“Nothing solid,” I said. “More like a possibility.”
Honey walked over to stand between Bram and Poe.
“Hey, sugar.” She looked nervously from the Hawks to me to Bram. “How’s Maeve?”
“She’s great,” Bram said. “Making those pumpkin cupcakes you love as we speak.”
“You’re lucky men,” she said.
Poe smiled up at her. “Don’t we know it.”
I’d always liked Poe and Remy, my brother’s two best friends. Remy was a bit of a wrecking ball, but he was nice, and Poe had the same kind of thoughtful, deliberate energy as Jagger.
“Burgers, rings, and beers?” she asked.
“You got it,” Poe said.
“Be right back.”
I waited for her to leave to start talking, then I told the Hawks and Bram and Poe what Daisy and Sarai had said: that the way “PrincessA” was written in the text on the dead guy’s phone made it sound more like a nickname or a social media handle.
Bram leaned back in his chair and took a swig of the beer Honey had dropped off. “So the guys at the paper mill were body men for a woman?”
“What’s a body man?” I asked.
“Security detail,” Jagger told her. “Like a personal bodyguard.”
We put a pin in it while Honey set down our plates, and I inhaled the smell of cooked meat and fried onions. Either I was starving or this food smelled like heaven.
“Need anything else?” Honey asked.
“I think we’re good,” Poe said.
“Give a holler if you change your mind.”
“What kind of woman would need security detail like the ones at the paper mill?” Jagger asked when Honey left.
“Someone famous?” Vigo suggested.
“Someone powerful,” Hawk said.
“But what would she have to do with Imperium Fratrum?” Bram asked.
“It takes more than men to run an operation like Imperium Fratrum.” I bit into my burger and closed my eyes with a moan. “Oh my god… this is… this is incredible.”
When I opened my eyes, the Hawks were trained on my lips like Freya waiting for a piece of raw meat.
Unfortunately for them, Bram’s gaze was trained onthem,something they realized pretty quickly when he stared them down, like they could feel his icy gaze from across the table.
I never thought I’d see the Hawks flustered, but they got flustered now, and they hurried to pour ketchup on their plates, unwrap their burgers, anything to avoid meeting Bram’s eyes.
“You were saying?” Bram asked, clearly eager to turn the conversation to a safer topic than why three of the men at the table looked like they wanted to devour me like the burgers on their plates.
“I was saying…” What had I been saying? “I was saying it takes more than men to keep something like Imperium Fratrum going.”
“Like what?” Poe asked.
I thought about Lilah, about the “school” for girls being sold into sex trafficking. “Women don’t inherently trust men. We know you’re dangerous for us. Just look at the statistics on domestic violence homicides.”
