Chapter 39
Considering the way they’d suddenly appeared last fall, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but they really were the last people I was expecting to see when we spilled out into the living room, where the rest of the Shadow crew waited.
Kaia and the rest of the girls were noticeably absent, but that was probably for the best.
Members of ARCK were gathered near the entryway, same as they’d been when they’d last found a way into Briggs’ house and terrified Chloe.
Only this time, their giant of a Viking was missing—like ours—and a tiny redhead, with her face planted in the screen of a tablet she was rapidly tapping on, was in his place.
“Now,” Briggs began with another one of those calming breaths, like that was all that was keeping him from yelling, “considering you handed off information to us like this new family was our problem, and we’re in the process of handling it, I can’t imagine why you’re here.”
“Um, you’re welcome,” the redhead said, barely taking a second to look at Briggs over her tablet as she added, “For the information and for being here now.”
“I didn’t ask you to be here.”
At that, the redhead lowered her tablet so it slapped against her thighs. “We’ll happily leave, if you’d—”
“Einstein,” one of the others muttered in a low tone. From all our dealings with them, I was pretty sure his name was Kieran. All I knew for sure was that he scared all of us, Briggs included.
Not that any of us let on to that.
Guy was just terrifying, even though he looked normal. But darkness was something that couldn’t be hidden, and it clung to him.
“Einstein,” I echoed, her name all wry amusement as it left me. “You’re how these three got in here last time.”
“And this time,” she added arrogantly as she lifted the tablet and returned to whatever she was doing.
“My wife,” one of the twins explained with a jerk of his head in her direction. Considering Maverick had been the one to stay back with us last fall, I assumed it was him. Not that I could tell the two apart. When he continued, his voice dripped with malice. “Funny thing about wives . . .”
My hand instinctively tightened against Mallory’s when his stare lingered on her for a few moments before snapping to Briggs and narrowing.
“You got one killed.” The words were a dark and taunting reminder of what Briggs had said to Maverick months ago in regards to Kieran’s wife, and also that none of us were immune to the frailty of this life. Especially when the mafia was involved. “Thought you could prevent that from happening?”
“I’m right here, and I’m fine,” Mallory seethed.
“Thanks to medical experts,” Einstein added without looking up, “that you have the luxury of using.”
Kieran’s lethally suspicious glare was shifting from Briggs to Maverick, but when he elbowed the other twin in question, the twin thankfully shook his head in dismissal.
“People in our world don’t,” Einstein continued in a dull tone that was still somehow laced with a hint of venom. “That’s if they even have a chance of survival. Ask Diggs.”
“Who?” Thatch asked on a snort, all while I continued watching Kieran to make sure he wasn’t about to react to the conversation.
“Ouch,” the other twin said on a huff. “And after all I did for you.”
“Is that how you think of it?” Evans challenged darkly. “You murdered my dad for us?”
“This is going well,” I muttered to Briggs just as Kieran shot Evans a cold look and said, “Like Einstein said, we’re happy to leave. Let us know now if you don’t need us.” His tone was soft and even, but somehow held a suggestion of a threat.
“You haven’t even told us why you’re here,” Briggs countered.
“Because you surprised us,” Maverick offered, then slanted his head when he added, “which isn’t easy.
Einstein gave you information on what she found.
Information that would prepare you and also make it so we wouldn’t have to come back and take care of another trafficking ring that isn’t located anywhere near us. ”
“Einstein won’t admit it, but she didn’t know about the people they planted near you until after you’d killed them,” Kieran added, and Einstein sighed dramatically.
“I had no reason to be looking for them,” she said as if defending herself, and not for the first time.
“Still, the way you took care of the situation surprised us,” he continued, echoing Maverick’s words. But the way he phrased them was different, as if they were impressed with us, as if we’d passed some unknown test.
From the way Briggs tensed even further beside me, he heard the slight difference too.
“We don’t care about surprising you,” Briggs said, as if just the thought of impressing the mafia left a bitter taste in his mouth.
One of Kieran’s eyebrows ticked up, but it was the other twin—Diggs—who wryly murmured, “Oh, of course, you do, Sunshine.”
“Regardless of what you care about or want,” Kieran went on, “we know what comes next.”
“Retaliation,” Briggs cut in. “We’re aware.”
From the irritated sound that rumbled in Briggs’ chest, he saw the responding amusement and expectation on the twins’ faces, as if they were waiting for Briggs to realize he was still surprising all of them, and he hated it.
“What you just went through was a retaliation,” Kieran argued. “You might find yourselves in a mafia war next. Which is why we’re here.”
“The fact that you don’t have police swarming down on you for all those guys you took out says a lot about how closely they’re connected to law enforcement here, or they’re just cleaning up their own messes,” Einstein said with a sigh, like she was already tired of having to explain things to us, even though we’d already figured as much.
“But since you aren’t exactly in our world yet, it would—”
“At all,” Briggs said over her. When she lifted an offended brow, he explained, “We aren’t in your world at all.”
“But you are,” she said slowly, surely. “You might only have loose connections to us, but you’re still connected. Not only that, but you have another family who’s had it out for you for a long, long time.” She lowered her voice to a mocking whisper. “That means you’re in.”
Her husband dipped his head in a nod as the other twin added, “What E’s saying is that, since you still have a foot in what we call the civilian world, these Wrecker freaks could bring their law enforcement down on you all too easily, and that would be the end for you.
In our world, it’s very rare that law enforcement gets thrown at another family, because we know it won’t stick anyway. ”
“Convenient,” Briggs said under his breath.
“Again, why we’re here,” Kieran said, slipping back into the conversation.
“Because you’re about to find yourselves in a mafia war and, even though you’ve proven you’re not above killing people, you’re going to need the full cover of our family.
” He tipped his head toward the entryway. “The others will be here soon.”
“Others—what others?” Briggs began, only to lift his hand in a silent plea for them not to respond as he backtracked. “We didn’t do what we did to prove anything, and we aren’t joining your family.”
“Told you he’d want to start his own,” Einstein mumbled from where she was back on her tablet.
Briggs let out an infuriated-sounding breath. “We aren’t starting anything. We’re doing what we’ve always done. Helping people. Protecting them. And, right now, protecting our families.”
“And what is it you think we do?” Maverick asked with a challenging slant of his head. When Briggs went to respond, Maverick spoke over him. “Help people. Protect them. Protect our family—always.”
That time, the sound that left Briggs was undoubtedly a laugh, but it was edged with frustration and warning. “Except you’re—”
“Also ex-special forces,” Maverick stated, subtly gesturing between himself and his twin. “Also married with kids. Do you want more similarities? We’ll find them.”
My stare shot to Kieran at the word married.
To the emotionless mask that had fallen over his features that was somehow more chilling than anything we’d witnessed before.
Somehow, in the absence of everything else, a cold ruthlessness that begged for vengeance poured from him and seemed to fill the room.
“The difference is we accepted who we were long ago,” Einstein finished for her husband.
“No, see, find similarities all you want,” Evans began, his tone echoing Kieran’s presence, “we’re still nothing like you.”
Einstein gave him a condescending look. “You’re adorable. Once you get over what happened with Daddy Dearest, you’ll see.”
Thatch’s arm shot out and blocked Evans just as he rocked forward.
Briggs exhaled roughly and dragged a hand over his face. “I need to talk with my team.” When Einstein snorted at the last word, Briggs shot a dark look her way. “Give us time. Yeah?”
Einstein briefly flashed her tablet toward Kieran before turning it to face the rest of us. “Well, the rest of our team just pulled up. So, we’ll just go tell them that we might’ve driven all this way for nothing.”
“Those are my camera feeds,” Briggs breathed when she started for the entryway, the twins trailing behind, sounding equally stunned and infuriated.
“Thought you learned last time that you can’t keep her out of anywhere,” Kieran said as he took a step in the same direction.
With an assessing look in Evans’ direction, he met Briggs’ stare again.
“Talk to your team, but know that you need us. We can do whatever needs to be done to protect people because boundaries don’t exist for us.
However, they will use your boundaries against you. ”
Briggs didn’t respond in any way as Kieran left.
The rest of us just waited for long minutes before Briggs finally glanced to the side and said, “Evans—”
“Just let me kill him,” Evans ground out in a calm that seemed to shock all of us. “Let me kill that twin, then we can do whatever you decide.”