Chapter Thirteen
Devi followed Zach into the beautiful townhouse in the heart of Liverpool. It was late at night by the time they’d packed up and taken care of the animals and arranged for someone else to come to the farm. The Canadians had left earlier, wanting to split up the group so they weren’t as memorable.
Parker had offered to take Kala with them.
She’d explained she couldn’t leave Devi until she knew the house was safe and secure. And that she fully expected her handler to show up and soon.
It hadn’t been a surprise when Henry announced her uncle and the rest of the team were waiting for them at the safe house in Liverpool.
Henry had worked overtime to keep his daughter and Kala apart. He’d managed to plan their retreat so they left as the Canadians did, and there was no time to address the fact that Lucy was pretending to be Cooper’s lover. Then they broke up into groups, traveled via train, and met up here at this god-awful time of night.
She wished Zach didn’t have that hollow look in his eyes.
“Tequila?”
Kala asked as she set down her bag.
“He doesn’t even like tequila.”
Lucy tossed her bag down as well and turned on Kala.
“Well, I had to do something since you took him in the barn and fucked him so senseless he walked in looking like a recently used sex doll.”
Kala growled.
“How was I supposed to know he wouldn’t check himself in a damn mirror? You are trying to get me to think you slept with my husband.”
“Well, he wasn’t your husband at the time,”
Lucy taunted.
So much drama. She moved to Zach. Despite everything she said earlier, she wanted to be close to him. She threaded her fingers through his and tilted her chin up.
“Do you think there’s a place for them to spar?”
He gave her a halfhearted smile.
“It’s a surprisingly big place for the city, but I don’t think they have a room dedicated to fight club.”
The Hideout did.
The train trip to Liverpool had been surprisingly short. She didn’t know a lot about Welsh geography, so she hadn’t known they were in the north and close to Liverpool. Lucy and Henry had taken the Jeep and managed to make it to the station just as their train pulled in.
There had been a lot of planning in that hour-long train ride. Mostly from Kala about where she was going to bury Lucy’s body.
“I’m praying there’s still some whiskey.”
Henry seemed ready to throw his hands up.
“Luce, I love you. I will honor all the wishes you have for your own funeral.”
“Dad, I told you why I did it,”
she said with a frown, obviously unused to her father being upset with her.
“You have been poking that particular bear since before she even got here,”
Henry shot back, walking down the long hall.
“I’m not sure they won’t kill each other right here,”
Zach admitted.
“She’s not killing anyone.”
Lou had her hands on a half-asleep TJ, as though she had to maneuver him to bed.
“I still have the water bottle ready.”
TJ yawned.
“Yeah, Lucy explained why she decided to make herself Cooper’s girlfriend. Now Parker definitely doesn’t think you’re together. What else has she done? I think it was all for the op.”
“For the op? Yeah, who is the donkey named after?”
Kala cracked her knuckles.
“You named all of those animals after someone you knew.”
“And I saved the worst for the most stubborn ass I’ve ever met. The Fabulous Miss K,”
Lucy nearly hissed.
She heard Henry say something about thanking god and someone created this mess and then she heard the dulcet tones of her uncle.
“Well, it’s good to know nothing changes.”
Ian Taggart stood at the end of the hall, hands in fists at his hips as he looked the group over.
“Cooper, you ever do Lucy?”
“I didn’t even know she existed before a couple of weeks ago.”
Cooper looked utterly relieved to see a man who was definitely going to yell at him.
“But Lucy is right. I screwed up. I was late to the debrief and didn’t check myself. I wish she’d come up with something different, but at least now Parker does believe Kara and I are not together.”
“Ben?”
A bubblegum-colored head popped around the corner.
“Ben is here? Hey, Devi. How are you after all the torture and shit?”
Ben might not be here but the gang sure was.
“The evil doctor torture or what Zach did to my asshole in a barn twelve hours ago?”
Zach started coughing.
Her uncle groaned.
“And if Ben was here maybe you shouldn’t be bouncing in. You’ll give him a heart attack.”
“Yeah, well you said you would talk about letting Ben in if he proved sufficiently loyal. I would say this should prove his loyalty. He was willing to risk his job to do something crazy Kala came up with.”
Kenzie turned back to the room she’d walked out of.
“So much gossip. Tash, Devi’s doing Zach again. You were right. It didn’t take long.”
“Hey, I held out for weeks,”
Devi argued.
“Uhm, no. I held out for weeks,”
Zach countered.
Evil man. Couldn’t he give her one thing? She moved past her uncle, who had a hand on his stomach like he might throw up. There stood her cousin. Tasha Taggart was the epitome of modern femininity. She was petite, with lush, dark hair and a figure most men would die to get their hands on. She was curvy and gorgeous, and the energy that surrounded her was calm, as though the very air understood her competence at…well, everything.
And she was loving and kind and completely unhateable because Devi remembered all the times Tasha stepped in when she needed a big sister. She went and hugged her cousin. “Hey.”
Tasha’s arms wound around her, pulling her in.
“Are you okay? I know everyone’s talked to you, and Zach has been open about taking care of you, but are you honestly okay?”
She had the sudden urge to get real. Even with her best friends she’d been putting on a front. She’d told her mom how she wasn’t thinking about a future with Zach at all. Same with everyone. She wanted to tell Tasha she was lying because she couldn’t think about anything but Zach’s future.
But she couldn’t. Not when she was the second choice to this woman. She pulled back and gave her a grin.
“I’m good. It’s been quiet and then Kala shows up and the world explodes. Hey, do you know why she and Lucy hate each other? I stopped going to Bliss before that happened. All I remember of Lucy and her family was playing at the park with her and her sister Poppy. I haven’t seen her since we were children. Should I have recognized her?”
Tasha sighed.
“Lucy is an excellent operative, and she’s pretty cool when she’s not in the presence of my sister. As to why they hate each other, well, she’ll have to tell you. Just know that my sister can hold a ridiculous grudge, and Kenz and I are friendly with her.”
Good, because she kind of liked Lucy. Weeks with the woman had proven there was a good heart under all her sarcasm and aloofness. Kind of like Kala.
“Well, she’s going to hate her more because she set herself up as Cooper’s girlfriend so Ben Parker would buy the story that they’re only friendly now. I would say she did it out of spite, but Cooper kind of walked in looking like he’d had raucous sex in a barn.”
“Can we save the gossip for another time?”
Her uncle stood in the middle of the living room.
“I’ve been on the road for hours and could use some sleep, but only after we figure out what’s going on.”
By road he meant air. Her uncle’s company owned two private jets, and she would bet one of them had been used after Henry made the call. Which brought up some questions.
“How did you get here so fast? The flight’s almost ten hours,”
Devi pointed out.
“Well, Kala sent her mom some pictures from dinner the other night,”
her uncle explained.
“She showed them around the office.”
Kala sighed as though she knew what had happened.
“Mae or Hutch?”
MaeBe Hawthorne and Greg Hutchins were the cybersecurity team at McKay-Taggart. They could hack pretty much anything, and Mae, in particular, was excellent at taking apart information on the Internet and proving whether a story was true or not.
“I asked Mae to look at it because I’m not an idiot, daughter,”
her uncle announced.
“Honestly, I might have bought it if the pics had come from Lou or Cooper. You do not update your mom with pictures of your dinners. So Mae took them apart and proved the dinner you said you had on Wednesday was only available at the resort on their spring menu, which changed two days after you got there. You did a great job on the rest, though she suspected Lou doctored some of them.”
Lou shrugged.
“I told her it wouldn’t work.”
“Hey, I wanted to stay at the resort. They had this great buffet.”
TJ yawned again.
“Next time I’ll disappear,”
Kala vowed.
“I don’t know why I should tell you everything when you obviously keep secrets, Big Tag.”
The townhouse was big and comfortably furnished. It made Devi wonder where the family money came from. Or it could be something worse. She turned to Tasha, who seemed to always have the answers.
“Is this an Agency safe house?”
If it was, they would have cameras, and Zach would be on them. If the agency was watching, they could walk in at any moment and damn it, she wasn’t ready. She wasn’t. She was supposed to have more time.
“My mother owns it,”
Lucy admitted, setting down her bag.
“She doesn’t typically approve of owning property, but she made an exception so we would have a European base that didn’t also serve as some youth hostel. Please note she doesn’t have a problem with youth hostels. I thought it could be good cover. She then cried because I think human beings could be cover and she failed as a mother. It was a whole thing.”
“We are thinking about turning it into one after we’re done with this phase of life.”
Henry settled into one of the big lounge chairs.
Her uncle frowned and sat next to him.
“I don’t think we get out of this phase. Even if we do, I expect my grandson to announce any day now he’s joining the Agency, and wouldn’t I like to come along? Come on, Grumpa. It’ll be fun.”
“I can’t even think about it,”
Henry said with a long sigh.
“I don’t understand where they got it.”
Lucy snorted.
Henry shook his head.
“No. I am not taking the blame for this. I have been a mild-mannered peace-loving man since years before you were born. You never saw the John Bishop side of me. I made sure of it.”
Lucy shrugged.
“Tash let me read those spy high books. I liked the sound of it.”
“You like copying me.”
Kala looked sullen as she took a seat. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at her father.
“You did not have to come after me. I am on my honeymoon. It’s rude.”
Her uncle’s eyes rolled.
“Sure, you are. I should have fucking known, but your mother convinced me it’s totally normal to take your emotional support friend on your honeymoon. TJ, I expected better from you.”
TJ shrugged as he dropped down to the couch with another yawn.
“I don’t know why. I always do what Lou tells me to, and she always helps Kala unless she decides it’s too dangerous. So it feels like this is all just part of the TJ Taggart brand. Where’s Aunt Charlotte?”
“Pretending everything is fine at home, including faking me going into the office,”
her uncle explained.
“Because there’s only so much Drake and Taylor can cover for us, and no matter how quiet you’ve been, I assure you someone will notice we’re working with the Canadians. I’ve informed Damon we’re here and asked him to cover for us. Now someone please tell me there’s a plan. What were you going to do, daughter? Kidnap your cousin? Or were you going to bring Zach in?”
Devi glanced over, and Zach was standing alone in the corner of the room. He stood there as though waiting for judgment, his eyes downcast.
She should quietly go to bed. Now that everyone was here, being close to Zach would only make her look like a fool in the end.
She didn’t care anymore. Something had broken this afternoon. Something cracked, and she didn’t want to fix it.
“She’s not bringing Zach in. She was worried about me and needed to lay eyes on me. Now she’s going to chill out. Well, I thought she would but she’s kind of putting all her restless energy on Lucy now. We need to tap her out and send in Kenz because I think her murdering another operative would give away this game we’re playing. And uncle, you’re not bringing Zach in either. I want to start talking about how to get him out of hot water with the Agency.”
Zach’s head came up as she joined him.
This was stupid. She cared about him. Even if it didn’t work out, she couldn’t leave him to fate. She was smart, too. She could help. She slid her hand in his and he pulled her to him, her back to his front. She felt him breathe her in, like her scent calmed him.
“I’m not sure there is a way,”
he whispered.
“And that’s okay, sweetness. Your uncle is here, and I’m going to do whatever he wants me to do.”
A little pulse of panic bubbled up inside her.
“I’m not taking him in. I’ve done an enormous amount of work to not be forced to take Zach in,”
her uncle said with a tired sigh.
“I’m not the bad guy here, Devi. I was trying to let some of this play out, but your cousin has made that impossible now.”
Kala’s eyes narrowed on her dad.
“You could have given me a heads-up that you knew exactly who Zach was and you had eyes on him.”
“Yeah, I would like a timeline on who knew what and when.”
Cooper stood by his bride.
“I would, too.”
Tasha took a seat on the couch beside Lucy, and Kenz joined them.
“Make that three.”
Tristan Dean-Miles walked in from what Devi suspected was the kitchen. He had a tray in his hand and passed TJ a sandwich. He set the tray of snacks and drinks on the big table in the middle of the room.
“You could have mentioned you knew all The Jester stuff. Would have saved me an enormous amount of trouble.”
“I didn’t know everything.”
Her uncle grabbed a coffee mug and took a long drink.
“I suspected something was off with Zach early on, but it wasn’t until he started taking leave and going to South America that I sicced Henry and Lucy on him.”
“We were supposed to observe in the beginning, but it became clear he was looking for someone, and he was doing it in our direct orbit.”
Lucy took up the narrative.
“Due to the nature of his ops, we couldn’t exactly look into his Agency records, though we suspected he was using his position to do whatever he was trying to do. It wasn’t until I made direct contact that he told me what he was doing, and even then it was months later before I got what I suspected was most of the story.”
She could feel him stiffen behind her.
How hard was it for him to stand here and take all the judgment?
She leaned back against him as Lucy talked about how she slowly befriended Zach.
“None of this is going to save you, sweetness,”
he whispered, and his arm tightened around her waist.
A thrill went through her because she could feel the hard length of his erection against her backside. “Save me?”
“From the spanking you’re going to get before we go to bed tonight,”
he promised.
Her ass already ached.
“I was the one who helped him find The Jester,”
Lucy was saying.
“There are a lot of interesting people in the kind of groups I run in. Everything from genuine believers like my mom to people like Dr. Huisman, who basically want to break the world because it doesn’t suit them. They often have connections. So I used some of them to find The Jester, and we put together the history between the Reeds and the reclusive arms dealer. He was the connection to Huisman. The Jester, that is.”
“Did I know everything? No. Was I aware Zach had an additional agenda?”
Her uncle took another long drink.
“Yes. Would I have told you if I thought any one of you was in real danger? Yes, but that asshole kept nearly dying to save the team. He’s a terrible bad guy. He didn’t even read the handbook. He should have known getting shot for my eldest daughter would endear his ass to me.”
The words hit her like a slap meant to wake her up. Oh, she was sure that wasn’t how her uncle meant them, but it reminded her.
“I would have done it for any member of my team.”
Zach said the words so they could all hear.
“I was happy to save Tash, but it could have been any of you, and we know how far I’ll go for Devi.”
Her uncle turned, his eyes narrowing.
“It better be the distance, son. I’m not fucking kidding. If you are not serious about her, I’ll kill you myself.”
She was about to protest when he cuddled her close.
“I’m serious. I just shouldn’t be.”
He kissed her hair.
“I can’t help myself. But we should think about getting her to a real safe house. With many guards, because she’s sneaky.”
That was not happening.
“I’m staying. I’m literally surrounded by people who know how to protect me better than anyone at McKay-Taggart, and I don’t want to put anyone else at risk.”
Zach rubbed his cheek against her hair.
“Well, then she stays with me, but when I go meet my mother tomorrow, I’ll need someone to watch her.”
“It’s a public train station.”
She’d heard the whole plan but suspected they were about to go over it again.
Henry sat up straighter and looked to her uncle.
“Nell made contact with Shannon Reed over a year ago. She’s scared of her ex-husband and terrified of Huisman. We’ve finally convinced her to come to the UK, but she wants to meet in a neutral spot. The train station has plenty of CCTV cameras we can lock into, so coverage won’t be a problem. Nell thinks once she verifies it’s really her son, she’ll calm down and come back here with us.”
“It’s the Liverpool Lime Street Station,”
Lucy said cheerfully. If she was tired, she didn’t show it at all.
“There will be tons of people. It’s the central hub for the area. Mom’s bringing her in from London because…”
Lucy sighed.
“It was less of a carbon footprint to fly to London direct than two planes from Buenos Aires to here.”
“I prefer meeting her here. If we were in London, we would have to involve MI6 because Damon wouldn’t be able to pretend he knows nothing.”
Her uncle was talking about Damon Knight, who ran the London branch of McKay-Taggart and also had a few spy kids of his own.
“He’ll tell us if he hears anything and try to give us cover, but we don’t want to alert the Agency, and that’s what bringing in MI6 would do.”
“What is the point? Are we bringing her in? Protecting her? Asking her to make a couple of fun bombs for us?”
Kala did look tired, but then she’d always needed her beauty sleep.
“We’re making first contact and treating her like a scared deer we need to be gentle with,”
Henry replied.
“She’s a bombmaker,”
Tristan pointed out. He relaxed back as he looked her uncle’s way. Tris was a lovely man with dark hair and green eyes and a body he honed in the gym.
“The woman has been in and out of prison most of her adult life. I don’t think we should be treating her with kid gloves. She’s killed people.”
“She built something that killed people.”
Zach’s tone was bland, like he didn’t care.
“I’m not making excuses for her, but she got caught in something bad, and you can’t imagine that life. Tris, you’ve always had people who cared about you. Who would move mountains for you. You literally have three parents who treat you like the sun in the sky. She never had that. What she had was a genius-level IQ in a poor household where her mother didn’t care about her bouts of depression, her anxiety.”
“I know I have loving parents, but I assure you I do understand what it means to get caught in a life that’s not good for you,”
Lucy said softly.
“I would bet she started because she was trying to please someone, likely your father, and the truth of the matter is jail doesn’t rehabilitate criminals most of the time. It merely gives them access to other criminals. They became the only people she could halfway trust. Zach, I’m with my father. I’m going to treat your mother with care. Your father is another story.”
“How do you feel about that, Zach?”
Uncle Ian studied Zach with sympathetic eyes.
“If you see him, don’t hesitate,”
Zach replied in that toneless voice he used when he was far too emotional.
“He already tried to take Devi. And that’s my fault. The Canadians believe Huisman had someone follow me the night we broke Devi and Kala out of the house in Virginia.”
“I’d like to see their data,”
her uncle said.
“But I believe them. That was weeks ago. Why wait until now to make a move on Devi?”
“Oh, I’ve been sitting on that farm taking care of chickens and horses and all the kittens.”
She wished she could have taken one of the kittens with her. Sweet little things.
“That was the first time I was allowed off the farm, and I get the feeling I’m going to pay for it. I don’t know why Zach decided today he wanted to be a Dom. He literally could have picked any of the other days when I was perfectly well behaved.”
She felt him place a kiss on her ear.
“You’re never perfectly behaved and you know it. You’re a force of nature when you want to be.”
Her uncle ignored them utterly.
“We think Huisman has a plan he would like to execute soon. There’s a meeting of the world economic council in a couple of weeks. We think he wants to disrupt it.”
“But not in the traditional way,”
Henry continued.
“He’s careful when it comes to anything close to what he considers intelligence circles, but he can be a bit reckless when he’s working with criminals or what we would call underground activists.”
“A few months ago, we found some chatter on a couple of sites I monitor on the Dark Web,”
Lucy explained.
“They started to talk about a group that stole a sample of weaponized anthrax.”
The room seemed suddenly on edge. Oh, they knew something she didn’t.
“Is it Huisman’s group?”
“Huisman used us for cover to steal that. My fiancé’s father owned a lab that was doing some risky research.”
Tasha took over the narrative.
“At the time we didn’t realize who Huisman was. We were researching him. We certainly didn’t realize he would use the raid on the business to slip in and get the formula they developed.”
“Anthrax is bad?”
Devi didn’t keep up with medical stuff.
“Anthrax is a bacteria that occurs in nature.”
Naturally Lou took the scientific explanations on.
“It’s rare but humans who catch it usually do from contact with an infected animal. Depending on the way the spores are introduced into the body, the mortality rate is between forty and fifty percent.”
That sounded bad.
“So he stole some of this bacteria?”
“He stole the formula to aerosolize anthrax. What they’re trying to do is take something rare with a high mortality rate and make it easy to spread and over a wide space. It could kill half a city quickly if dispersed in the right way. It would need to come from above. We think he’s made his anthrax and is looking for a place to test it. What he needs is a way to deliver it.”
Now she understood.
“He needs something he can use as a biological bomb.”
“Which is where my mother comes in,”
Zach explained.
“She’s known for targeted explosions, which sounds like it wouldn’t work, but the truth is she can adapt. With the right chemistry and tech, she can ensure the spores get delivered to the city’s biggest population centers.”
“And if they do it in the right place, that kind of terror attack can upend the economy,”
Henry concluded.
“If some false information gets out, a few conspiracy theories in the right ears, and suddenly the world is a powder keg waiting to go off.”
It sounded diabolical.
“But he can’t do it without Shannon Reed.”
“We believe he hasn’t had a lot of luck in reverse engineering her work,”
her uncle continued.
“I think it’s frustrating him enormously, which is why he’s desperate to find her now. He’s on a timeline. There’s intelligence pointing to him building some kind of facility in the middle of Nepal. In the side of a mountain.”
“My mother is prepared to protest him. Don’t discount that,”
Lucy offered.
“Your mother is never getting close to him. She’s going back home after we talk to Shannon and hand her protection over to her son and Big Tag.”
Henry stood up.
“Speaking of, I’m going to call her before I go to bed. I’ll see you all in the morning, and I expect a full briefing on how you intend to cover the train station and the area around it. I’m looking at you, Tristan. Also, unless Kala wants to blow her cover or violate her marriage vows, Kenzie should be on the ground tomorrow when we meet the Canadians.”
Kenzie clapped her hands.
“Yes. I’m so excited. I haven’t seen him since our dinner date. Sis, you need to tell me everything he said. Oh, have you been pretending to be me?”
Kala’s brow rose.
“Are you serious?”
her uncle said.
“You’re trying to pull this shit on me? Do I believe for one second Kala didn’t tell you and you didn’t cover for her?”
Kenzie’s lips kicked up.
“Fine. I made the deal with Ben. I couldn’t figure out a way to go on the honeymoon, and she was surprisingly against me taking her place.”
“Well, I didn’t know,”
Tristan pointed out.
“No, you didn’t because you are a chatty motherfucker,”
Kala proclaimed.
“And Tash didn’t know because we didn’t want to put her in a bad position.”
“What I’m hearing is we’re the good ones, Tash,”
Tristan said with a smug grin.
“You’re the one most likely to tell on everyone, and Tash would feel bad.”
Devi knew Tris well. She probably should feel weird being involved in what should be a classified debrief, but it felt more like a family reunion of sorts, and that included ribbing her obnoxious cousins.
And feeling insecure around her gorgeous cousins.
“You aren’t spanking her enough, Zach.”
Tristan gave her Dom a frown.
“And I’m done.”
Her uncle stood.
“There are only so many bedrooms. I’m rooming with Henry. I’m sure we can stay up most of the night drinking whiskey and talking about how our children will die.”
“Fun times,”
Henry agreed and sighed.
“I thought we would put Tasha, Kenzie, Lucy, and Devi in the bunk room.”
“It’s basically a tiny room with two bunk beds. Mom likes to make sure she has places for everyone to sleep,”
Lucy acknowledged.
“I suppose that means Zach and Tristan are in the small room and the other two go to the married couples. Well, the married couple and the practically married couple.”
“If you try to separate TJ and Lou, he’ll wander the halls begging for hot dogs in the middle of the night,”
her uncle said.
She wasn’t sleeping with Zach?
Guess there was more than one bed. She’d never considered how the only one bed trope would affect her life, but here she was.
Was it over? Or would they steal moments? Would he pull her into an empty bedroom tomorrow and take out all of his stress on her body?
He was going to see his mom for the first time in years. He had to be nervous about that. He had to be stressed by the events of the day. He probably needed some comfort. She had to find a way to keep them together. He would almost certainly try to please everyone by not causing a scene, but he needed her.
“No,”
Zach said, his tone implacable.
Her uncle turned, that one brow arching in a way that usually made her back out of the room. “No?”
“Until this is over, she’s mine, and I sleep where she sleeps.”
He looked over at his brother.
Cooper got his arms around Kala, rubbing his cheek against her hair.
“It’s a family tradition. I sleep where she sleeps.”
Kala’s expression went tight.
“What is happening to me?”
Cooper kissed her cheek.
“It’s called sentiment, baby. It’s what you feel when you remember a sweet moment like that time when your husband wouldn’t let you be alone. It’s okay. You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t like it.”
But Kala leaned into his touch.
“Unless Tristan wants to watch, he can take one of the bunks,”
Zach announced as though that was a totally normal thing to say. Which it wasn’t.
Tristan perked up.
“I mean I never mind a show.”
He must have heard her uncle growl because his hands came up in defeat.
“I will be happy in a bunk. Jeez, for lifestylers we’re all a little prissy, don’t you think?”
He stood and they started to break up.
Her uncle looked her way.
“You know what you’re doing?”
“Nope. Not in any way,”
she admitted.
“But you’re still going to do it,”
her uncle said with a sigh.
“He’s in trouble.”
“I know.”
She leaned back against him.
“We both know we’re on a timer. We’re going to enjoy it while it lasts. It’s not a big deal.”
The sex. While it lasted. A pit opened in her gut because she was talking like he was a sex toy she had to enjoy until he was taken away from her when she knew deep down he was everything. Every fucking thing.
This wasn’t some grand affair she would look back on with fondness when she found her true love.
He was her true love.
“Yeah, we’re going to enjoy it.”
Zach said the words but there was a deep well in his tone. Sorrow. Regret.
Her uncle stepped back.
“Fine. But I’d like a word alone with Zach first.”
“You don’t need to…”
Devi began.
Zach released her.
“Of course. Devi, I’ll be there in a minute. Go and get yourself settled.”
Well, that was an order. But she did understand. Zach cared about her uncle. He viewed Ian Taggart as the father figure he never had.
She really wanted to stay for that talk.
Tasha came over and took her hand.
“Come on. I’ll help you set up. I’ve been here before. It’s comfy. Nell lets us use this place from time to time. It’s way better than having to hide out in a hotel.”
Kenzie moved in behind her.
“I’ll go, too.”
Oh, crap. They were going to have a talk.
She looked back, but Zach wasn’t saving her this time.