Page 74 of Ignited

Boomer once more resisted punching him in the hood. “Shut up, Thanatos.” He turned to Karisma. “What do you say, Tiger Queen? As the person who will be in the most danger.” He glared at Thanatos, then turned his gaze back to her. “I think it might work. And even though I’d rather be the one going in with you, I know Bro will have your back, if you agree to do it.”

He exchanged a look with his brother. Karisma had told him, in the cave, what Bro had been trying to do. He’d done it in his own weird who-cares-about-feelings-it’s-all-about-the-outcome way, but his heart was in the right place.

He wanted his Bro to know Boomer still trusted him.

Bro gave him a fractional nod. He got it.

Karisma said, “I’m used to going in with no backup at all.” She took a deep breath. “I think it’s the only way. I’m in.”

Mikey said, “We can still set up a strike team, try to distract the guards and keep the staff out of it.”

Boomer held up his hand. “I volunteer. There can be explosions. Those are distracting.” He squeezed Karisma’s hand. “So I’ll still have your back. Just from a little farther away.”

Thanatos looked around the room, and said in his dry, gravelly voice, “Now is it settled?”

Chapter 31

So they had a plan—but it was starting to look like they weren’t going to get the mission done before Christmas, which was only a few days away.

Even though she was the one who’d said it—however jokingly—Karisma found herself glad that it hadn’t worked out that way. It gave her the time to give Boomer one perfect Christmas—something he’d never had, and that she couldn’t really remember.

Just in case things went wrong. Even though they wouldn’t. She kept telling herself that.

So she badgered Boomer for a tree, and completely overdid the decorations, and did way too much shopping—although she did it online because none of them wanted to be off the base for any length of time, in case word came back to Bro over the Dark Web and they had to gear up and leave right away.

Once she’d Christmassed the cabin to its breaking point—or maybe Bro’s breaking point—she flung herself into Breanna’s Christmas preparations for the whole Ridge.

They browbeat some of the guys into decorating one of the big pines in the middle of the compound, and gathered the wolves for a ceremonial tree lighting. They baked a truly terrifying amount of cookies.

They prepped food for the pack’s Christmas Eve dinner—Boomer diving into that with unholy glee, now that he’d discovered the chemistry of cooking. And they helped wrap gifts for the pack’s Christmas Day party, to make sure that every wolf had something.

Some of these guys hadn’t had a Christmas present in years. Karisma understood what that was like. And that even though a lot of them grumbled about being put to work, they were enjoying the fact that there were celebrations they could be a part of.

And in between mission prep, Boomer’s explosives team was working on the fireworks display for New Year’s Eve. It was a big secret that he wouldn’t even let Karisma in on. “It’s a surprise,” he kept telling her, every time she asked. “Do you not get how surprises work?” But she always got a kiss after he said that, which was one of the reasons she kept asking.

Even Bro seemed fairly stable, at least for now. Boomer had told her he thought it steadied him, to have a mission to plan and people counting on him. It gave him purpose.

So they were on track for the glorious Christmas she’d planned.

Until they weren’t.

They were in the middle of Christmas Eve dinner in the rec hall when the alert came through. Thomas Riker, Maximilian’s commander, had gotten Bro’s message and wanted to talk.

He took the video call in the Outlaw Ridge command center, which had encrypted communications. Bro sat alone in a booth with a blank wall behind him, giving Riker no clue as to where he might be.

The rest of them sat in a small conference room, watching Bro through a plexiglass window, a one-way speaker turned on. They could hear what happened in the booth, but Bro and Riker couldn’t hear anything they said.

Bro had an earbud in, though, so they could talk to him through a microphone in the conference room without Riker knowing.

After the standard unpleasantries had been exchanged, they got down to business. Bro told Riker he had Karisma and the pieces of the Orb. And offered to cut a deal.

It was a little scary how sincere he sounded.

It was also a shock to Karisma to hear the dollar amounts they were talking about. “I didn’t know I was worth that much,” she whispered to Boomer.

Thanatos said, “Most of that is for the Orb.”

Karisma rolled her eyes. “Thanks so much.”