Chapter Twenty-Two
Helios
The crazy chick showed up on the bridge again.
Still in her bikini, smiling like she was innocent as hell, she shoved open the door and waved a damn hand towel. “Don’t shoot. I come in peace!”
“Woman, there is nothing peaceful about you.”
“Thanks,” she said cheerfully, stepping onto the bridge.
Christ. “What the fuck do you want?” Hadn’t Nix locked her ass in a cabin by now?
“It’s what you want.”
Not buying what she was selling, I smirked.
Either certifiable or fucking clueless, her smile held. “No, really. You’ll want this.”
I deliberately let my gaze drag the length of her. “No, I won’t.”
“Promise,” she sing-songed.
“You may think you can lead Nix around by the balls with this bullshit act, but clue the fuck in, woman. I’m not Team Sennan. Get the fuck out of here before I throw you overboard.”
“Oh, last name status now. I feel so special. And for the record, I do know how to swim.”
“Not in these conditions, you don’t.” She’d drown like a rat. “Best part of rough seas? Nix won’t even hear you scream when I toss your ass over the gunwale.” After bitching at me to pull back to fifty knots, fucker was in the engine room with Ares.
The crazy chick put her hands on her hips. “Then how will you get your dinner?”
“Don’t need a woman or your psychotic ass to feed me.”
“You say that now, but you’ve never had my cooking.”
“Not gonna start either.”
“Which leads me to the reason why I’m here,” she continued, like I hadn’t said shit. “A favor for a favor.”
I made the call. She was certifiable. “Never gonna happen.”
“You provide me with music, and I make you dinner! Well, I make us all dinner.” Her face scrunched up like she didn’t know exactly what the fuck she was doing. “How many of you are there on this boat?”
I threw her a glare. “Nice try.”
“Right. Okay, so music? I just need, like, a cell phone or something? Or the internet? I promise not to sign you up for any of those pay-to-play apps, or whatever they’re called.”
I was this close to throwing her over. Nix could fucking thank me later.
“Come on, how hard is it to get some tunes playing around here? This boat is too quiet.”
“You’re not playing shit up here.” I’d heard her version of music.
“I mean, I wasn’t planning on it. I was going to be in the galley anyway, but if you want to pipe something through the boat’s speaker system, that works too.”
Nix would have a fucking coronary.
“Please,” she begged. “I promise not to play it too loud.”
For half a second, I thought about making her give up the sniper. She knew him. Nothing would convince me otherwise. But a better idea gelled.
Grabbing one of my personal burners out of my back pocket, I disabled the cell phone function. Then I downloaded a few shit playlists, cut off internet and data, and locked every other function on the damn thing except the music settings and volume.
I tossed the cell at her. “Play it as loud as you want.” I set the one parameter. “Anywhere except up here.”
“Thank you.” She grinned. “I’ll have dinner ready in an hour.” She turned toward the door but paused. “Okay, maybe two.”
She fucking split.
Thank Christ.