I looked back at Quinn once before following the others to Lo's house for lunch. I can't put my finger on it, and he's so good at camouflaging shit when he wants to that it had taken me a while, but something's up. Ever since that early morning phone call I knew he was hiding something but had let myself be convinced otherwise. I was tempted to go back and get that shit out of him, but the baby distracted me when she met us at the door. She babbled away about something or the other that only Ty understood and the rest of us became bystanders to their continuing saga. I don't care how hard you are, nothing melts you faster than a tiny tot with attitude and a chip on her shoulder. She read Ty's ass but good. The rest of us got a few eye rolls and finger shakes, but he was her mark no doubt. It was hard not to smile at the two of them and their antics. Once he picked her up and cleared the way we made it inside where the women met us w
We'd dug into Mancini, as much as it's possible to dig into a spook or whatever the fuck the guy is. And though we're all agreed he's our kind of people, it's still not easy for us to just put ourselves in someone else's hands; especially not when the storm was raging all around us. For the women though, it was probably the best move. Not that we couldn't protect them, but with everything else we had on our plate and as far reaching as the shit seemed to be, it might be good to have a little extra help while we hunted assholes. Ty came back inside with the baby who'd calmed down to the sniffles. He was still looking at Zak like he wanted to shoot him when he took his set with baby Zak on his lap. She said some shit to him that he understood and he put her down after wheedling a kiss from her. The guy is such a sap. She made her way to her daddy on toddling legs and stood at his knee. Zak pretended not to see her as she clasped her hands and peered at h
The uncle I was forced to live with for the four years before joining up hadn't helped matters any. I think the fucker only took me in for the sole purpose of tormenting me for whatever slight he believed my parents guilty of. After dealing with his special brand of care after their passing and I was left at his mercy, I'd grown a new hard shell. That shit was titanium and nothing was ever getting through it again. I'd locked my heart off from ever feeling anything resembling love again. It took me years to realize that that was just anger and pain from my loss. After these fucks had sledge hammered my walls and wormed their way into my good graces it was a wrap. I laughed along with them and their silly arguments now, knowing that it was just their way of letting off steam and taking a load off from the hell we've been dealing with just lately. This too was something new I was learning to get used to. It was a side to them that I'd never seen before,
I leaned back against the steps of the CO's mansion with my eyes closed and the hot Georgia sun warming my face enough to distract from the ass-fuckery that was going on inside my head. The others should be coming back from lunch soon and even though they'd been gone for over an hour, it still wasn't long enough. That feeling beneath my skin had now become a raging inferno. The sense that I needed to move was strong but I still had no idea where the fuck I was supposed to go. The longer it lingered the more positive I became that the shit was personal. If we were in the middle of an Op I could whittle shit down if I wasn't shown where the danger laid outright. It's rare, but every once in a while my 'gift' likes to fuck with me and leave me guessing. In those cases I could usually work my way around to the truth but there were two things hindering me this time around. One, I was absolutely certain that this had nothing to do with what we were
I'm afraid if something doesn't give soon, there will be hell to pay. And on that thought, I finally sat up and gave him an answer. "Nothing Dev, I just feel...off. Like that feeling you get before the other shoe drops." He clapped me on the shoulder and took a seat next to me. "You wanna go for a run?" Yeah, maybe some physical exercise might clear my head. Somehow I didn't think so though, and besides I didn't feel like leaving the grounds, not until I got a handle on things. Not until I was sure where the danger lay. "No, I don't want to leave the others unattended. I need to stay close to home today." That was the only thing I was sure of. Which only added to my unease. I couldn't see the threat, but I knew it was close to home. I won't leave them unprotected. My brothers had their attentions divided between ending the threat posed my the Desert Fox and their pregnant women. I can do no less than to stand guard over all of them. To stand between t
I let myself relax now that I had dodged The Spanish Inquisition, and thought of what we had left to do before we could head out. There was no telling how long we would be away, but hopefully it wouldn't be for too long. This thing seemed to have a long fucking reach though, and with the tangos involved, there was no telling where this mess would go before it was all said and done. I hated that my family's lives were put on hold, because of outside interference. It's funny that the one thing we had promised each other, had avoided so effortlessly the last ten years or so, had come back to bite us in the ass. We never wanted any woman we chose to have to go through the horror of war, of having to wait for their man to come home. Never knowing if he would indeed be coming back. Now they're stuck in the middle of something dark and ugly because someone, an old nemesis, had brought the war to us. If I could stand in front of this, protect them from it, I
I was beginning to relax a little. The breeze from the water, the sun shining down in all its magnificent glory and Con talking shit next to me as we pounded the sand was working. It was good to feel the sea air on my face as we ran flat out. It had been a while since we'd come down here for anything other than a stake out. We had all this beauty right in our own backyard and hadn't really had the time to enjoy it before this shit fell on us. Most of my sisters had grown up here and this was a luxury they'd freely enjoyed in the past. Now because of their entanglements with my brothers they couldn't even step foot out their front door without an armed guard. It was getting to me so I can only imagine how the others felt, having to curtail their women's movements. And since the women's last attempt at mutiny I'm sure they won't be seeing outside again for a while. Hopefully this place Mancini was dragging us off to would allow them some freedom
I feel sick. Whatever they'd injected me with had a nasty lasting side effect and left a horrible taste in my mouth. I was able to see the others now and my heart sank. They'd brought us to a house and locked us in a room chained together against the wall. The smell of fear was heavy in the room. Someone had peed on themself and there was a scent of feces as well in the air. The girls were all my age or younger, most of them looked to be no more than fourteen or fifteen. My mind reeled with all the implications of this. I didn't know anyone here, but we all had one thing in common; dread. It was written on the faces of each and every one of us. I looked around the room, no one was saying anything, but it wasn't hard to guess what they were thinking. I fought back the fear and tried to remain calm. There's never any situation you can't get yourself out of if you use your head. My daddy taught me that, in fact it was like a mantra for h