Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
GRACE
The kitchen seemed far too quiet after the tempest in the bedroom just—wow, was it really only thirty minutes earlier? My whole body was one long, sensual ache and my ass was definitely far more tender than I expected. Though it was a toss-up about what was more: sore, my jaw or my butt.
A little giggle tried to escape and I almost choked on my coffee as I swallowed at the same time. Voodoo sent me an amused look.
“No, it’s not thicker than you,” I told him after I successfully avoided snorting coffee up my nose. “But it is hotter.”
AB barked a laugh as he set Goblin’s food bowl down for him. They had just gotten back from Goblin’s walk and AB’s recon of the subdivision we were currently hiding in. A recon in suburbia just seemed weird, but it fit the level of strange we’d been existing in.
As I cradled the cup between my palms, I kept my focus on hoping the caffeine would chase away the anxiety trying to claw its way past the haze of aftershocks that lingered everywhere they’d touched me, filled me, petted me, and sated me.
The worry had teeth and it sank them into my spine even as I tried to keep my mind off all the things we hadn’t discussed yet.
Especially while Legend was cooking at the stove.
With his sleeves pushed up and his hair damp, he seemed perfectly at ease as he fried bacon, sautéed onions, and cracked eggs into a bowl to mix them up.
It smelled like home. That thought settled into my hind brain and I had to turn it over.
It really did smell like home in here. I was surrounded in them, the ghost imprint of their touches remained on my skin.
It wasn’t even a challenge to summon the memory of their cocks filling me, each of them so different, so—beautiful and thick and just them.
Maybe this new life was a little twisted, and bullet-ridden, but the feeling of home they wrapped around me was one I savored. Each time I thought about returning to the life I’d had before, I really couldn’t imagine it. Not if it meant leaving them.
Leaving us.
Dismissing the concept of abandoning them left me with other questions. How did we make this work, long-term? What did it look like? Did they want a forever? Did I want a forever?
Did I even know how to handle a forever?
No sooner did those thoughts alight, then they were racing off again because no decisions could be made until we retrieved Bones. We needed him.
I needed him.
“I still think we should’ve killed him,” Legend muttered, tossing something in the pan with a little too much aggression. “Would’ve saved us time.”
“Can’t kill someone if they might still be useful,” Voodoo commented without looking up. “And O’Rourke might be a bastard, but he’s a useful bastard for now.”
“Still a bastard,” AB added as he sipped his coffee, his laptop set up to his left and one hand on it as he tabbed through data. They were always working, always finding an angle, always looking for where best to take their shot.
Despite Voodoo’s words of uncertainty in our earlier shower, he radiated a kind of quiet confidence. Maybe he didn’t know everything, but he could absolutely fake it until we made it.
After another long drink of coffee, I studied them one at time then cleared my throat. “Are we gonna talk about what you found or just keep grumbling like someone spiked your Wheaties?”
AB’s gaze flicked to mine. “You want it all or the short version?”
“Start with the short one, work your way up to the part where someone’s blood pressure explodes.” That sounded reasonable, right?
Spinning his laptop around, AB tapped the top of it.
On screen: maps, code fragments, and red-flagged documents.
“They’re not government. At least, not officially.
No agency logos, no paper trail, no black ops stamp.
Just opportunists with government clearance that expired around the same time Blockbuster went out of business. ”
“Damn you’re old,” I muttered, because I’d been a kid when that happened.
“Don’t remind us, Firecracker,” Voodoo said dryly but the humor was still present in his eyes. They weren’t that much older than me. Definitely older, by ten years at least on all of them, but at the same time—I would not use Blockbuster’s closing as a time reference.
Particularly because I couldn’t remember exactly when that was.
“The point is, these guys aren’t some highly skilled wetwork team or specialists.
What they are is clever as fuck, invested, and they have very little to lose at this point.
Particularly because if you consider that they are playing a long con, they have to know leaving any of us alive will cost them in the end. ”
Legend whistled low. “Damn.”
My heart sank even as my stomach bottomed out. Not leaving anyone to come after them made sense, but I didn’t want any of it to “make sense” if that meant that Bones might already be dead.
“They’re using holes in oversight,” Voodoo continued. “Dead spots. Places where the CIA or NSA or whoever used to run ops and now—”
“No one's watching,” I finished.
“Exactly,” AB said. “It’s like a back door someone forgot to close. These guys built a whole empire out of it. No one’s looking, so they made sure to look out for themselves.”
The knot in my chest tightened. “And Bones?”
“They took him because he’s leverage,” Voodoo said. “Not just to get to us. They think he knows where the drive is. Might even think he has it.”
“He doesn’t,” I said, though my voice wavered more than I liked. “Right?”
“He does,” AB confirmed. “We destroyed it, but they don’t know that. Or they don’t believe it. They think they can squeeze him hard enough, they’ll get what they want.”
“What about O’Rourke?”
That was the part that still itched at the base of my skull. Like I missed a piece of the puzzle and it was slicing me from the inside out.
AB and Voodoo traded a look.
“Spill it,” I snapped, but then held up a hand as I took a deep breath and forced it out. Going for a far more even tone, I focused on them again. “Please. I’m not the girl you need to coddle. Say it straight.”
After cracking his neck, AB reached down to stroke Goblin who’d come over to rest his head on AB’s thigh.
“We don’t think he was in deep with them, not like boots-on-the-ground deep.
Did he know something? Absolutely. More than he’s told us?
Fairly solid bet.” AB leaned back as Legend started setting plates on the table.
“He got into bed with these people rather than get left out in the cold. Did he know what all he was getting in to? I don’t really care.
But he’s playing that card to get our help. ”
The certainty in their voices didn’t offer me a lot of comfort, but I asked for the truth not comfort. I asked to be a part of this and to read me in, not to soften it for me.
“We need your help with him,” Voodoo added and surprise expanded through me.
“Me?” Not even twenty-four hours earlier, they wanted me away from him. Not talking to him and not sticking around when he was out.
Legend slid a plate in front of me. Toast, eggs, bacon. He gave me a soft smile. “Eat first.”
“I’m not—”
“Grace.” One word, firm and unbending.
So I took a bite. Because I was starving. Because I’d fight better with food in my system. Because I wasn’t going to fall apart now—not when Bones was still out there.
Once I started my meal, Legend turned that scowl on the guys. “You want to explain what it is you need her to do and I want you to be explicit. Because a bullet in his head is still the best option in my opinion.”
AB blew out a breath. “We could terminate him. We have enough reasons to do that.”
“But?” Legend asked as he returned to the stove and I stuffed more food in my mouth in order to hold my questions to myself until they resolved this. I wasn’t entirely sure what I could do to “help” with O’Rourke, but I certainly was on board to try.
“But,” Voodoo said as Legend filled another plate and set it in front of him. “We can’t be one hundred percent certain we won’t need him to get Bones out. That’s the sticking point. With him, we have a fourth man—”
“Cannon fodder,” AB said, before he took a bite of bacon.
“That too,” Voodoo agreed with a wave of his hand in AB’s direction. “If he’s holding anything back, his presence might be the crucial ingredient in whether we get everything we want or not.”
“By that logic,” Legend countered, “his presence could also be the factor that fucks us over.”
No one disputed that and I sighed. Into the silence, I asked, “So we’re fucked if we do and we’re fucked if we don’t?” Then after washing down another bite with a swallow of coffee, I added, “and not even in a nice way.”
That earned a faint huff of laughter from Legend. He shut off the stove and carried his plate over to where we were eating. “That is why I don’t like the plan. Taking him is a risk that I don’t think offers enough reward to cover the danger he poses.”
“Okay,” I said, then used a napkin to wipe my mouth. I had to pause on the eating because my stomach had gone too taut and soured over the choice we were going to have to make. “What do you need me to do with him?”
AB and Voodoo split another look and I kept my impatience to myself at the silent conversation that seemed to fill the air between them. It was Legend who put down his cup abruptly and scowled.
“No,” he said aloud and earned both of their attention.
“Hear us out,” AB said slowly.
“How about fuck no?” Legend scowled. “We’re not tasking her with handling him. Not when he’s made it clear he wants her.”
“That’s part of why she would be good at handling him.” Voodoo cut a look to me. “You would be. You handled him in France. I’ve seen you do it with others along the way—including us.”
I wasn’t arguing. Handling men definitely fell within my wheelhouse. “Define handling for me. Bones made it clear if I kissed someone to distract them, he was going to be killing people.”
The summary of his actual words didn’t include the fact that he would spank me, but I didn’t mind that part so much. He had to be here to spank me so that would be worth it.
All three of them stared at me for a long moment and Goblin let out a low whine that snapped first AB out of it and then Voodoo.
“Handle him in that you’ll be distracting him, yes,” Voodoo said slowly, his whole expression darkening. “But not with sex or kissing or touching of any kind. In fact, I’ll add that I’ll cut his dick off if he tries to touch you.”
“While he’s breathing,” Legend said, spinning a knife between his fingers. “If he passes out, we will wake him up.”
“Then we can cauterize the wound,” AB joined in the threat. “So we can chop up the rest of him.”
I paused for a beat, glancing at each of them in turn. “Well, that’s one plan.” But it didn’t answer… “What do you want me to do?”
Not one of them answered immediately. In fact, for one almost too long moment, I thought they’d engaged in a severe change of heart.
“As much as we all dislike the idea, we need her to do this.” Voodoo wasn’t talking to me right now, he was focused on AB and Legend. “We need her to do this and we need to trust her to do this.”
“You need to tell me what it is so I can let you know whether I can do it or not.” To be fair, I was pretty open to everything, but I also wanted to have some idea if I could be successful or if I needed to work out a backup plan.
Like poison.
Or drugs.
Maybe poison and drugs.
“You can do this,” Voodoo said, his attention wholly on me. “There’s not a doubt in my mind, Firecracker. But I’m not giving you a shit job or an easy task. You may have to take him down, but he won’t be expecting it from you.”
I blew out a breath. “What is he going to be expecting?”
“That we’re putting him in charge of protecting you.”
I had the coffee cup halfway to my mouth then lowered it again as his words sank in. Protecting me.
“He’s going to be armed.”
A nod.
“He’s going to be part of the extraction as well.”
Another nod.
“I’m bait.”
A last nod.
“Still on board to do it?” Voodoo asked, his expression sober. “If you don’t want to, we’ll find another way. No questions asked.”
My pulse rabbited and sweat prickled along the back of my neck. I really didn’t want to screw this up.
Ever.
“Can you walk me through everything like I’m an idiot?” To be fair, right now with a fresh layer of panic bubbling through my system like a kettle on the boil, I felt a little bit like one. “Each step, so I can be as prepared as possible?”
All the spit in my mouth dried up.
“Alphabet?” Voodoo said and I shifted my attention to him. AB’s blue eyes seemed almost painfully blue this morning.
“Right, our target…” He began as he pulled up more information on his screen and started walking us through the plan.
Even before he started speaking, though, I knew I would do it. I would do anything to get Bones back and these guys—they wouldn’t ask me if they really thought I couldn’t do it.
They were trusting me to do this, therefore, I would do it. I would be worthy of their trust.
We would get this done.