by Angel Payne
Emma folds her arms. “That sounds cool too. I always did wonder why Robin Hood couldn’t be a girl.”
Faline’s face turns the color of furious embers. “Damn you.”
Faline rages again. This time with an amped volume button. “Damn you!”
“Screw you.”
The parting shot is gasoline on Faline’s coals, but Emma clearly doesn’t care. My woman’s mind is already made up. Faline isn’t getting anywhere near her children or her man, and she’s willing to give her life for that cause. I don’t make the observation lightly. The woman is prepared to die for this.
Meaning there’s only one thing for me to do about it.
I stomp forward, bringing myself shoulder-to-shoulder with her.
Standing with her.
Connecting with her.
Compelling her to hold me as tightly as I grab her. Showing her, as clearly as I’m dictating to Faline, exactly how clear I am about the discovery of the twins’ paternity—and how it changes nothing in what I just declared to her. If Faline wants those girls back, she’ll have to go through us first. Both of us. And right now, I’d almost like to see her try—if only to show the pathetic hag that her hate and fear don’t stand a chance against the force of our bond, our family, our love.
A love that overrides so much. A power, greater than lightning blasts or solar punches or air erasures, that makes my heart slam screeching brakes on so many of my angry, violent instincts.
For a single moment.
The only second Faline needs.
To whirl and then dive back into the portal she’s reopened on the air—leading to God only knows where.
Not that I fucking care. She’s good and gone, at least for now—a fact that should have me back at square one of my usual teeth gnashing and self-raging but simply doesn’t.
Because as thoroughly as I still want to wrap my hands around that woman’s neck until I feel her windpipe snap, there are more important issues to handle right now.
No. More important people.
As Emma already comprehends.
We race across the room, dropping between the sprawled men on the floor. Since Emma’s already checking on Foley, Archer, and Shay Bommer, I drop down beside Shay’s brother, Tait—and steel myself for the chest blooming with blood, the stare focused on nothing.
And the guy’s staring, all right—fixing two irises full of incredulous gold light up at me. Then blinking in wide confusion. “The hell-forsaken fuckity fuck?” And then swearing like he’s training to go pro at it.
His brother spews a rough laugh. “And you didn’t want to bring your Kevlar.”
The guy hitches out a foot, clipping his little sib’s calf. “Butthead. Never said I didn’t want to bring it, only that I wondered if it’d be necessary.”
Shay kicks him with equal ruthlessness. “Because you said this was going to be a basic babysitting job?”
Tait raises his hands, palms lifted, offering a blatant mea culpa. “Guilty as charged. And holy half-pipe of fuckery, was I wrong.” Or maybe he’s already gone pro and hasn’t had the chance to share it over beer and pretzel bites.
Not that he’s going to get the chance now. With my bloodstream already pumping with fresh jolts of fire, I pivot around to face Foley, Emma, and the others, spreading my glowing fingers across my tensed haunches. “Now that we’re squared up on who came to the party prepared, I wish I could tell you all it’s over. But if her highness of evil depravity is up to half her usual game, there’s a good chance she Elphaba’ed herself out of here and straight to the ground floor of this building.”
“Which means what?”
But before Tait’s done with the query, my wife is on her feet and halfway to the door. “Holy shit. The kids!”
I’m already on her six. By the time she clears the kitchen, I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with her. Damn good thing because once we reach the private elevator landing and I pulse the doors open, I’ve got my other arm locked around her waist. Thank fuck for the woman’s honed instincts, which prompt her to do the same to my waist with her leg. By the time I sear away the floor of the elevator car and then leap into the shaft below, she’s my perfect electric spider monkey, hanging on across my back as I pulse-bounce us seventy stories down. Though she’s filled with urgent silence, I’m still hyperaware of how thankful she is for my action. Seventy floors goes by a lot faster when one isn’t waiting on an elevator’s machinations.
When we reach the bottom floor, we have the option of veering right toward the executive offices or hooking left for the hotel’s back-of-house, which includes the catering loading dock and the private parking space in which I keep a new Range Rover parked at all times. It’s my version of a Team Bolt disaster preparedness kit. The bullet-proof, heat-proof, extra horsepower car is also stocked with enough MRE meals and water to keep six adults alive for a week.
In short, it’s been ready for a situation exactly like this one.
And as Emma swings off my back and leads the sprint to the dock, I pray like hell that it’s gone.
She gets to the strip of raised concrete first. Skids to a stop along the polished steel lip of the dock.
And then erupts with a tear-infused whoosh of air.
Which tells me absolutely nothing.
But once I pound to my own halt, I commiserate completely with her outburst. I slam my hands to my knees as a mix of a bellow and a sob erupts from my own throat, weighted with a world of relief and a whole cosmos’s worth of gratitude.
The Rover’s gone.
After basking in my three seconds’ worth of elation, I yank my phone out of its insulated pocket in my left thigh—and pray that Lydia and Angie have remembered to tune the car’s radio channel for receiving my private frequency code.
Before my finger hits the first button, there’s an incoming call to my device. The Brocade’s front desk. Shit.
The tension in my gut surges into a terse repetition of the word as I stab at the screen to answer. “Neeta. Talk to me.” For the last three days, the woman has been filling in as main manager for the night crews at my request. Wade’s been pulling the same duty for the day shift, but we’re still an hour away from the eight o’clock shift change. During the E-ticket ride that’s been life since we discovered the Source and rescued its victims, I’ve felt safer about the Brocade as an extended home front with the two of them on guard in the exec offices. What might seem like “nothing” to a normal supervisor might be a smoking grenade in our expanded dimension of the world.
Though at the moment, Neeta doesn’t sound like she’s reporting a mere grenade. “You should probably come to the lobby.” There’s none of her usual musical lilt or fragment of lightness in the suggestion. “You should probably come now.”
“What is it?” I charge. My stomach has balled up so bad, it’s the gastrointestinal Death Star. “Neeta?”
After a pause that’s too damn long for the planet destroyer in my gut, she finally replies, “It is not a what. It is a who.”
“Fuck.” Though this might actually be a good thing. If Faline’s staring down my front desk staff, that means she’s not out looking for Lydia, Angie, and the kids. The assurance lends the mettle I need to finally dictate, “All right. Okay. So don’t talk to the bitch at all. You tell her that whatever she’s fucking here for—”
“Mr. Richards.”
“—she’ll talk to me for that demand and nobody else. Just say I’m on my way—”
“Mr. Richards.”
“—and then tell her she can stand or sit while—what?” Her exigency finally sinks in, forcing me to interrupt myself. The full stop means a physical one as well. I endure Emma’s baffled stare while refocusing my attention on Neeta instead of my diatribe.
“It—it is not a she,” Neeta states quietly.
I blink and then shake my head. “The hell?”
“It would be prudent for you to get here sooner rather than later.”
It’s the Neeta Jain version
of get your ass here five minutes ago, and I only need to hear it once. “On my way,” I bark before ending the call, ramming my phone back into my pocket, and then taking the remaining distance of the service hall at a full run. Emma, not wasting any time on questions, keeps up with my pace.
Neither of us stops until we turn the corner, race past the coffee cart and the gift shop, and arrive in the main expanse of the lobby. The professional decorators have been at work since we cleaned up after being the post-earthquake triage center, and all of the accessories in the space are now decked out in a nautical/surfing culture theme for the summer rush ahead, but I hardly give it all a glance. No… Less than that.
My attention has already zoomed in on the reason beneath Neeta’s forced politeness. Forced because she’s probably been terrified, along with the rest of the wide-eyed night crew lined up behind the desk.
Now here’s a reason to break the laser focus for a second. And thank fuck, it only takes a second to solidify that they all haven’t been coerced into standing there Rent the Musical style, as if waiting for their cue to break into “Seasons of Love.” They’re there because this is a sight to behold.
Because it’s not every day that the boss of the world’s most notorious crime cartel just strolls into the middle of one’s hotel lobby.
But here he is.
Atticus fucking Scorpio.
Turning to greet me and smiling as if we’ve been lifelong pals. “Reece Richards!” And shaking my hand with the same surreal gusto. “And look at this. You have come to greet me in your badass Bolt outfit, sì?” He releases me to box at the air, and I take careful note of his wicked, well-trained right hook. “I am honored, mi amigo. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.”
I rock back on one heel, carefully folding my arms. Not a great stance for a balancing act because I literally feel like I’m up on one right now. I should be as tense and terrified as Neeta and the gang, but instead I feel like I’m at a Hollywood event and have been assigned a handler who’s just a fanboy in disguise. Any second now, I’m prepared for the Bolt T-shirts, posters, sunglasses, and lightning sticks to come out, along with an assortment of nifty-colored autograph Sharpies.
“We’re not exactly ‘speaking’ yet, amigo,” I counter. “And for that matter, we are not amigos.” I doubt he needs elucidation on the subject, since his organization basically bankrolled my mutation, but if he doesn’t want to drop the butt-hurt innocent act, I’ll be more than happy to reeducate him about why we’re not going to go get nine holes in at Terranea anytime soon.
Fortunately, Atticus Scorpio is a smart man. At once, he cuts the smiley photo-op bullshit and motions for his two guards to stay back as he steps over slowly. With every inch he moves in, there’s more of the hardcore business demeanor that has me finally respecting—and fearing—him. “Very well, then,” he offers. “We are two successful business leaders, sì? And I can speak to you in that spirit?”
I hold back from pointing out that “successful leaders” don’t make their fortune on smuggling shit like drugs, guns, and people, but some conversations are best left in the shadows at a time like this. Besides, the guy’s made the good faith move of meeting me on my turf, out in public, during the day. He’s got no double motives and has already proven it.
“Of course,” I reply to him at last. “What happens to be on your mind?”
Scorpio tugs at the lapels of his suit. For a second, I admire the bespoke craftmanship of the thing. The charcoal ensemble fits him to the iota and is a collection of the classiest current trends. “An arrangement,” he states. “Arriving at a mutually beneficial goal for both of us.”
I hardly blink at the man. I sure as hell don’t waver the rivet of my stare on him, despite my curiosity about what Emma’s reaction to this is. Naturally, I’m picking up wave after wave of impressions, ranging from trepidation and suspicion to marvel and bewilderment—but the raw, unfiltered force of her gut reaction is only possible with a shared glance. Not going to happen.
So I take the only action that makes sense.
“What goal could that possibly be?”
I take no care to hide a single nuance of my skepticism—or my rage. The man and his organization have been all but ducked between Faline’s legs for years, servicing her every need while sawing off their dicks as sacrifices for her temple. And this bastard knows it. He knows exactly what that woman authorized to be done to me and all the ways she’s fucked with my life ever since. I’ve earned every fucking drop of this bitterness, and I mentally bask in it despite the man’s unchanging expression.
Until he twists up one side of his mouth. And impales me with a stare that’s agleam with new glints—matching his new aura of predatory energy.
“You don’t like Faline Garand,” he finally says. “I don’t like Faline Garand.” The violent purpose in his mien turns into a tangible energy. “Let’s take her out, Bolt Man. Together.”
Chapter Two
Emma
“Holy. Shit.”
At this moment, Lydia’s outburst is better than the sun that’s reflecting off our pool and the juicy sangria in my hand. It’s everything I hoped for—perhaps even more because it’s joined by Trixie’s astounded gasp and Angie’s light clappings. Neeta doesn’t add to the fray but trades a glance with me that’s worth her abstention. She knows exactly what I’m feeling right now.
Validation.
Commiseration.
Confirmation that what happened two days ago was an honest-to-God reality.
Atticus Scorpio really hadn’t been an impeccably engineered hologram. The man, in all his Black Panther-meets-Luther grandeur, had really shown up at the Brocade in his fine, fine suit and approached Reece with his wild, wild idea.
I’m still wearing half a smile of disbelief as my sister leans in with spare-no-details zeal. “Emmalina Paisley.”
“Whaaaat?” I tease back, clearly driving her nuts. But it’s an afternoon made for teasing. And happiness. And simply rejoicing in the moment. Oh, yes. Especially that part. If a moment is all we have, then that’s what we’ll damn well take.
We’re finally back at the ridge after the insanity of last week. We’ve decided to bunk the girls with Lux for now, though Reece has already commissioned blueprints for a new wing on the house with exclusive bedrooms for all three of them. Sawyer’s buddies are sprawled through all of the guest rooms and have had fun assisting “Folic Acid” in training Lux on his newfound abilities. The rest of the team are enjoying some well-deserved time off, and the girls of the “Bolt Bunny” squad have decided to do the same.
Which leads us right back to here. On an epic poolside day bed that fits all five of us—and the large tray to support our pitcher of sangria and glasses. In short, perfection.
“You are forbidden to leave us hanging there.” Yep, even when Lydia backs up her charge by snatching away my full glass of cranberry-colored wine. “No more for you until we hear the rest, missy!”
“Heeeyyy,” I cry. “There are laws against blackmail in this state, missy.”
“Don’t look at me.” Trixie shoots up both hands though dips one back down to get in a sip of the crimson nectar in her glass. “I definitely vote for your version of this over Reece’s. To him, three grunts and an ‘it was fine, Mom’ constitute filling me in about everything.”
That has me breaking into a new laugh—mostly because it’s true. My husband can light up a whole room with his charm and wit when he wants to, but only when he wants to. In business, whether it’s running the Richards kingdom, driving the RRO vision, or pulsing Team Bolt to greater destinations of do-gooding grandeur, he’s all about the mission goals and nothing but the mission goals.
Which circle my mind right back to the surreal scene from the Brocade’s lobby. And yes, the place in the plot where I left them all hanging on a jaw-dropping cliffie. Not intentionally, per se—though I have to admit, stringing Princess Purple Pants along like this has been more fun than parsing out the de
tails about Brady Chadwick.
“All right, all right.” I even readjust my position, switching from my relaxed head-on-elbow lounge to a fully seated thing, my hands in my lap and my legs crossed at the ankle. “The bunnies deserve the whole hip-hoppity story.”
“But if you end it with Mr. McGregor chasing you guys out of the garden, I will be one pissed-off little rabbit.” Lydia adds an angry swig of sangria to her soft growl. I’m tempted to call her out for sangria abuse, but she’s in a sassy mood, likely due to Sawyer taking her off to bed early last night. Anytime Sawyer drags my sister off to bed, I have no idea what the woman will feel emboldened to do the next day. I want my beverage hostage returned unharmed.
“No Mr. McGregors, I promise.” I cant my head while watching a pair of hawks swoop over the hillside, riding the late-afternoon wind with their massive wingspans. “Though I have to admit, Atticus’s offer did feel like a shovel to the brain.”
“You don’t say.”
’Dia’s deadpan earns her a worthy snicker from Trixie before the woman looks my way once more. “Please tell me Reece had the presence of mind to give the man a good laugh at first.”
A smile warms my lips. “I’m pretty sure he was strongly tempted,” I relay. “I think there was even a comment about hidden cameras and the Consortium taking up video punking now that their hideout’s been wiped out.” I let the smile wane. “But Atticus was clearly serious about every word. He stuck to his standpoint.”
“Which must have been worthy of Reece’s admiration and irritation.”
Angelique’s remark has me abruptly looking away, only to confront Trixie’s knowing nod of understanding. It’s three seconds that makes a huge difference. As thoroughly as I’ve come to love Angie, there’s a tiny box of resentment in my heart about the past she shares with Reece and the things she knows about him because of it.