Page 54 of Maximus

“I’ve heard a lot about Liam and Elijah.”

“They’re good kids,” I told him.

“I’ve heard that. Get this shit done. Get your shit sorted. Then get their asses up to my place and we’ll share a beer. You can stroke my ego, tell me how smart I am—”

“I’m not stroking anything of yours, friend.”

“Right.” Tex laughed. “Stay sharp.”

Tex disconnected before I could explain to him that once this shit was over, I wasn’t taking Eva or her kids anywhere. They’d be safely tucked away someplace new, starting over, and I’d never see them again.

Damn.

My hand went to my chest to rub the phantom ache that thought caused.

Then I dialed Declan.

“Yo,” he answered.

“You busy?”

“Nope.”

Hopefully that meant he wasn’t at the home of a woman he had no business visiting. No, fuck that, hopefully that meant he’d stopped seeing the woman altogether before everyone else found out where he’d been going and all hell broke loose.

Declan was the very definition of a ticking timebomb. Between his past—most of which I didn’t know because the man was a vault of secrets, but what I did know about his childhood made mine seem normal—his time in the military, then going on a long cover on a covert mission for the CIA and whatever the fuck happened there, he was the perfect recipe for disaster. Hence, I wasn’t all that surprised he was skirting the line of death around Thad and our boss, Zane Lewis. Because if those two men found out, Declan’s balls would be in a vise.

Zane, because what Dec was doing was beyond stupid and Thad would lose his mind because his wife Emerson would lose hers.

“Have you heard from Tex?”

“Yeah, he called about an hour ago and filled us in. Everything good with you?”

That was a hell fucking no. My head was so far up my own ass where Eva was concerned, I was afraid I’d never breathe fresh air again.

“Yep. We’re at the hotel. Everything set for us to arrive tomorrow?”

“Really wish you—”

“We talked about this already. No way was I gonna make those kids sit in the car for ten-plus hours, which really means fourteen. It’s bad enough we did seven today. I heard you the first time you bitched about me not driving straight through. Get over it, Dec. I got them covered.”

“Right, but who’s got you covered? Yesterday you were almost taken out.”

“That was yesterday. Today no one tried to kill me, it’s all good. We’ll leave first thing. Which by the way, have a rental at the hotel by nine. No way in hell am I putting them in an SUV that’s been sitting in a hotel parking lot unwatched.”

“Copy that.”

“And make sure it’s an SUV.”

“Goddamn, King Max. Anything else?”

I couldn’t stop from smiling at Declan’s annoyance.

“No, that will be all, my faithful servant.”

“Fuck off.”

Dec disconnected and I shook my head—two people in the last five minutes had hung up on me.