Page 33 of Overkill

Even now, it was all about jabbing me with his backhanded comments.

“I’ll head home,” Melody whispered, her watery eyes glistening in the early setting sun. “I want to get there before they’re home from school.”

“Sure, sweetheart.” I looked up at the faces on the porch and at my truck. Mack squatted by my tires while Griff was at the bed, lightly touching the edges of the windshield frame. “Can I borrow a car?”

“Yup,” Mack said, waving at the front door. “You don’t gotta ask. You know where the keys are.”

“Honey, you look a little shaken.” Mamma Mack’s chestnut hair grazed her shoulders as she shook her head, coming down the steps.

Melody gave me a terrified look, eyes pleading for me to tell her what to do.

“Man, this truck is done for.” Taz leaped from the top of the porch, landing on bent knees before joining Top and Griff to inspect the damage.

She wasn’t there for my health, though. She just loved to see the wreckage. If she didn’t have a thing against water, she’d be one of those people spending a fortune to dive to the Titanic.

“Oh man, I can’t wait to see what a disaster your suspension’s become.” Taz was almost singing with joy. “It’s gonna take a month of Sundays to get this thing road-worthy again.”

“Fact!” Goose chirped.

“I gotta get her home to the kids,” I called out on Melody’s behalf, taking the porch steps two at a time to grab the keys off the hooks just past the front door.

“Alright. I’m going to wrap you up with something to eat.” Mamma Mack wiped her hands on her apron and disappeared inside.

I looked over my shoulder at Melody in the middle of the drive near the wrecked truck, arms around herself and absolutely engulfed in my leather jacket. She looked small and terrified. She had every right to be. Not only because of what had just happened, but because this team—Lucky 13—and my crackpot friends were a lot to handle on the best of days. Dramatic, busy-bodied, nosy, entitled pricks. Every single one of us. The product of living on top of each other through so many deployments was that nothing was off limits. Not now, not ever.

I had to get her home, or at least to somewhere quiet, before she broke down or had a second laughing fit. She didn’t need this crew’s teasing while she cracked.

“Were they after you or her?” Griff, about as subtle as a battering ram to the backside, yelled over his shoulder.

I froze, reaching for the key on the hook, then massaged the line between my brows as a headache threatened my frontal lobe.

“We can talk about it later.” I stomped down the porch steps towards Melody. “Come on, sweetheart.”

“No, we can talk about it now,” Griff shot back. “Don’t be a dumbass, VD. If they’re after you, then you need to keep far away from that chick—”

“Her name is Melody. She’s not some chick.”

“Sure, VD, sure. Whatever. But if whoever did this is after you, then you need to stay far away from her.”

Not a fucking chance.

“If they’re after her, then we need to establish security now, because they’re going to come in again. You fucking know this shit, you asshole. So quit thinking with your dick for once and—”

“They’re after me.” Griff and I both whirled to look at Melody.

“You sure about that?” Taz asked. She was gentler about it, but I didn’t miss the way my sweet girl’s shoulders lifted, her head lowering, as if she wasn’t sure. “I’m only asking because…I dunno, none of us would be surprised if someone wanted to kill VD.”

Taz shouldn’t have questioned her. She knew Melody. She’d parked her trailer on Melody’s land until she moved into the cabin.

Melody looked at me as if asking me for confirmation.

“She’s sure.” Wrapping an arm around her, I held her to me so her cheek naturally lay on my chest. I put my chin on her head, taking in the feel of her soft, wavy hair on the exposed part of my neck. “And I’m not kidding. I’m going to get her home, and we will talk about this later.”

Fucking hell. For people who once held top secret clearances, they couldn’t keep their mouths shut about a damn thing.

“We should talk about it now if—”

Griff is an absolute stub toe of a human.