MICAH
TEN
If Lailah hadn’t told us we couldn’t win this fight without Parker, I would’ve thrown him out of the plane in a heartbeat.
That fucking bastard didn’t deserve to breathe the same air that the woman I loved more than life itself breathed.
She’d already endured so much, without Parker having fucked up and broken a piece of her heart.
The images of her sobbing in their arms when they got home and refused to let Parker back into the house is burned into my mind.
It killed me to know I’d seen the writing on the wall but the others didn’t agree with me about how to deal with the issue.
They were at fault as much as I was but that didn’t help things now that the fucker was weaseling his way back into her life.
Over my dead body would I let Parker hurt her again, no matter how much Lailah wanted to keep him around.
“What’s the plan for Cape Town?” I asked, turning to Jay. This was his operation. He knew the best way to handle getting the information they wanted.
“So we’re just going to ignore that my pop owns the largest tech company in the eastern hemisphere?” Parker grumbled, glaring at me like it was my fault.
Jay carried on like Parker hadn’t spoken, making me fight to keep a smirk off my face.
The idiot had no idea how pissed the rest of us were at him.
Jay didn’t let anyone fuck with people who were his to protect, and he was feeling a little raw right now with his mom missing.
“At some point, someone will need to leave the meeting room and find a computer to put in a jump drive that holds a virus to feed us all their information. We use it on many of our jobs dealing with demons. They like to hide things in plain sight.”
“Would it be best to have you do it, Jay, since you’re familiar with it?” Lailah asked, worry written on her face.
All of us knew it should be Parker but not a single one of us trusted him to do the job right. It was too important, and it was too soon to give him a job that crucial.
“I need to be in the room to help direct the conversation to see if we can get them to slip up about Aplite. They’re going to be our referral to this company so they’ll assume we know what they really do,” Jay answered.
I groaned when the others looked lost as to what to do. “I’ll deal with hacking the computer. I’m the only other one who’s comfortable with computers.”
“Hey!” Brayden yelled, knowing that comment was directed at him. “I know what I need to know but technology causes so many other issues in our world that I choose not to interact with it.”
“We know, you never let me forget it,” I muttered.
“Besides, I think it’s better that I act as the client since I’m more of a people person than Hudson,” Brayden pointed out. “No offense, Hudson.”
Hudson just shrugged. “I would have to agree with you. Out of all of us, the one who has the best chance at getting them to spill their secrets would be you. Even Lailah has commented on your silver tongue a time or two.”
“Great, so Brayden will do the talking and Jay will look intimidating, while I deal with the computer part of this,” I confirmed, going over the plan.
Lailah raised her hand like she was in class or something. I just snorted and snatched up her hand to hold, keeping it from doing anything else.
“What about me and Parker?” she asked.
Jay looked a little worried with what he was about to say. “I think it might be best to have you, Hudson, and Parker stay behind at a hotel. It’ll keep you out of sight and throw off the enemy to have us split up since we typically do things together.”
Now I knew why he was nervous. Lailah hated to be left out of the action if there was a chance anyone could get hurt. Too many times things went wrong when we didn’t have everyone together.
“No, absolutely not!” Lailah snapped. “How can you even suggest that? You know what happens when we split up.”
“Beautiful, I understand your worry, but this is going to be the safer option. The Dark Lord doesn’t know we’re on to him so the less we can draw attention, the better.
The world is looking for all of us together, but if there are only a few of us with a legitimate reason to be there, it won’t cause waves.
No one else knows about what went down in Wisconsin other than the Elementi,” Jay reasoned.
I could tell by the set of her jaw that she didn’t like the idea but finally she nodded. “Fine, but you will keep in touch with us through the whole process. I refuse to let anything happen to you as we get closer to the lion’s den.”
“That’s fair,” Jay agreed, relaxing ever so slightly that she gave in.
Just when we thought we had the matter settled, Parker exploded. “This is a bunch of bullshit and you all know it!”
“Parker,” Lailah chastised, frowning.
“No. I’m sorry, Lailah, but this is absolute utter horseshit.
The person who should be doing this is me.
I should be going to that meeting, posing as the buyer because I can manipulate his emotions.
With a simple suggestion, I can make him more relaxed and at ease with us talking.
Getting him to spill his secrets will be as easy as taking candy from a baby.
Hell, I might be able to convince him to put the jump drive into his own laptop and give us what we need.
You’re all ignoring how right I am because you’re pissed at me.
I get it, you don’t trust me to do something this important. ”
Anger flashed across Lailah’s face as she looked at the rest of us. Fuck, the bastard was about to get us into trouble with her.
“Is what he’s saying true?” she demanded.
Jay didn’t back down though he met her head-on. “Yes.”
“This isn’t about us or our personal issues, guys. How could you be okay with going ahead with a half-assed plan when you have a better option available?” Lailah challenged.
“It isn’t wise to put an unknown factor into play on a mission like this. Parker has proven he isn’t reliable to watch our backs. To put him in such a position where we need to trust him isn’t something I can do,” Jay stated, ready to go toe-to-toe with our girl.
Lailah got to her feet and stood in front of Jay, hands on her hips.
She wasn’t going to back down. “That isn’t going to work for me, Jay.
I get what you are saying, but wouldn’t it be better to have him go with you and Micah, who have no problem beating his ass into the ground if he fucks up, than to miss this chance? ”
Welp, if I was worried about her getting soft on Parker, I wasn’t now. That shit right there was cold and accurate.
Jay contemplated that a moment. “If we do this, will you stay back at the hotel with Brayden and Hudson without any fuss?”
My brows shot up at this. How could Jay be okay with Parker having such an important role?
“Yes, if you use the best that we have for the mission, I’ll feel more comfortable staying back out of sight,” Lailah answered, reaching out a hand to shake on the agreement.
That woman has learned how to play each and every one of us.
She knew it was more important to keep her safe than to deal with Parker, so in an odd way, they both got what they wanted.
After they shook on it, Jay grabbed her and pulled her onto his lap where he then bit down on her spot where her shoulder meets her neck, making her moan.
“That was a dirty trick, Beautiful. Don’t think I’m not aware of what you just did. ”
“Someone has to get you guys to pull your heads out of your asses,” she quipped.
Jay’s response to that was to start tickling her until she was crying and begging for mercy. Then they curled up together and napped the rest of the three hours to Cape Town.
It didn’t take long for us to get settled in at the hotel and pull ourselves together for the meeting.
Showered and dressed to impress, needing to act the part of Parker’s assistant, which made me want to punch him all the more while Jay got to be security.
The town car came to pick us up, and we hurried to duck inside, trying to stay out of the open as much as we could.
If we could do this entire trip without being noticed, it would be the best-case scenario.
Thankfully, none of us had many connections with people in Cape Town, making it easier to stay hidden.
Parker sat facing us in the car since neither Jay nor I wanted to sit next to him—childish I know, but this wasn’t our first choice to begin with.
“Parker, do you understand what we need to get out of the target?” Jay asked, handing him a tablet that had a picture of the man we were meeting with.
Parker took it and looked over the basics of the man’s life so he knew how to manipulate him best. “Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time I’ve done this.
My pop liked to take me to meetings to help me gain control of my powers.
I, of course, was a stupid shit, and turned it into a game.
This time though, I know what’s at stake and I won’t fuck this up.
I’ll prove to all of you that I can add value to this mission. ”
I let out a huff of laughter. “Really, you think that if you prove you learned your lesson that we’ll just forget everything else that happened?”
“Fuck you, Micah. You’ve had it out for me since the day we met all those years ago.
Now you just have the rest of the group behind you, supporting your hate, giving you free rein to fuck with me.
Lailah wanted me to work on fixing things between all of us but I don’t think that will ever happen for you and me.
Once you’ve decided to write someone off from your life, there isn’t a thing on this earth to change your mind,” Parker said, his anger edging his words with a bite.