Chapter 24 #2
“Well,” he said, almost too casually. “We don’t know what he might be hiding or what skills he hasn’t advertised. Maybe he is a five-thousand-dollar stuffed suit and maybe he’s a whackjob in Armani, we don’t know. With that in mind, we want to keep you sharp.”
“I’m not a scalpel,” I said, well snapped. Another deep breath. “I’m a model.”
“Not anymore,” AB murmured from behind me.
“You need to be ready for anything,” Bones said. “When we’re sure, then we’ll continue with the plan for you to see him.”
At this rate, I would never be judged “ready” at least not by them. No, they were back to AB digging. I got that. Bones definitely needed time to heal, but the mission appeared to be delay, delay, delay.
Time to change their minds or at least their plans.
It started with a Post-it note. Small, neon pink, stuck to the inside of Bones' protein tub. I’d written just four words:
You missed leg day.
It was childish, yes. Petty? Absolutely. But the next morning, Bones stood there, spoon halfway to his mouth, staring into the powder like he’d just found out the container was full of arsenic. He looked up. I smiled over my coffee. Said nothing.
One point for me.
Legend was harder.
He was always watching. Doors, corners, mirrors—my face. But I found his blind spot. More specifically, I found his snow boots.
Most of his shoes he kept almost obsessively neat and stored away. He polished them, kept them in perfect shape, the whole nine yards. His snow boots, however, had to stay in the mudroom like all of ours after being outside.
So I may have, possibly, filled them with frozen peas.
Later that afternoon while working on AB’s latest mental puzzle of plug and play, I heard a shout from the hallway, followed by something that sounded like, “What the fuck?”
Two points for me.
When AB glanced at me, I just grinned and kept on working.
Voodoo got me back.
He replaced the sugar in the ceramic jar with salt. And not just “oops, a dash” levels. He went full Dead Sea. I took one sip of my morning flat white and just—froze.
Slowly, deliberately, I set the cup down.
His smirk was adorable even if that one hurt.
Back to one point.
Bones had this thing about control.
Everything in the gym had to be perfect. Gear lined up. Mats cleaned. Shoes off the mat. No phones, no gum, no water breaks until he called them.
So naturally, I decided that was the best place for my next act of sabotage. It began with his training sweats.
They kept spares in the laundry room. Big, bulky things that could double as body bags.
He had a few that he traded out regularly, so late into the night after the boys were all asleep, I crept downstairs to sew the bottom hem of each of the pant legs together.
It was a lot easier than I expected, but I had picked up a few skills during all those fashion fittings.
The next morning, he stalked into the gym like a drill sergeant in a snowstorm. Cold, cranky, and five minutes behind schedule. I was already there, stretching. So innocent.
“Grace,” he said in a terse voice.
“I’m here, all stretching and everything.” I kept it sweet and upbeat, even gave him a smile.
“Good, let’s get started.” We squared off on the mat. He went easy at first. He always did. Not a lot of movement from him, feet always together and mostly just making me work for it. The man had talent. Then I landed a hip toss that surprised us both.
“Again,” he snapped.
This time, he came in harder, and then it happened.
He shifted his weight, tried to step wide to catch my leg in some kind of trip—and his feet stopped short.
He stumbled.
Hard.
The tangled hem yanked his legs together mid-move, and down he went like a redwood in slow motion. I didn’t even touch him.
The sound when he hit the mat? Music.
Bones just lay there a second, staring at the ceiling like he was calculating how much dignity he had left. Then, slowly, he sat up. Pulled at the hem of his pants. Realized.
He looked at me. I smiled.
“Oh no,” I said. “Did someone sabotage your gear? That must be so frustrating.”
He didn’t say a word.
Just got up, walked off the mat, and went to change, passing Voodoo who stood laughing his ass off just inside the doorway. When Bones was gone though, he gave me a slow clap.
“He’ll get you back,” he warned, and I shrugged.
“You guys already said you were going to keep doing it until I figured it out, so… what have I got to lose?” I wasn’t sure if it was my sweet smile or my words that stymied him, but Voodoo actually looked less amused and more worried.
Three points for me.
Of course, my success was short-lived. Legend retaliated by hiding a motion-activated soundbox under my bed.
Fortunately, I wasn’t alone when I discovered it at midnight.
Voodoo was in bed with me and when a creepy child’s voice whispered, “I see you” into the darkness as he thrust into me, we both froze.
I didn’t scream or throw anything. I just stared up at Voodoo and he stared down at me, then he dipped his head, kissed me fiercely and pulled out and off. A moment later, he sat up from where he removed it from under the bed.
“I’ll be back.”
The thumping that came next was definitely nowhere near as fun as the thumping I’d been about to engage in. When he was done, Voodoo and I went to his room. Mine now officially creeped me out.
I wasn’t sure if that was the reason the “training war” began to die off or if it was because AB found me in the kitchen quietly unscrewing the battery case on one of Legend’s old motion sensors.
“Good,” he said, pulling up a chair. “Now let me show you how to clone a phone off a dummy SIM.”
Because obviously, that was the logical next step after surviving shaving cream, haunted beds, and salted coffee. I still don’t know what exactly they think Mark Sinclair is going to do at that meeting.
If I needed to wrestle him to the ground, I was about 60% confident I could land an elbow now. If he pulled a gun, I’d at least learned not to freeze. And if he tried to talk circles around me?
Please.
He didn’t stand a chance.
Because no way would I fail after all of this. The boys would never let me live it down, even if they killed Sinclair first.