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King laughs, waiting for us on the other side, catching the tail end of our conversation. “Not a fucking chance.”

CHAPTER 30

Dianna Danforth barges through the dining room doors as I'm tightening the leather holster around my thigh. Her eyes narrow on the blueprints spread over the table. “Do I want to know why you have blueprints to Ravenwood Heights Academy?”

Cruz laughs, jamming a gun into the back of his pants to his mother’s dismay. “Trust me, it’s better for your sanity if you just pretend that you didn’t even see us tonight.”

Dianna rolls her eyes and meets her son’s stare. “Be careful, Cruz. I’ve already filled my funeral quota this year. I don’t need to attend anymore.” She strides past me and squeezes my hand. “Same goes for you, Elodie. You didn’t come this far to allow their stupidity to catch you out. Play it safe and when in doubt, duck.”

I laugh and give her a warm smile. “That sounds like the best advice I’ve gotten since coming here, but you don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be safe. I’ve got too much to lose.”

Dianna looks between me and Cruz and a warm smile settles over her lips. “You sure do,” she says, walking back the way she came. “Now, do you have any popcorn in this house? I’m not going to be able to rest until I know you’re all home safe and a girlfriend told me about this new show everyone is raving about on Netflix. What was it called again?” she muses, murmuring to herself. “Ahh, yes. Sex/Life. Apparently, it’s a lovely historical romance. I thought I could watch a few episodes of that while the girls slept.”

My brows fly up and Cruz nearly dies of embarrassment. He's well aware of the show I forced the guys to watch with me last week. “Oh yeah,” I tell her, knowing damn well that it’s so much more than just a lovely historical romance, well it’s not historical at all, but if you want to be technical, the characters do talk about the past a lot, so really, there’s no need to correct her. “I’ve seen that. It’s perfect for a night home alone. You’re going to love it, though be sure to really pay attention in episode three.”

Cruz turns his back, hanging his head as he tries to become one with himself, breathing slowly and desperately trying to control his urge to go and wrap his mother in bubble wrap and not allow her to live any kind of life outside her respectable housewife duties.

Dianna walks out of the room, determined to find some popcorn before divulging in Sex/Life and corrupting her sweet, pure mind with the realities of great sex. Though she’s married to Cruz’s father and if he’s anything like his son, then perhaps Dianna already knows a thing or two about great sex.

The boys and I get our shit together, getting everything we’ll need for tonight and going over our plan one more time before slipping out of the dining room and making our way toward the door, going as quietly as we can so as to not wake the girls upstairs.

My fingers curl around the door handle when a soft voice cuts through the silence. “Where are you going?”

We all freeze, catching our breath and slowly turning to find Dominique standing behind us, her long nightgown skirting against the marble tiles as her teddy hangs from her hand.

Carver looks down at her, trying to figure out a nice way to explain that we’re about to go and put a bullet in someone’s head, just as we should have done last night until I decided to take pity on Ember. “Uhh, we … ummm. We’re just going to deal with a bad guy.”

Her gaze travels over my tight leather and her eyes widen as though she’s just figured out a secret. “Like The Avengers?”

“Yeah,” Carver laughs. “Exactly like that, but we can’t go unless I know you’re tucked safely in bed.”

She nods quickly and turns on her heel, racing back up the stairs, going so fast that I worry she’s either going to wind herself or fall face-first into the hard steps, but she makes it to the top and within moments, we hear the loud thud of her bedroom door slamming closed. “I’M IN BED,” she yells at the top of her voice, the sound traveling through the whole damn house and surely waking her sister.

“Shit,” Carver cringes. “We should get out of here before the other one comes looking for me.”

The five of us scurry out of the house and hurry down the front steps until we’re barreling into the Escalade. Carver starts the engine and within moments, we’re racing down the long drive toward the gate. Cruz sits beside me, hardly able to sit still in excitement as King sits on my other side with a smirk stretched over his delicious lips.

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