Chapter Nine
KINLEY
“I FUCKING told you that you should stay at the house.” Mason bellows in my living room. Gray is next to him, looking like he’s about to wrestle a bull. Jax stayed at the house with Dad and all the kids.
Feeling silly and not appreciating the ridicule, I take a deep breath. “I just needed some space, Mason. It’s not like I came up here expecting someone to come through my damn window while I was sleeping!”
Fighting the tears pricking the backs of my eyes, I cross my arms and look away. Agent Abbot is standing in the kitchen, after not finding anyone outside, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the entire exchange. I won’t let him see me cry.
Mason folds, the anger draining from his face, and steps up to me. “I’m sorry.” Pulling me into him, he hugs me. Hard. “You scared me.”
At first, I’m petulant and won’t unfold my arms to hug him back, so he lets go with a smirk and unfolds my arms for me and holds them out to my sides. “Follow my lead. It’s easy, just bend your arms and hug me back.”
His sarcasm makes it impossible for me to stay upset, and I wrap my arms around his ribcage and hug him back. He sets his chin on my head and says, “See, easy peasy.”
“Shut up, stupid.” I mumble into his shirt.
Gray takes a deep breath, his hands hanging on his hips. “Did you get a look at him?”
Shaking my head against Mason before I push away, I say, “No, it was dark, and I think he was wearing a mask.”
“How do you know it was a man?” Agent Abbot asks from the kitchen.
We all look in his direction, and I pull my eyebrows together. Good question. “Well, he was big and built like a man. Wide shoulders and tall.”
He nods his head and walks into the living room to stand in front of me. “Would you be comfortable closing your eyes to put yourself back in the moment?”
I flick my eyes to Mason and Gray. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I think Agent Abbot reads my uncertainty. “It’s okay, there’s no threat, and we’re all right here. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
Moving my eyes back to his nearly black orbs, I hold his gaze, looking for any kind of deception, but only understanding looks back at me.
Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and verbalize what I’m seeing.
“A small shake of the bed woke me up. At first, I thought that I might have just jerked in my sleep from a dream, but when I opened my eyes, there was a shadow hovering over me.” I suck in a breath.
“Oh God, he had something in his hand. I think it was a syringe.” My eyes fly open, and Agent Abbot’s eyebrows have pulled together into an angry V, his forehead creased.
“He was going to inject me with something.”
He turns to Mason and Gray. “I can’t protect her like this. I need to take her somewhere I have more control.”
“She already said she doesn’t want to go, and I won’t make her leave her home.” Mason’s voice is sharp.
Gray is still looking at me like I’ve seen him look at Lainey Rai when she’s arguing with him, something she has started doing a lot. “It’s not up for negotiation, Kins, you need to stay close to us.”
What if I had been in the big house? Would he still have found a way in? What if he had gone through the wrong window? What if he had hurt one of the babies?
The hairs on my neck stand up as the realization slaps me in the face. He knew I was here instead of at the big house because someone was watching. Someone has been watching me since I came home.
“I have a team of people at my disposal.” Agent Abbot says, his voice just as sharp as Mason’s.
“So do I!” Mason steps toward him. “I won’t make my baby sister leave her home to depend on someone she doesn’t trust.”
Panic grips my spine, squeezing my chest. I could never live with myself if something happened to one of the babies.
“Her being here is endangering everyone in that house as well as herself.” Abbot yells.
I am endangering everyone. The back of my nose burns, and I blink back tears as I realize I need to leave my home to keep everyone else safe. Slowly looking up at the agent next to me, I realize he’s my only option.
“I’ll go.” I whisper as I turn toward Mason and Gray. They stop talking and turn toward me.
The crickets outside are suddenly deafening as everyone stares at me. My mouth is dry, and I look at Mason. “I have to go.”
He and Gray step toward me at the same time, like they think I might run or something. “No, you don’t. I’ll make some phone calls, and we’ll take care of it,” Mason says, his eyes pleading.
Shaking my head, I step closer to him. “Mason, if anything happened to any of the babies, it would kill me. I can’t be the reason anyone gets hurt. Think of Bennett, I won’t let him be collateral damage.”
Gray links his hands behind his head and turns away from me, walking in a slow circle. I know he’s thinking of Laney Rai and his pregnant fiancé.
“She’ll never be alone.” Agent Abbot says behind me.
Mason’s eyes don’t leave mine as he ignores the man behind me. “Are you sure, Kins? This is your home.”
I nod my head. “It’s everyone else’s home, too.”
Mason’s eyes flick over my head and zeros in on Agent Abbot. “I want to be included in the intel. I want to know where she is, how she’s doing, and what she’s fucking eating.” His face is turning redder and redder with each word. It takes a lot to upset Mason like this, so I try to diffuse it.
Taking his hand, I pull his attention back to me. “I’ll be fine. I’ll have my phone.”
“Uhm, actually, she won’t be able to take her phone.” I swivel around to face Abbot as Mason’s attention is pulled back to him. “Too easy to trace. We can get her a burner.”
Mason pulls my back against his front like I’m a child that needs to be protected, his arm across my front, on my shoulders. “If anything happens to her while she’s in your custody, I have the resources to make you disappear. No one will find the fucking body.”
Agent Abbot smiles. “That sounds like a threat, Mr. Harlow.”
“Because it fucking is.”
Standing between the two mountains of testosterone, I can feel the static crackling in the air. I’m surprised my hair doesn’t start floating on the raw power swirling around me. Mason’s chest is bumping into my head as he leans closer, so I turn and grab his arms.
“Mason.” The formidable anger in his eyes startles me for a second, but I tighten my fingers around his biceps. It takes two full breaths for him to look down at me. “I’ll be okay.”
Grabbing my elbows, he pulls me away to the other side of the room and leans down toward me.
“I have spare burner phones Callum makes us keep, I’ll send a number to the agent, and you can call me as soon as you get yours.
I don’t care how you do it, I want you to call me every fucking day.
Do you hear me? It’s not a suggestion, Kinley, it’s a fucking order.
If I don’t hear from you, I’m calling Callum and we’ll be knocking down fucking doors. ”
Callum is the boss of his off-the-books black ops team. There are seven of them on the team, including Jax and Mason.
Even though my heart is about to beat out of my chest, and I want to cling to him and tell him I want to stay, I smile and give him a salute with shitty form just to piss him off.
I assumed Agent Abbot would take me to a hotel, but I’m surprised when we park in front of a small house about twenty minutes south of Tulsa. It’s a Craftsman-style house with a large porch and flower bushes lining the front.
There’s even a porch swing lazily swaying in the breeze.
Stepping out of the SUV in the driveway, I shade my eyes with my hand as I move to the front fender. Without looking at him, I say, “I figured I’d get a seedy hotel on the FBI’s dime.”
He takes my suitcase from my hand, his fingers sliding across mine, sending a wave of warmth through my hand and up my arm. “Well, since I have to stay with you, I wanted something a little more comfortable.”
I watch his back as he walks up to the porch, pulling keys from his pocket. He’s wearing the clothes he had on yesterday. After I woke him up in the middle of the night, he changed out of his sweats and t-shirt into the clothes he left folded on the chair last night.
Then, he spent the morning arguing with my family. Dad was not happy.
The morning sun is shining on him, highlighting every dip and curve of muscle. He definitely has a back workout routine, and a butt routine… and a thigh routine.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I glance around. The houses are far apart, the front yards separated by four-foot white pickets. The tall tree growing in front of the house shades the yard and hangs over the sidewalk that leads to the porch. It’s all very quaint.
I’m surprised the FBI has a safe house that’s so nice.
“You coming?” He asks from the porch, pulling my eyes back to him.
The front door is open, and he’s standing at the threshold, his bag slung over one shoulder and my suitcase in one hand. I’m not sure why I’ve just realized this, but I’m practically going to be living with a man I don’t know.
My eyes lock on his from my spot in front of his SUV, my mind questioning the decision to leave my home with him. How can he protect me better than my brothers? This doesn’t feel safer than being in Mason and Gray’s shadows.
Taking a deep, frustrated breath, he puts my suitcase and his bag on the porch and walks back to me. He stops just feet in front of me and slides his hands in his pockets. His pants and his shirt are wrinkled, and his hair looks like he’s been running his hands through it.
Our eyes are locked in a battle of wills for several moments before he holds his hand out and says, “I want to show you something.” He tips his head toward the side of the house.
Looking in the direction he just indicated, I look for a reason to say no, but it’s just a side yard with more flowering bushes and another tree shading the cobblestone walkway to an arched gateway through a tall privacy fence.