Page 85 of Brooks

The mask of innocence she was wearing started to slip and a wicked smile tugged at her lips. “Damn, you’re easy to rile up. I’d marry you tonight, baby.”

“Is that so?” A plan was forming. “When are we leaving for Mexico?”

“Forty-eight hours,” Declan answered.

“Righteous. Who’s up for a road trip?”

“Vegas?” Kyle asked.

I nodded but never took my eyes off Tatiana’s face. I wasn’t calling her bluff. I was a man who knew what I wanted, and if she was serious, she’d be my wife before the end of the night.

“I vowed never to take another road trip with you all. Last time it was a near-death experience for me.” She smiled.

“Nothing bad happened,” Max complained.

“You and Thad talked about sports for seven hours. The only thing that stopped me from throwing myself from the car was I hadn’t updated my will and I was afraid my bank account would go to fuckstick Monroe.”

“Who’s going to Vegas?” Zane cut in.

“We are. We’re getting married,” I told him.

“Christ. I better expand the fucking daycare center I’m being forced to build at the office. Can’t anyone just use regular babysitters? Or better yet, birth control?”

“You are so full of shit, Zane Lewis, I’ve seen you with your nephews. And what about you? You ever heard of birth control?” Tatiana gestured to a pregnant Ivy.

“Ouch,” Zane mumbled and looked down at his wife. “Mark this, woman. I’m keeping track, and after you pop my son out, I’m bending you over my lap and spanking you for every time you’ve pinched me over the last six months.”

Holy shit, Zane was having a boy. The world better brace. There was no doubt Lewis genes would prevail.

“Well, what are we all still standing around for? You wanna get married or what?” Zane tapped his foot with impatience.

“You ready to become Mrs. Miller?” I asked Tatiana.

“Hell, yes.”

“Let’s roll.”

Chapter 37

Thad

I was seriously questioning my life choices. It had been three days since I’d drunk way too much while celebrating in Vegas. Three days, and the headache was still present. Throbbing behind my eyes like someone was pounding a drum in my skull. The heat and stench of fermenting garbage wasn’t helping.

Zane hadn’t felt an ounce of pity when he sent us down to Mexico only a day after Brooks and Tatiana had said, ‘I do.’ The fucker had drunk as much as the rest of us, yet he woke up the next day bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, barking orders like he hadn’t polished off a bottle of Knob Creek himself.

Now he and his wife, Ivy, were enjoying something she called a babymoon. Whatever the fuck that is. All I knew was, I was walking down Avenida Revolucioń with Max by my side and my Gator sunglasses were doing not a damn thing blocking out the bright rays of the afternoon sun.

Even the brightly-colored buildings were pissing me off.

“You need an attitude adjustment,” Max complained. I gritted my teeth in an effort not to tell him to fuck off.

It wasn’t his fault I was in a bad mood. Hell, I didn’t even know why I was annoyed. We’d all had a great time in Vegas and we’d been stateside for nearly three months. It was the longest I’d been out of the sandbox in recent memory. Maybe that was what my problem was. Three months was a long time to go without a purpose. But that didn’t explain my piss poor mood now. We were back on the hunt. Tex had picked up a trace on Leon Brown. It wasn’t a great lead but it was a start. Brown had been seen in Venezuela with a woman. With any luck it would be Ashaki Maloof. Though I had a feeling, being CIA she’d be in the wind and back undercover in no time. And as much as I hated loose ends and not fully understanding who she was and what role she played, she wasn’t our mission. Omni was. And even if we hadn’t been the ones to take out Prince Al Issa, he was dead. Soon Omni would be scrambling.

I needed to snap out of it and get my shit sorted. It may’ve been broad daylight but there was nothing particularly safe walking the streets of Tijuana. Statistically, I was safer taking a stroll in Kandahar. At least according to OSAC.

“You think Zane put us up in a lime green house just to be a smartass?” I asked Max as we arrived at the Cantina National.

I’d never seen a color so bright on a house in my thirty-two years. It was like a huge neon beacon flashing, alerting all of the homeboys on the block of our presence. We might as well hang a sign outside, too: White boys staying in the lime green house.