child. But it was no longer as straightforward as that. There was still a chance that the men would be taken away and the women would be left alone, just as there was a chance that one of them, or all of them, could lose their lives.
But being in danger with the Kindred didn’t make her more anxious. It gave her a clearer view of how far these wonderful people would go for each other, and she’d just proved that was a distance that she was willing to travel for them too.
NINETEEN
The food was gorgeous, but Devon knew that when the meal was over and the somber mood encroached, that business was next on the agenda. This wasn’t going to be a typical night on the island. For one thing, Bess didn’t have any help when it came to gathering the dirty plates. Piling them up, she was alone in taking them to the kitchen.
The three couples and her brother sat around the dinner table saying nothing. So many developments had occurred that she didn’t know where they’d start. Everything had gone to plan so far, but that didn’t mean they were out of danger. The Kindred were always in danger.
But she felt better being here because she was safer on the island, in this house that had once been her prison and was now her home. Even in spite of bringing Grant McCormack, an apparently dangerous stranger, here it still felt the same and she was pleased to be back.
After landing and decanting to the house, the men had taken Grant to what would be his new home for the time being. Staying out of the way, she, Bess, Kadie and Zara went ar
ound the bedrooms changing sheets and preparing the rooms.
While they retrieved clean linens and made the beds, they didn’t say much. Devon got the impression that they all were following Bess’ lead and using mundane household chores as a distraction from what had gone on. Not because they were scared or even particularly anxious, just because they were tired and needed some time to reflect.
Afterwards, they’d gone down to the kitchen to help Bess cook. Although the matriarch did most of the work, Devon noticed how frequently Bess got a far-off look in her eyes. Two or three times, she had to intercept something Bess was doing, to prevent her from hurting herself or ruining the meal. The drama was taking a toll on the woman who usually tried to stay away from the dirty work. In spite of all that he’d done, Bess was still terrified that her child might be hurt or in danger.
More pissed at Thad than she could express, Devon didn’t believe he was ignorant to the trouble he was causing. It just seemed that he didn’t care enough to change his ways or apologize.
Back at the dinner table, Kadie cleared her throat, drawing Devon out of her thoughts about the day. “I guess it’s safe to say that Syn haven’t gone to the police,” she said.
Tuck, from her side, lifted her hand from the table to kiss her knuckles. “It’s possible that they’re investigating,” he said. “Although I tend to agree with you, Toots. If Mitchell was gonna do it, I think he would be happy to tell us.”
He’d take pleasure in ruining the lives of the men at this table and by extension, the lives of their women. “Is it weird that we haven’t heard from them?” Devon asked, because as much as she didn’t want Syn following through on their threats, the silence was unnerving.
The rest of the room were calm. “We shouldn’t panic yet,” Tuck said. “When they wanted to get in touch with us, before they sent Thad to the merger mixer to give us Grant’s video. They’ll find a way if they have to.”
Finch (Kindred #6) Page 22