Chapter Eleven
Devi knew that voice.
She had been planning to do exactly what Zach told her to do. After she took out the plug. It turned out it kind of slipped out when she took that first step without thinking about it. She was picking it up with one of the handy towels Zach had stacked because no matter what situation she was in, a good sub never left a used butt plug sitting around. That was a D/s no-no she wasn’t going to play around with no matter how close to death she was.
Although the bad guys might slip on it. No. Ewww.
Plug stored, she was moving toward the window she would likely fall out of when she heard her cousin’s voice.
“I’d love to see you try, asshole.”
She breathed the biggest sigh of relief. “Kala!”
“Hey, Dev. I’m thinking about killing your boyfriend.”
When Devi looked down Kala was dressed in all black and had a Glock to the back of Zach’s head. Kala glanced up.
“He was supposed to tell me where you were. I had to find out for myself.”
Rude, but she could understand. It was hard for Kala to be on the outside.
“Well, we’re fine.”
“You are not fine. You are doing gross, dumb stuff, and apparently I’m somehow involved,”
Kala pointed out.
Her cousin was taking things for granted.
“You don’t know that. Maybe Kenz takes over the syndicate.”
Kala snorted.
“Like Kenzie could run a syndicate. She would try talking to our enemies. Hell, she would probably fall in love with one, and while that is useful sometimes, not in the syndicate. Also, Tash would be terrible, too, but the point is what you’re doing is weird.”
“Hey, girl who wants me to wear bat wings to the next costume party. Or are we riding dragons now?”
Cooper McKay stepped from behind the ladder. He smiled up at her.
“Devi, don’t let her shame you. She’s a total pervert and into fairy porn. Role-play is a perfectly normal thing. Hey, brother. You’ve pissed off my wife and fucked up my honeymoon. We were supposed to be in the Bahamas.”
“Well, I was supposed to be in Dallas concentrating on my nanite project, but it’s cool. I’m pretty sure it works.”
Lou was standing by the horses’ pen. Her brother’s girlfriend had a wide smile on her face like this was all a magnificent adventure. She was also in all black. There was apparently a dress code.
“I don’t think the suckers will turn on the people who wear it and, like, eat them or anything. I didn’t give them teeth, you know. I am a little worried, though, because they can rewrite code. What if they decide to give themselves teeth? The good news is I think I made the kill switch so they can’t touch it.”
“A smart play, bestie,”
Kala said with a nod.
“Now someone get the doser because Zach’s going to take a nap while I get my cousin out of here.”
“No, you’re not.”
Devi suddenly realized she was going to have to exert some willpower. She turned and started down the ladder.
Everyone in the barn groaned.
“Devi, dude, underwear,”
Kala barked.
And then whoofed because Zach used her distraction to turn and disarm her cousin. They did some twirly-whirly action-hero moves. Like they thought they were in a martial arts film.
At least someone was having fun.
They really liked punching each other. Weird.
“Hey, Dev,”
Lou said, walking up.
“Way to distract. Did you know they have Highland cows? They’re so cute. What is this place?”
“Don’t kill each other,”
Cooper said, watching the fight, but he leaned against one of the stalls. If he was worried about his brand-new wife and, well, brand-new brother killing each other, he didn’t show it.
“Kala, I’m not going anywhere so don’t give Zach any of that sleepy stuff you use on people,”
Devi called out.
“He’s heavy, and I have plans for him later on tonight. Though you are kind of playing into our role-play, you know.”
She turned to Lou.
“The cows are so sweet, but watch out for the donkey. Oh, Sunny just had kittens. You should come see. Hey, where’s my brother? Did he let you run off with the team all alone? Where’s Uncle Ian?”
“TJ decided to wait outside,”
Lou said, her eyes wide behind the big glasses she wore.
“He kind of turned green when we figured out you were in the barn and you weren’t alone.”
She frowned Lou’s way. In the back she heard Kala curse, and then the barn floors shook as something big obviously hit the ground.
“Don’t touch his face,”
she called out before turning back to Lou.
“The rest of you couldn’t do the same?”
Cooper yawned.
“Nah. I figured it was like the club. Look, Kala wanted to snipe Zach from afar. I thought we should talk. She was unwilling to wait outside in case Zach had another way out. I was here to make sure she didn’t lose her shit, and Lou wanted to see the animals.”
“They’re so cute. Is this like a sanctuary? I noticed the poor horse has scars,”
Lou said.
“Also, when did Zach start speaking Russian?”
Her boyfriend was all kinds of surprises.
“I think around the time he decided to be on a team full of people who spoke Russian. He didn’t want to get left out.”
“I’m married to one and I barely speak it.”
Cooper sounded aggrieved.
“Way to show off, big bro.”
“Kala, if you will chill for two seconds,”
Zach was saying.
“I chilled for weeks, Zach. Weeks,”
Kala replied.
“She’s been talking to you and her parents,”
Zach argued.
“Not good enough.”
Kala threw another punch.
“This might go on for a while.”
Lou holstered her gun and started for the barn door.
“Do you have anything I can feed your brother?”
Oh, she had questions that were going to come before her brother’s never-full gut.
“Where’s Uncle Ian?”
Cooper winced.
“Hopefully back in Dallas with no idea that we hopped a plane to here.”
“He doesn’t know you’re here?”
It was inconceivable that her uncle had no idea four members of his team had gone missing.
“Well, we really did fly to the Bahamas and stayed for two whole days to take pictures,”
Lou replied with a sad sigh.
“I thought it would be more fun, but Kala was in full-on mission mode.”
“Why were you going on Coop and Kala’s honeymoon?”
Devi asked.
“That was the funny part.”
Cooper shook his head.
“No one batted an eyelash. Everyone accepted that we are weird, interconnected couples who sometimes end up all sleeping together without any swinging, thank the universe. Lou is Kala’s emotional support tech goddess. Big Tag didn’t say anything. So we took pics to send to the family to hopefully convince them we’re sunning ourselves in the Caribbean and hopped a plane to Cardiff.”
This was her fault.
“Who told? Was it Daisy?”
“What the fuck is that?”
Kala called out.
“I told you to stop bitch slapping me,”
Zach replied, frustration on full display.
“Then stop being a little bitch, Zach,”
Kala replied.
They might be at this for hours. Her cousin wasn’t politically correct. Or polite in any way.
“It was Bri,”
Lou admitted.
“And she doesn’t know she told. She was explaining that she was working on this story where a beautiful fashion designer got kidnapped by her rogue CIA agent ex and taken to Wales. So it was a good bet you were in Wales. From there we might have sent someone to figure out where you were in Wales. It’s a small country, but you still can’t go knocking on all the doors.”
“Zach is good at avoiding CCTV, but he’s not perfect. We caught him on a camera in town buying, of all things, cat toys.”
Cooper tilted his head as though studying her.
“Tell me those weren’t for you.”
Well, she could probably do some kitten play, but she wasn’t going to admit that to Cooper.
“No, they’re for the cats. And please don’t mention that to him because I’m the one who made him buy toys. They’re babies. They need to play.”
She realized there was something wrong with this scenario.
“I swear I will beat you down if you use that on me,”
Kala swore.
“Well, if you didn’t want to get roped, sister, you shouldn’t have walked into my fucking barn,”
Zach practically roared.
“I should go check on that,”
Cooper said with a sigh as they heard the back door sliding open. He grinned.
“Zach found a lasso, and it looks like he knows what he’s doing. Hey, when you get her wrapped up, deliver her right back here, brother. I like the whole barn thing. It’s rustic. Maybe we should do a barn add-on at The Hideout. We have a surprising amount of cowboys who come through.”
“You’ve been monitoring every CCTV cam in Wales?”
She wasn’t going to blame her bestie. Brianna looked for inspiration in all realms of her life. And it would be cool to get a book before Daisy did.
Although Daisy’s love story ended in happily ever after. She wondered how Bri would get her hero and heroine out of the whole death v prison inevitable outcome.
“Not exactly,”
Lou hedged.
“We had some help from friends of ours. You’ll meet them later, I’m sure, and we should talk about that because Kala is going to have to act a little weird.”
Her cousin was acting weird right now. She was cussing up a storm. Not weird for her, but some people might find the mix of languages odd.
“Zach, don’t do it,”
Kala warned.
Devi looked back, and the big barn doors to the south of the building were wide open and Zach had a lariat in his hand. Oh, it was a lasso in Texas, but she was doing the Wales thing now. Welsh.
“Are you going to be reasonable? Are you going to sit down and talk this out?”
Zach asked, but not in his reasonable voice. He was using the voice that came out when he was a bit overstimulated.
She moved to stand beside Cooper.
“I don’t think either of them is going to sit and talk things out. Do you think they’re going to fight to the death?”
“Nah, just until Kala stomps his balls or something. It’s a thing she does,”
Cooper admitted.
And she had the intel she needed.
“Take her down, babe. She’s planning on going for your balls.”
She needed his balls.
She was pretty sure his cock wouldn’t work if her cousin shoved his balls back up into his body cavity.
She was not spending the whole night holding a bag of ice to her temporary Dom’s crotch.
Also, another thought hit her.
Zach let the lariat fly and proved he was damn good with rope.
Kala turned and tried to swerve away, but it did not work.
The lariat landed around her and Zach immediately tightened it and pulled back, catching her around her waist.
She ended up on her ass, back to Zach.
Kala sat there for a moment.
She was still in that predatory way.
She was also sitting in mud since it had rained all day.
There was only a light mist now, but the damage had been done.
The world seemed to slow down as everyone waited for Kala to explode.
Devi knew her cousin better than that. Oh, it had looked like a terrifying battle was happening, and she would have totally crushed Zach’s balls, but this was play for Kala. Not the sexy kind. More like the way dumbass boys teased and fought each other as a form of affection since their toxic masculinity wouldn’t allow them to hug.
“Uh, is the weird sex stuff done?”
Her brother came into view. Like the others he’d gotten the wear all black memo, though he wore a gun strapped to his chest. He frowned down at Kala.
“You know he’s supposed to be Devi’s guy. He’s not supposed to play with you.”
Devi moved quickly, stepping out into the yard. Her brother could get the wrong idea.
“He was trying to save his balls.”
Disaster waddled into the scene as one of the big geese rounded the corner.
TJ smiled her way.
“Hey, sis. Are you okay? I mean you seemed comfortable with him. Unless you seriously were upset and didn’t want to be kidnapped. But there was rival mobster stuff going on, so I figured I should stay out of it. Honestly, I wanted to stay out of it entirely. Mom’s going to be pissed. Could you talk to her for me? Let her know I didn’t do any patriarchy things. Oh, hey. That’s a big duck.”
“It’s a goose,”
Lou corrected.
“You should be careful. They can be touchy.”
Oh, that goose was seriously touchy.
“That’s Caleb. You should step back. He mostly keeps to himself, but when he gets scared, he can be obnoxious.”
“Zach, you should get me out of this right now,”
Kala warned.
TJ leaned toward the goose.
“This guy? Nah, we’re going to be friends. How you doing, buddy?”
No one was listening.
“I’m not getting you out of this until you tell me what you did with Lacey,”
Zach announced.
“She wouldn’t have let you in. Tell me you didn’t kill her. She was how I’m going to find my mom.”
“Whoa, we didn’t kill anyone,”
Cooper said, holding up his hands as though to say see, I’m completely harmless.
He wasn’t.
“TJ, I’m serious about that goose.”
“I want to meet Lacey,”
Kala said in a syrupy-sweet tone.
“I want to meet this so-called operative who thought she could hide my cousin from me.”
“She didn’t try to hide me. She didn’t want me here,”
Devi pointed out.
“He’s cool,”
TJ said, reaching a hand out.
“She didn’t want you here?”
Kala asked, one brow arched.
“Who does she think she is? Is she too fucking good for my cousin? Have you put Devi in a place where some asshole insults her?”
“It’s not like that.”
Lacey only told her to go to the sea a couple of times a day now, and it was mostly because she annoyed the other woman. Sometimes on purpose. But only sometimes.
“She actually reminds me a little of you. I think you’ll like her. TJ, he’s about to attack.”
She’d had a couple of run-ins with Caleb. And some of the goats. She’d learned.
“Devi and Lacey are friends.”
Zach had learned, too. He was staying back. He knew a dangerous animal when he was in proximity to one.
“Lacey has been cool about it, and you guys need to tell me what you did to her. She’s been helping me for over a year. She’s an ally. She’s close with underground animal rights and climate activists. They trust her. She’s in the same groups as my mom. Lacey can get to her. It’s what we’re working on.”
“Dude, okay, I get it,”
TJ was trying to say as he backed away from the now honking goose.
Miss Rachel the chicken walked her way into the scene, likely coming to enjoy the drama. She settled herself right on Kala’s lap and watched as Caleb started in on the new guy.
That goose could move.
TJ let out what could be described as a horror-movie scream when that goose got one of his fingers.
“Don’t you dare shoot that goose, TJ,”
Lou yelled.
That was when she noticed Kala had a hand on the chicken. She was petting Miss Rachel, and a big smile came over her face as TJ started running.
“You go, Caleb. Get him,”
Kala shouted.
“She’s cool now.”
Cooper held a hand out to his brother.
“You can let her go.”
Zach sighed and took his brother’s hand.
“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to hurt her. I was doing my best to not.”
He looked awkward, and Zach almost never seemed awkward. Except when he was emotional. He was only awkward around people he cared about. Loved. There was no question he loved his brother.
Cooper’s head shook, and he pulled Zach in for a manly hug.
“I know that. She doesn’t really want to hurt you either. She’s worried about Devi and some of the shit we’re hearing about Huisman. Come on. And Lacey was not in the house when we went in, so I would bet she saw us coming and ran. Probably thought we were cops or something.”
Zach hugged him after a moment’s hesitation. She could feel her Dom’s relief as he passed the rope to Cooper.
Lou ran out to help TJ.
Devi did not because her brother could use the cardio. He ate a lot. The only way to counter the insane amount of food he ate was cardio.
“Lacey wouldn’t have left.”
She was worried now.
Zach stepped back and let Cooper handle his wife. He got the rope from around her, and Kala managed to stand up with the chicken in her arms. Miss Rachel looked around as though approving of her suddenly heightened position. A couple of the other chickens were clucking like they were jealous.
“No, she wouldn’t have,”
Zach agreed and reached for her hand. He threaded their fingers together.
“Who is Lacey? I don’t want some cover. Who is she really?”
Kala asked, brushing off her tactical pants with her free hand.
“She’s certainly not some sweet animal activist. Though you should know I do approve of the attack goose. It’s kind of evil. Build a sanctuary for animals and train them all to be your army.”
One of the big mastiffs lumbered up and walked to Devi, looking for a pet. She used her free hand.
“Yeah, see, so brutal. Lacey didn’t mean to get involved in international espionage. She just wanted to save a bunch of animals. And the planet. Her mom is active in…well, activism. And you should meet Arthur. He’s the vet. Also involved in animal rights.”
Kala sighed and turned. She was covered in mud but calmer now that she had something to pet.
“Well, good for them. I would like to meet them. I can’t find pictures of these people. She has no socials and no trace of her on the web. Lou can’t find her. That tells me one of two things.”
“It should tell you she’s smart,”
Zach replied.
“Do you think I haven’t vetted her?”
“How can you vet her, Zach? How do you vet someone who doesn’t exist?”
Kala asked.
Devi didn’t see the problem.
“I mean you don’t exist. Like your construct thingee does, but I was told they scrubbed you from existence. Your birth certificate doesn’t exist.”
And yet here she was.
“Of course my birth certificate exists.”
Kala frowned.
“I mean I think my mom has it somewhere. What doesn’t exist is any real information on me anywhere except in the records of the Agency. Which is precisely why I want to meet Lacey.”
Zach looked worried for the first time. He was always so sure of Lacey.
“She’s been more than helpful. She’s saved my life a couple of times. I don’t think she’s spying for some foreign agency. She’s managed to work her way into Disrupt Europe. She’s looking for Huisman, too. Now tell me what you did with her because if you didn’t kill her, she would be here.”
“She wasn’t there,”
Kala said with a stare. And then she grinned, watching as TJ ran past the cows, goose still in full pursuit.
“That’s a Highland cow. Lou went on and on about them. Shaggy cows. Cute.”
There were two things that could distract her cousin. Cooper and cute animals. Lucky for her they were both here.
“Aren’t they the best? Lacey names all the animals. That’s Mel and Cass. And Lacey went into that room I’m not supposed to know about. She said she picked up some intel in town and might be a while. She wasn’t sure she would have time to cook dinner, so I offered to make a salad or something.”
Zach dropped her hand.
“She’s in the comms room. It’s also a safe room. You need a code to get in and out. Fuck. You also need power. Did you turn it off, Kala?”
“I didn’t. Lou did,”
Kala admitted.
“It was the only way she could cut the phone and Internet, too. She said it’s all wired weird. Or wired by paranoid spies.”
“She’s not a spy,”
Zach insisted as he started to move.
“Not the way you think. I’m going to get the power back on and let her out and try to explain why my whole team is here.”
Zach strode away.
Lou was a bit out of breath when she rejoined them.
“TJ might be lost to us now. I’m going to be honest, when I read Jane Austen and dreamed about running around moors in the UK, there was never a goose involved.”
“Should I follow him?”
Cooper asked.
“Zach, I mean. Obviously TJ made bad choices. I don’t think I need to, but we did come here to look for him.”
Kala waved him off.
“Nah, he’s not going anywhere without his dorogaya. Yeah, we’re going to talk about that. He’s not supposed to speak anything but some high-school level Spanish. Kenz, Tash, and I have had entire conversations we thought he didn’t understand.”
“Did you talk about how hot he is?”
It’s what Devi would have talked about.
“No. We might have talked about how we thought he was a plant,”
Kala replied.
“And long detailed discussions of our periods. We switch to Russian for those to save tender male ears. Tell me about Lacey Rook. I’m serious, Dev. She doesn’t exist.”
“Again, like you don’t exist,”
Devi reiterated.
“My point exactly. Zach isn’t thinking straight.”
Kala glanced around.
“Though I will admit, this place is cool. You know I’ve thought I would make a good bog witch. Like get a cottage in the woods and have a bunch of animals around me.”
“That dream died when we got married.”
Cooper moved toward Devi, his arms out.
“Did I thank you for all your help? She was both beautiful and comfortable. You did a fabulous job, and the lingerie was chef’s kiss.”
She hugged him. She hadn’t realized how much she missed her family. She’d been so focused on Zach and her own pinging between misery and curiosity. She’d given her cousins permission to raid her apartment. She had lots of samples there, and she was happy they had gotten used.
“I’m glad you liked it. I’m sorry you had to cut your honeymoon short to come find me. I really am okay.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
Lou looked concerned, and not about her boyfriend.
“I’ve discovered some unsettling rumors on the Dark Web. I know it sounds crazy that we went to all this trouble to find you, but Kala wants to make sure you know what you’re getting into.”
“A call might have worked.”
Devi was well aware that she needed some pants. Wales was chilly even at this time of the year.
“How could I know he wasn’t influencing you?”
Kala asked as Cooper managed to get the rope off her. He loosened it and let her gracefully step out.
“Also, I didn’t want to have this meeting over the Internet. I wanted to lay eyes on you. I mean not as much of you as I actually saw, but eyes. Babe, something’s wrong here.”
Her cousin leaned over and gently eased Miss Rachel down. The other chickens clucked around her.
“I have this feeling in my gut. Something’s wrong.”
“I do not understand this place.”
TJ jogged up.
“First, it’s the goose. Like I’m never going to think of geese as nice again. I’ll eat that motherfucker if someone wants to roast him up. Then I finally get away and a goat tries to headbutt me.”
Cooper was obviously taking his wife’s instincts seriously. He had his hand on his gun and was taking careful measure of the area around them.
“We should move inside. Kala has a bad feeling.”
“Maybe we could go inside and get some dinner,”
TJ suggested.
“What did you say the chickens were named?”
Kala asked, her hands in fists on her hips. She didn’t seem deeply concerned they were about to be murdered. That wasn’t her cousin’s we’re-in-physical-trouble face. It was her thinking face. She was putting things together.
Devi had zero idea what the chickens’ names had to do with what was going on in Kala’s head, but she offered them up.
“You know Miss Rachel. That’s Miss Callie and Miss Jen.”
Kala’s eyes closed, and her expression went blank.
“And the goose who only gets violent when he isn’t left alone is Caleb. The cows?”
“What’s going on, babe?”
Cooper asked.
“Mel and Cass,”
Devi replied, an uneasy feeling in her gut.
“Fuck me.”
Kala’s eyes opened, and that was her I’m-going-to-murder-someone face. Yeah, she’d seen that expression a lot growing up.
“That is something you and Cooper should talk about.”
TJ had a hand on his gut.
“I need a sandwich. Devi, do y’all have any ham?”
“I suspect there is no ham here, TJ,”
Kala said between gritted teeth.
“Tell me something, cousin. Didn’t you spend some time in Bliss? Do your eyes not work? Or has she gone the full-on Mission Impossible route and she’s wearing someone else’s face? I suppose she could have used her skills in the dark arts to change her appearance. It’s what fucking demons do.”
Lou gasped.
“No. No. It can’t be her. Didn’t you see her dad a couple of weeks ago?”
Cooper moved near Lou as though they needed to stand together to face whatever was coming.
“I haven’t been to Bliss in years. Gosh, I think the last time I spent any real time there I was like nine. I went to Carys’s wedding, but I had an interview. I stayed one night and I was on a plane in the morning. TJ went with Seth and Travis more often than I did. I spent summers in Dallas with my friends.”
She was confused.
Bliss was a small town in Colorado where her Uncle Ian owned a cabin.
He spent many weeks during summers there and sometimes went to ski as well.
So did the Dean-Miles family, and she’d gone with Brianna a couple of times, but when she was a teen she’d preferred to spend her summers at home.
Her sewing machine was at home.
She would spend summers working with local theater groups making costumes.
She kind of missed that.
She’d really enjoyed those summers. Was she so determined to make it big that she was forgetting how much she loved small jobs, ones where she knew the people she was designing for?
“Isn’t Rachel the name of Paige’s mom? The one with the two husbands, and one of them is a little wild?” TJ asked.
“They all have two husbands.”
Kala shot out every word like it was a bullet.
“Well, except Lucifer’s mom, and yes, I recently talked to Henry and he did not bother to mention Lucifer was working a guy from my team.”
“Oh, shit,”
Cooper said.
“Baby, it’s not her. That would be insane. Your dad would know.”
“She is walking chaos, so insanity is kind of her thing. Also, I will be having a long talk with my father. I should have known there was a reason he and Mom took the whole ‘Zach’s in the wind thing’ like champs,”
Kala said and started for the house.
“We’re going to need to blow the place up. Bullets won’t work on her. TJ, do you have C-4?”
“Dude, no. I did not bring C-4 on the plane we recently traveled on,”
TJ said, catching up to her.
“I don’t, like, keep it on me at all times.”
“And that is why you fail,”
Kala announced.
“I didn’t fail,”
her brother replied.
Devi followed behind, noting that Lou and Cooper were whispering to each other.
“Uhm, who are we talking about? Because Lacey is British. Definitely not from Colorado. She’s from Liverpool.”
“She’s from the bowels of hell.”
Kala approached the main house, climbing the steps with purpose.
“Also, changing her accent is one of her talents. If you heard her real voice you would turn to stone. Kind of like what happens when you look her in the eyes.”
“I’m confused,”
Devi admitted. Her cousin could make some snap judgments about people, but this seemed extra even for Kala.
“What is happening?”
“How about chicken or turkey?”
TJ fell in step beside her.
“Or cheese maybe. You make an awesome grilled cheese, sis.”
“There is nothing good in this house,”
Kala announced.
“Lucifer only eats the earth’s excrement.”
“She calls them vegetables.”
She had seen her cousin act weird, but this was a lot. She looked back to her brother.
“Lacey is vegan and pretty hard core about it. But I think we have some tofu scramble left over from breakfast.”
TJ went pale. “Tofu?”
Her brother was going to have to go with the flow.
“I also have some protein bars. You’ll be fine. It wouldn’t hurt for you to eat a salad every now and then.”
“I eat salad,”
TJ protested.
“Lou makes me, but she puts meat on it. Maybe some fried chicken.”
“We are not frying up Miss Rachel,”
Devi swore.
“I didn’t say we should fry up that chicken.”
TJ followed Kala inside.
“Just maybe a chicken. Like one from the grocery store.”
“There’s no animal products allowed. Zach still eats like a horse. You’ll be fine,”
Devi promised.
“Hey, Kala, I think we should let Zach handle Lacey.”
Her cousin turned on her, an unholy gleam in her eyes.
“Zach can’t even smell the stench of brimstone. He is useless.”
Devi didn’t smell anything.
The lights came back on, and she heard the sound of a door opening upstairs.
“Zach, what’s going on?”
Lacey asked, her voice tight.
“Is Devi okay?”
“She’s fine, but we have company,”
Zach was saying as he moved down the stairs.
Lacey rounded the corner. Her hair had come out of its neat bun, like she’d been working furiously. Probably trying to get out of the safe room that became a cage.
“Get rid of the… What the actual fuck?”
Oh, Lacey started off in the same British accent she’d always used around Devi, but the last part of that sentence had been said with a flat, American accent, and Lacey’s normally placid face turned distinctly… What was the right word? Not exactly angry. Volcanic rage would be more descriptive.
Kala matched her dangerous vibe on every level, and suddenly Devi was almost certain this was how the world ended. Not with a bang but a girl fight.
“You.”
Lacey said the word like it was a warning. Or a threat.
“You,”
Kala said back.
Devi took a seat. This looked like it was going to be some excellent drama because she was pretty sure now she knew what she was dealing with. Was popcorn vegan? She glanced up and Zach looked every bit as shocked as she was.
Whatever was about to happen, he hadn’t kept it from her. He hadn’t known the secret. He wasn’t going to take this well, and she was going to have to calm her Dom down. It was her job. He gave her wild pleasure and indulged her fantasies, and she calmed him down when he found everyone around him was lying about who they were. It seemed to happen a lot.
The one thing she did know was now that her family was here, their time was running out.