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“You don’t have any kind of name at all?”
“You’ll find him—”
“Hold up. You want me to do a job and you’re giving me nothing but images to go on? What do you think Caldwell is, a small town?”
“That’s not my problem. You murdered my nephew—”
“Who was a deadweight you hated and came to kill me on my own property.”
“—in cold blood. You owe me this. You’re gonna find the bastard I send you and put him to sleep, and then we’re even. You pass this up or fail? I’m gonna settle our score the way my family takes care of things like this.”
The connection went dead.
“Well, aren’t you a fucking tough guy,” Nate muttered as he put the damn phone down on the counter.
Instead of doing the dishes from his and Nalla’s second round of eggs and bacon, he went over to his gun safe, leaned down for the retina scan, and opened up the fireproof interior. It was always a good idea to check your weapons, especially when one of Caldwell’s black market kingpins was getting his panties in a wad, and you had a guest you really, truly cared about on your property. Nate had never been paranoid-private about where he lived, and now he regretted that.
If Mickey had been able to find him, Uncle would, too.
As a tingling in his upper jaw signaled his fangs descending, a sound he’d never heard before vibrated up his chest and out of his mouth.
The growl was a reminder that bonded males were next-level unhinged, when it came to protecting their females—
Bing!
As that stupid fucking burner phone went off with a text, he would have used it for target practice, except for the fact that it was the way he was going to stay connected with Nalla when they weren’t together.
With absolutely no interest at all, he opened the message from Uncle’s encrypted number—
It was an image, a black-and-white still that, given its graininess, had indeed been taken off video footage.
“Oh… fuck.”
With another grim curse, he expanded the close-up, even though he didn’t need to.
He knew who the person was, recognized instantly the scarred face of the target Uncle wanted him to kill to make things right between them.
Zsadist… Nalla’s father.
Back at the Brotherhood’s underground residences, Nalla was hesitating at the door to her family’s quarters, her hand hovering over the latch. Even with all the tension lately, there was something unnatural about not sharing what was going on in her life. Except Nate was a complicated subject.
If the word “complicated” could be used in a bad-as-an-H-bomb kind of way.
Bracing herself, she opened things—and was stupidly shocked that there was nothing out of place in the living room. But like all their interpersonal chaos translated to couches and chairs?
After a long moment, she found herself going over to her father’s baby grand Steinway. There was a guitar on a stand in the corner behind it, as well as a violin set in a wall mount, and some harmonicas sitting on a shelf. Sheet music was stacked on a side table, but her sirenever really used it. His mind, he always said, “saw” the music without the notes.
And he truly did have the voice of an angel.
As she remembered the times he had sung her to sleep as a young, her eyes flooded with tears. Of all the divides she had ever expected to come to, choosing a male over her family was not something she had anticipated.
Except if she doubted her painful choice—and she didn’t—this place here no longer felt like home. Nate’s basement did. And that was less about what was in a given space, and everything about who was with you when you were in it.
Taking a deep breath, she caught a whiff of bread baking and had to smile. Clandestine, contraband sourdough. Hermahmenhad taught herself how to bake bread for no particular reason, and Bella liked to practice from time to time—but she had to be careful. Fritz felt like any cooking efforts beyond toasting an English muffin were a referendum on the job he was doing for the Brotherhood, so the female had to time her forays into the gluten when she knew that the butler would be other-wise occupied.
She also tended to bake when she was upset.
Walking over to the doorway into the kitchen, Nalla studied hermahmen, who was at the counter by the sink. Bella was uncovering a bowl and investigating the rising that was going on, so distracted that she was unaware she was not alone anymore. Her mahogany hair was pulled back, and she was wearing jeans and an Irish knit sweater that Cormia had made her the previous year. Her earrings were the long, dangly silver ones that Nalla had given her for her birthday.
