Chapter 25 Grace #2
“That’s why they have retired. After you went missing, Dad quit being an ambassador and they moved here full-time,” Sophie explains.
“How far along are you?”
“Four months.”
“You were pregnant just before I left.”
“When you were kidnapped. You haven’t come back from a fricken holiday,” Sophie grumbles beside me.
Zoe shakes her head. “I didn’t know. I thought I was sick from losing you. It was horrible having something as amazing as this happen at a time like that.”
“I’m sorry, I ruined it.”
“Please don’t think that. It gave me hope to keep going. To fight even harder to find you because this little one needed its aunty to come back safely,” she says, rubbing her stomach. Now I notice the bump.
“Do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?”
Zoe shakes her head. “It’s too early, but we are going to wait to find out.”
“Which is annoying for us who want to buy her baby presents,” Mackenzie states.
“Can’t you tell from her scans what she’s having?” Sophie asks.
“Don’t you dare,” Zoe warns.
“Fine. I’ll make sure not to peek,” Mackenzie says with a grin. She’s so not keeping that promise.
“I can’t believe you’re having a baby.”
“Bet you didn’t think anyone could top you falling for your kidnapper, hey?” Mackenzie jokes.
She’s not wrong.
After piling our plates with food and pouring ourselves more glasses of wine we set ourselves up on the outdoor lounges around the pool.
“Tonight, it’s all about us. Like Gracie said earlier, the silver lining in this fucked up mess is that we all get to be together instead of scattered across the furthest ends of the world.
We are sitting and chatting and having an old-fashioned gossip session.
I want us to get back to how we used to be when we were young before careers, relationships, and monsters got in the way,” Sophie states, holding up her glass of champagne.
“Okay, I’ll go first. Zoe.” Mackenzie looks at her. “How does double penetration work?”
We all choke on our drinks as we burst out laughing.
“I can’t believe you just asked that!” I cry.
“You’re a fucking doctor,” Sophie exclaims.
“Come on, I can’t be the only one who’s curious. Like, my baby
sister gets to sleep with two gorgeous men every single night. Most women’s fantasies are having two men love them,” Mackenzie grumbles as she takes a large sip of her wine.
“We don’t do it often because it hurts,” Zoe says sheepishly. “You need a lot of lube. But the orgasms are amazing.” She giggles.
Mackenzie groans in frustration. “It’s so not fair. I’m going to die of sexual frustration.”
“I’ve seen you flirting with Damon,” Sophie says.
Mackenzie stills. “What? No I haven’t,” she says, sounding flustered.
“And he flirts back, too.” Sophie smiles, teasing our oldest sister.
“He does?” Mackenzie asks seemingly surprised.
Sophie nods. “He’s single, too.”
Damon may be an IT geek, but he also looks like a GI Joe version. Tall
maybe six-foot-three, and his body is ripped, especially for someone who sits behind a desk all day.
He has a blond buzz cut, blue eyes hidden behind dark reading glasses, and a chiseled jaw.
He looks like a Ken doll that got lost in the desert and was trained by Navy Seals for special ops missions, which is probably what happened.
If Maxim heard me talking like that, Damon would be a dead man.
“He’s hot,” Zoe grins, elbowing Mackenzie, who seems to be lost in a Damon fantasy.
“Fine, he’s hot. But I doubt he’s interested in me.” She glares at us. “Next, subject.”
“How did you and Brooks meet?” Zoe asks Sophie.
Good one, that seemed like such a mystery.
Sophie rolls her eyes. “It’s not romantic or anything. He was my bodyguard when I was working in the Middle East, and as you can guess, I used to get into lots of trouble following a lead.”
We laugh, and she flips us off.
“My bosses wanted to keep me safe because they didn’t want our family to sue them for working in dangerous situations or whatever. Brooks and I had been working closely for probably six months. You’ve seen him, he’s so serious.”
Brooks is huge, like a giant and Sophie is tiny, the smallest of all of us.
I think that’s why she’s the feistiest, like a Chihuahua.
Seeing the two of them together is hilarious, she doesn’t even make it to his shoulder.
He may be a tough guy, but when it comes to Sophie, you can see he’s a big old pussy cat.
“Anyway, we were in town. I was following a lead, and of course Brooks was with me. Next thing I knew, my contact took a sniper’s bullet between the eyes.
Brooks scooped me up and took me to safety.
I was in shock—I’d known my contact for years.
She was a good friend.” Sophie’s eyes glisten with unshed tears.
“He took me back to the hotel and got me drunk. Next thing I know we were ripping each other’s clothes off. ”
“And you’ve been fucking ever since?” Mackenzie asks.
“No. It was just one night. We were friends, plus we worked together, anything more would complicate things,” she explains.
“He was the contact you called in the Middle East when you needed help. And he dropped everything and came here for you. He stayed for you,” Mackenzie adds.
“And you don’t have feelings for him?” Zoe asks.
“We’re better off as friends.” Sophie shrugs.
“Friends that bang?” Mackenzie chuckles.
Sophie shakes her head. “It’s been a while since I’ve been laid so maybe I need to rethink my stance on just friends.”
The conversation continues, catching up on stories from us
growing up, reliving past arguments, filling each other in on our lives after we all left home.
Then we played a very heated game of Never Have I Ever, and I found out my sisters are way kinkier than I thought.
This is exactly what I needed. Finally, it’s late, and we’ve had an intense 90s jam session and are exhausted and drunk.
“Now that we’re drunk enough, are you going to tell us more about your sexy kidnapper?” Sophie asks.
I’m drunk enough so probably. “What do you want to know?”
“What does he really do for a living?” Sophie presses.
“You’re not going to let it go, are you?”
She shakes her head.
“Do you all promise to not freak out?” I look at all my sisters.
They all drunkenly nod their heads.
“He’s an assassin.”
My sisters’ faces say it all.
“He kills people for a living?” Sophie shrieks.
“And Brooks doesn’t?” I bite back.
Sophie stills. “He’s protecting his clients. Not taking money from the highest bidder to knock someone off.”
“That sounds judgmental, Sophie,” Mackenzie says drunkenly waggling her finger.
“He doesn’t kill women or children,” I argue.
“And that makes it all right?” Sophie yells.
“He’s an assassin with a moral compass,” Mackenzie adds.
Sophie frowns. “This isn’t one of your romance books, Kenzie.”
She flips her off.
“It’s bad guys he’s killing. Scum of the world’s underbelly,” I explain.
“He’s like Robin Hood,” Zoe chimes in.
“He could have killed you at any moment, Grace,” Sophie stammers.
“But he didn’t,” I try to reassure her. “You have no idea how many times I tried to escape once I was better. One day I ran through the vineyards …”
“Vineyards?” Zoe asks.
“Yeah, we were in Tuscany …”
“Wait a minute, are you telling me that fine assassin looks like he does, probably fucks like a God, owns a vineyard in Tuscany, and can cook?” Mackenzie states.
“And?”
“And nothing. Now I get it, that’s all, carry on with your fight,” Mackenzie mumbles as she takes another sip of wine.
“Kenzie, not helping,” Sophie scolds her.
“The point is, I gave him so many opportunities to kill me and he didn’t. He could have given me up to Dmitri at any moment and collected the money he was going to pay him to hand me over. But when he found out my nightmares were because of Dmitri he couldn’t let me go.”
“Ahh,” Mackenzie sighs.
“Sounds like maybe underneath his armor there’s a good man. He gave you all that intel, Sophie,” Zoe says softly, sipping her champagne.
“You’re right, he didn’t have to,” She agrees, slurring her words.
“Maybe we should have him on our team. Seems he’s the one with the contacts we could use,” Mackenzie mumbles as she hiccups to herself.
“What? Have him move in here?” Sophie sneers.
I flip her off.
“We promised we would save every single jewel, that’s our mission, remember,” Zoe reminds Sophie. “Look, it wouldn’t be easy because Brooks and the boys aren’t going to like it, but he has links in the Bratva that we don’t have access to. We need him just as much as he needs us.”
“That is crazy,” Sophie says.
“Makes perfect sense. You’re being judgy,” Mackenzie adds.
“Would you stop saying that,” Sophie yells at her. “What about Enrique? He works for Interpol. He is probably on their most wanted list.”
Zoe stills. “Okay, that might be a problem. We’re smart girls, we’ll think of something.”