Chapter Seven
Helios
Jesus fucking Christ.
Long as hell hair, short skirt, cropped tank top, makeup, painted nails, and some kind of beaded or sparkling flip-flops, she didn’t look sixteen.
Feralyn Alva Grayson looked like a fucking court-martial.
One I was gonna get if any prick high school fuckers showed up at the house asking for her.
If that shit happened, a UCMJ violation was going to be the least of my worries. Hiding the goddamn bodies would be the real problem. Not that I didn’t have experience in that fucking arena.
Eyeing Ares as I opened the front passenger door for her, I shook my head once before he reached for the rear door.
Picking up on my silent command, Ares didn’t get in the 4Runner.
Too distracted to notice the exchange, Feralyn stepped on the running board, then got in the new SUV exactly like any other excited teenager—animatedly. “Oh, this 4Runner is nice!”
I didn’t fucking look at her thighs as she sat—I’d eat a goddamn bullet twice over before I ever fucking did that.
But I hoped like hell, for Ares’s sake, that he’d taught her the minimum fucking basics about appropriateness and how to protect herself.
Because if she wasn’t wearing something that covered shit under that short-ass skirt, if she was flashing her underwear to the whole goddamn universe, I was gonna pound Ares’s motherfucking head in.
“Great,” I muttered, slamming her door as I glared at Ares.
“Problem?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m this close to a fucking Article 32 hearing.” I was either gonna beat my brother or any motherfucker who looked at Feralyn in that outfit.
Pulling his silent bullshit, Ares stared.
I fucking lost it. “What the fuck have you been letting her wear?”
My brother’s locked-down Ranger gaze didn’t give a fucking inch. “What have you been letting her wear?”
Motherfucker had the balls to ask me that shit with a calm-as-fuck tone. I reminded him what the hell he’d promised ten goddamn years ago. “I’m not the one here. You are.”
“Exactly.” He got in the damn truck.
Fucking stewing, I walked to the driver’s side and got behind the wheel.
Firing up the SUV I’d bought sight unseen, I cranked the AC and backed out of the driveway.
It took until I’d driven out of the neighborhood before I was calm enough to speak in a normal fucking tone. “Where to, birthday girl?”
“Isla Canarias!” She practically bounced in her seat. “Croquetas, plátanos maduros, and a banana shake—I can’t wait! It’s my favorite.”
I hit the brakes and looked at the woman-child in the front seat.
“What the fuck happened to the Double Cubano at Enriquetas being your favorite?” Every time me or Ares didn’t feel like cooking, that’s where we’d take her.
Enriquetas. The place was a local Miami institution since fucking forever.
Cuban sandwiches were her favorite. Always had been.
“Oh my God.” She smiled and her cheeks blushed—which was also fucking new. “Double Cubanos are so messy. I can’t eat that in this outfit.”
“Are you fucking serious?” Did she forget how to lean over a goddamn plate in the past ten years?
The smile dropped, and the deer-in-headlights look I remembered came back. “Um, yes?”
“That’s a question?” Was this fucking payback for when I was a teenage prick?
“My shirt’s new.”
It didn’t look fucking new. “It looks old.” Five-sizes-too-goddamn-small old.
Her eyes bugged out. “Ares just bought it for me. Well, last time he came home. He took me shopping.”
Rage hit, and I glanced in the rearview mirror. “You and I are gonna have a fucking conversation later.” This shit was out of control, and it stopped today.
“No, we’re not,” Ares threw back, but in his uber calm tone that said shit was about to get FUBAR if I didn’t back down.
Me and him had always been in different battalions before I left the Rangers for Delta Force, but I’d seen my brother in action.
When Ares switched on, that motherfucker switched the fuck on.
He was a goddamn beast on the battlefield.
Which you wouldn’t fucking know by looking at him, and that shit only made him more lethal.
Add in his sniper skills, and I was man enough to admit my younger brother was a fucking legend.
But this shit with Feralyn?
Hell fucking no.
“Yeah, we are gonna talk.” I stared him down a beat, then looked at the girl in the front seat who used to be a lost little kid I felt responsible for.
I still felt responsible.
But fuck me.
“Stop fighting,” Feralyn scolded before looking directly at me. “Both of you.”
Jesus fucking Christ, this was gonna be the longest ninety-six I’d ever taken. “I’m not fucking fighting.” I was. But not how she thought. Feralyn had no damn clue what real fighting was, and I was gonna keep it that way.
“I see you still like to swear a lot,” she quipped, all fucking prim as she tugged her skirt down.
Taking a corner, refraining from immediately telling her to stuff that fucking comment, I drove through a turn before glancing at her.
She fucking smiled. Wide as hell. Then the woman-child winked.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I muttered, grabbing a spot in front of the restaurant, then throwing the SUV into Park. “Don’t get me fucking arrested today, Haven.”
“What?” She looked horrified. “Why?”
Groaning, I cut the engine and shoved open my door.
Ares, that motherfucker, threw me under the bus. “He doesn’t approve of your outfit.”
Her voice pitched high. “Oh my God. What’s wrong with my outfit?”
“Nothing.” Fucking everything. “Just don’t flash anyone.” Then I won’t have to beat the motherfucking shit out of any assholes.
She gave me the horrified look. Again. “I’m not that dumb. I have boy shorts on underneath my skirt.”
Boy shorts? “Fucking great.” I didn’t ask what in the ever-loving fuck goddamn boy shorts were. I got out of the 4Runner and threw Ares a glare.
He gave me the finger.
I mouthed fuck you.
Then, flanking a sixteen-year-old, we walked into the restaurant.