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“Okay, so maybe pulling an Alden isn’t always going to work out,” Atlas mutters sullenly. “Sue us then.”
“No. What I’m going to do is make this right. You’re going to let her loose and take her back to her house, and you’re going to apologize. Profusely.”
“But…but why would I do that?” Lennox frowns at me, and my god, he’s legitly confused.
“Because this is the WRONG BLOODY PERSON!” I stalk around my brothers, growling, seething, and breathing like a monster. I want to go all crazy beast at the moment, and I’d like to find sticks to shove up all my brothers’ arses.
“Oh shit,” Lennox states flatly.
“Yeah, that about sums it up,” I growl back, giving him the stink eye.
“What about wiping her memory clean first?” Orion asks wickedly. “She knows too much.”
“Mmmmpphhhhhh! Ffffffff! Ewwwwww!”
I’m not up on my gag lingo, but I’m pretty sure that was a fuck you if I’ve ever heard one. I like that this lady has spirit and pluck. I roll my eyes at my brothers and give the girl what I hope is a non-threatening look. When she shrinks away from me, I’m clued into the fact that, yes, I look like a big scary ogre, and she’s been kidnapped, gagged, and bound to a chair. She’s so not in the mood to take reassurances from any of us.
“We don’t need to wipe her memory. If she was hanging around Ayana’s house and had a key, then she’s probably a good friend. If that’s the case, and since Ayana is upset, she likely wanted to talk to her best friend. Ayana probably called and asked her to come over, and it doesn’t matter that it’s the middle of the night. She came. And you nabbed her. The wrong person.”
Lennox sniffs like he’s been mortally wounded. “Geez, it’s not like we’d ever met her before.”
“If you’d done an ounce of research, you would have known.”
Orion gives me a menacing look, but because I know the guy, it looks way more like he’s overly constipated. Or maybe gassy. Perhaps he’s holding something in or trying not to hold something in. It could actually be either one. “We weren’t the ones undercover, dinklebrain. Sorry that we didn’t know.”
“Trying. To. Help. What part of that did you not get?” Atlas always backs his twin up, and in this case, Lennox as well.
“She’s going to know everything anyway if Ayana tells her. That means we shouldn’t set her free until Granny shows up.”
“I’m here now,” Granny calls from upstairs. Yeah, I swear she has bionic ears or something. She can probably see through walls too. “Please tell me that I’m not going to walk into another basement and find a second kidnapped girl… oh.” Granny appears, and even though it’s the middle of the night—well, more like the early hours of the morning now—she looks freshly pressed in a black pantsuit and jacket, and she’s utterly unperturbed. Her white hair is done up in a tight roll, and her makeup is on point. “Oh, I see. I see that you’ve done it again.”
“Mrrrphhhhhh agggerrrfffff!” The girl’s eyes swivel wildly around the room as she strains at the ropes that are securing her to the chair. She shakes her head furiously until her blonde hair is a mess all over her shoulders, and her blue eyes snap with unfiltered rage.
“Well, it worked out for Alden. Just saying. We thought we could help,” Lennox whines, protesting his innocence before Granny can seriously lay into him.
“If you think kidnapping someone in the middle of the night, tying her up, and taking her to some smelly basement is helping, then you should at least make sure you’ve nabbed the right person!”
I throw my brothers an I told you so look.
“You should come to me first and resist all numbskull, nincompoop impulses. If you don’t understand that, boy, then you might need more help than I figured,” Granny berates.
“Hey!” Lennox fists his hands on his hips and takes a wide stance, but there’s obviously no intimidating Granny since she gives him the staredown of senior citizen death right back. That stare of hers could wilt even the heartiest of giants, and Lennox smartly backs down. “Fine,” he huffs resignedly. “So it was a mistake. What do we do now?”
“You, my dear, are going to untie her and take her for a nice late-night drive-in treat of maybe fries and gravy. Because what doesn’t salt and grease fix? Then you are going to drive her back to her car so she can drive herself back home.” Granny turns to the girl and smiles at her—a soft, peaceful smile—but the girl isn’t buying it. She just strains at the ropes and shakes her head madly from side to side.
I grunt because laughter isn’t appropriate, even if the mad urge to make the mirthful sound is bubbling up from my gullet at the moment. “I think that’s a hard no.”
