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"What? How else do you expect us to get around the city?" he hedged. His sarcastic comeback was unappreciated. I glared at him, waiting for his response, and he didn’t disappoint. “We did a bit of driver training. Figured it would be best for her to be well equipped to handle that kind of situation if it were to come up."
“And how did that go?” I asked, skepticism clear in my tone. There was something there that he hadn't yet said, and a hint of suspicion grew in my stomach as I waited for him to spit it out.
"She did good,” he started. “It took a bit before she would commit to doing what I needed her to do.” He paused and shrugged. “But she's got some skills that we could help her refine."
"What did you have to do to get her to do what you wanted?" Jensen questioned, finally climbing out of the car. His question was thick with exhaustion, a brow raising as he looked to Archer over the roof of the SUV. "Mare's not exactly the most cooperative trainee."
"Nope, but she definitely becomes pliable when you turn her on."
I pictured Mare handling Archer's sports car with confidence and ease. I just bet she’d be more pliable when Archer’s hands were between her legs—there was no doubt in my mind that was exactly how he’d managed to convince her to take one of his driving lessons. Despite acting like a child half the time, there was a reason he’d lasted as long as he had in our line of work. He was good at reading people and determining what would persuade them.
"You would." Jensen laughed softly.
“Also asked her a bit of stuff to see if I could dig into what exactly she knows about her father and everything he’s capable of,” Archer explained, his statement holding my focus immediately.
“And?” I bit out when he didn’t continue.Bastard.
“She stayed pretty vague, but it’s clear she knows what he’s done. At least in the sense of how deep his crazy extends and some of his past.”
“That would explain why she was always so jumpy after the trial and why she’s pushed so hard against us since we’ve come back,” Jensen concluded. “Mare wouldn’t want to put us at risk.”
“Brat,” I muttered with a headshake. Of course she would push us away; it didn’t matter that we could take care of ourselves or that she was the one we’d promised to keep safe. All she wanted was to keep any and all possible targets on herself. Honorable? Yes. Stupid? Hell fucking yes.
“We can work on trying to ease into that. She’s getting more comfortable with us being around, so when she’s a bit more comfortable with us we can explain who we are and what we do. That would solidify her feeling secure with us,” Archer explained.
“Not before she’s ready,” I commanded. “I don’t want to scare her away from us either.”
“You really think she’d be afraid of us?” Archer scoffed.
“Do you want to take that chance?”
Neither of them answered my question, their silence and thinned lips telling me all I needed to know, but before I could say much else, my phone beeped. Digging it out of my pocket, I unlocked the burner cell and checked the message that had come in.
Wolf: Confirmed
My fingers curled into a tight fist, jaw aching with how hard I ground my teeth together, my eyes scanning the second message that came in.
“We have confirmation,” I said quietly. The others picked up on the words as well as my suddenly dark mood.
"What's up?" Jensen asked, the silence tense around us.
"Looks like Papa Perelli has found his daughter," I relayed, passing over the phone for them to see. Burning eyes, harsh scowls, and ticking jaws met me as I watched them look at the message. “Wolf’s looking more into how and if there is any mobilization from his collection of assholes that work for him. Said he’ll keep us updated.”
Archer spoke first. "We need to tell her."
"The hell we do," Jensen snapped. "Do you really want to watch her slowly go crazy with paranoia? No. We just determined—even without her father breathing down her neck—she wanted to push us away for our safety. How do you think this would go over? We keep quiet and take care of it ourselves. I say we kill the bastard and be done with it. You know we’ve got the contacts.”
Archer opened his mouth to argue, both of them glaring at each other.
"Enough," I ground out before they could get into it any further. "I'm not putting Mare in a position to worry. Not yet. Not until we have more information to give her."
"She deserves to know," Archer countered, his seething eyes turning to me. "We should move her so she's no longer out in the open like this. Are you really willing to let her stay blissfully ignorant about the type of danger she’s in? Or are you using her as fucking bait?"
I snarled at his words. Mare would never be bait; she wasn't a tool to be used in this fight against her father, and I wouldn't put her in unnecessary stressful situations knowing what I knew about the woman.
I reached out, gripping Archer by the fabric of his shirt and shoved him against the SUV. I snarled at him. “No,” I hissed. “I wouldn’t fucking use her as bait, and you won’t even think of it, are we clear? You know as well as I do that Mare would take all of her fear and worry and direct it at us. She wouldn’t give a damn about herself. She would close down and push us away if it meant protecting us.”
Archer held up his hands in a motion of surrender, and I found that Jensen was suddenly at our sides, pushing us apart and easing between—ever the diplomat. “Alright, Boss,” Jensen said. “That’s not what he meant and you know it.”
I took a deep breath and allowed myself to be moved back. Even as I did, though, I leveled Archer with a cold look. “Don’teversuggest that I might put our girl in danger again, Archer. We stay close, and we catch the bastard when he fucking gets here. She has enough to worry about as it is, and I'm not going to put her in a position to push our help away. Then she’d be an even easier target for her father.”
My tone offered no room for argument. He nodded.
“Let’s get in the SUV,” Jensen suggested.
I jerked my chin down in agreement, and the three of us backed up to settle into the car. The tension throughout the vehicle was palpable as I turned the ignition but left the SUV idling as I glanced back at the old Victorian house. The neighbors, at least, had seemed to chill out. Their windows were dark, and there was no screaming to be heard.
"She needs training," Archer finally said, breaking the silence. "Regardless of what we decide to do. Until her father and whoever backs him is out of the picture, she'll always be a target."
"Agreed," I murmured, shifting in my seat, eyes still on Mare’s apartment. As I spoke, the lights turned off, telling me she was curling under the blanket for a night of rest. "We start tomorrow."
