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IMANI
“Give me the keys to your car,” João said, hurrying into Landon’s basement with Ana on his hip. He set her down, handed her a brown paper bag from Redwood Grocery, and then reached out his hand for the keys to all our cars. “Everyone. Now.”
I pulled my keys out of my purse and handed them to him. “Why?”
After Kai handed him keys to his bike, João hurried back up the stairs. “Because I had a little run-in with people from Akio’s family while I was at the grocery store with Ana. They have info on us, and I think they bugged our cars or some shit.”
When João disappeared out the door, Ana walked over to me and handed me the bag. “Can you help me start making brigadeiros? João said he’d make them with me and that you would help.”
“Sure!” I said, taking her hand and heading up to the kitchen with Landon and Kai behind me.
Kai disappeared out the door where João had gone as Landon started the stove.
I pulled out the ingredients. “Blue sprinkles?!”
Ana grinned. “Yeah, it was Mama’s favorite color!”
“She would’ve loved them,” I said, glancing over at Landon, who watched us.
Once I pulled out a cooking pan to make the brigadeiros, I dumped the ingredients inside and gave Ana a large wooden spoon, so she could mix. She wrapped her entire palm around the spoon and grinned widely as she stirred.
A few moments later, João walked back into the room with three crushed trackers and microphones in his hand. He threw them onto the ground and stomped on them once more for good measure, then threw them into the trash. “I fucking hate them.”
“João!” Ana said. “Are you going to make them with us?”
By the looks of it, João was too pissed to make some brigadeiros with his sister. But to my surprise, he took a deep breath, pulled off his coat, and walked to the stovetop next to Ana. “Sure, Ana.”
My eyes widened slightly, but I found myself smiling like a dumbass at him. He might’ve been annoying as hell to be around, but we all kinda, sorta fit together very well. We worked in some fucked up way.
I didn’t know what we all really were—that was something that we’d have to talk about once this was all over—but I loved where our relationship was going and what we had become. If only Kai would open up to me more.
Kai walked into the house and shut the door behind him, shaking off the snow from his black hoodie and sitting at the kitchen table. This place was actually really nice to hang out in and live in when there weren’t beer bottles scattered around the room.
After he pulled out his laptop, he opened the cameras around Redwood and started researching the woman that João must’ve met at the grocery store. He grimaced and shook his head. “Her name is Vikky Ito, Akio’s second cousin.”
“Vikky,” João huffed over the stove, “fucking Ito. I’m going to kill her.”
Ana grabbed João’s face and directed him back to the brigadeiros. “If you stop stirring, they’re going to come out bad. Pay attention.”
Someone knocked on the back door twice.
João protectively laid a hand on Ana’s shoulder and looked over at it. “Who the fuck is that? We didn’t invite anyone over, did we?” With his free hand, he reached into his waistband for his gun. “It’d better not be those asses.”
“It’s just Nicole,” Kai said, walking toward the door to answer it. “I asked her to come over to talk about the video and what she wants us to do about it. Akio mentioned that his family knew more than what they were letting on, and I want us to be a step ahead of them.”
Once João went back to making brigadeiros, Kai opened the door.
Nicole walked into the room, brushing off some snow from her faux fur coat, and gave us a small smile. “Sorry if I startled you guys. I wanted to come over a bit earlier.”
“It’s okay,” I said to her.
While I might’ve still hated her for what she had done to Allie and Jace, after seeing that video today at lunch of her basically getting raped by her own father, I could only feel sympathy for her. She had been through so freaking much.
She sat at the kitchen table and sniffed the air. “Something smells good.”
“We’re making brigadeiros!” Ana chimed. “Do you want one when they’re done?”
“Sure,” Nicole said, then turned back to Kai. “So, what’d you want to talk about?”
