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“To Quin,” Jules adds, as if it’s necessary to rub it in.
“I…” Her brow furrows sweetly, and she glances between me and them. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Didn’t have to,” I tell her. “You’re cute as fuck and glowing. You can’t help being gorgeous.” I turn to my brothers. “Moving on. The tracker-come-death-sentence issue. Any thoughts?”
“A few,” Jules says. “Helps to have the whole story, to work with. Now I can see the angle you were avoiding, maybe I can find a way to neutralize it.”
I shake my head. “We’ve been through this. You can’t disrupt the transmission signal it gives out. You have to slip in unnoticed and take control.”
“I know that’s howyoutend to deal with things, but there are more ways to skin a cat than with your modus operandi.” Jules pulls out his phone and swipes at the screen. “Think outside the box. Or better yet, get a bigger box and keep the other one inside it. There. See? You love control.” He snaps his fingers at Thaddy. “Chance of an off-radar airlift, once we’re back in Seattle?”
“I know a vague online presence, who knows another vague online presence,” Thaddy replies, reaching for his phone, too.
“Send me their details, and I’ll background them,” Jules says, still scrolling and tapping.
“What’s happening here?” I ask, my jaw growing uncomfortably tight.
“Oh.” Thaddy looks up at me, and then tilts his head toward Kira. “Your girl came up with a plan, while you were raging out.”
I inhale sharply and hold it. “Of course she did.” I turn to Kira, who’s now avoiding eye contact at all cost.
“Kira, honey. You mind telling me about the inconceivably dangerous plot you’ve devised?”
She shrugs. “I simply suggested that, if they didn’t know who Jack’s killers were and where they’d be coming from, perhaps we could create a very safe, very controlled environment to draw them near and expose them.” She shrugs again, making her idea appear simpler and easier than it is.
“Meaning we set up an ambush and bait the killers by you and me, breaching the ten-foot barrier?” I ask, just for clarification.
“Mm-hm.” She presses her lips together and keeps her gaze elsewhere. “Or separately, by removing one or both of our detention bracelets.”
“Look. At.Me.”
She turns my way in an instant and raises her eyebrows. “That tone won’t work on me, unless you’re saying hot, possessive, borderline-psychotic shit that I interpret as a declaration of love,” she informs me with an unimpressed expression.
“So it’s you, who gets to decide what my words mean, is it?” I challenge.
“It is, if you want me to keep listening to you,” she counters, fierce as fuck.
I unfurl my fists and tuck away my stiffening dick. “Better watch what you say, before I march over there and kiss that smart fucking mouth, Kira.”
“I’d advise waiting until we’ve set up an appropriate evacuation plan,” Thaddy says with a sigh. “You may want to stop making imagination-babies with all that flirty mind-fucking you two are getting off on and focus on brainstorming potential scenarios, so we can rule out or counteract complicating factors before they’ll have a chance to kill Kira. So far, I’ve got snipers, undercover assassins, poisons…”
“Car accidents,” Jules says. “Especially if we’re in transit. Flights may be a thing to watch too. Wouldn’t put it past Jack to sacrifice innocents to help cover his tracks. Nobody would be suspicious of one death if it’s camouflaged by many.”
“Infectious disease?” Kira offers, watching me closely. “I wouldn’t put it past Jack to start another pandemic, to make you unhappy, either.”
“I don’t like this game,” I say when she continues spouting ways she could be killed, including flesh-eating bacteria and shark-infested waters. “We’re not drawing anything dangerous down upon you and the baby, so forget it. I won’t have it. I’ll keep you safe in a bombproof locked box to keep them away if I need to. You’re sidelined.”
“From what? My own life? Get over yourself, Quin,” she argues. “I’ve been sidelined for years. Put mein.” She throws her shoe at me. “It’s my life, and it’s Curty’s life, and it’s seriously scary, but if I want to kiss your stupid, growly mouth again, we may need to take the risky shot, so pass me the ball. We’re on the same team. I don’t know why only sport analogies are coming to mind, but I’m trying to make you understand that you don’t have to do this alone. I’m open. Make the pass. Let me share the load and fight for the win.”
I shake my head. “No.”
Kira shoots to her feet when I do. She crosses her arms, and stands her ground when I take a step forward, instead of taking one back. “Quintus Montgomery, so help me God, if you keep me out of the loop of this revenge plot you’ve all been crafting, for another second, I will never make another baby with you. I deserve to see that man suffer as much as the rest of you do, and if you don’t promise me that as a fucking wedding gift, I’m not ever going to marry you.”
My eyebrow hitches up of its own accord, and I choose my next words with the intention of destabilizing her, to see how she’ll hold up under pressure, since she’s so eager to be involved. “You’re assuming I’ll be your second husband?”
She falters and grabs the back of her seat, for balance.
I smile, and she lifts her chin, meeting my gaze head on. “Are you implying you’d promise me the world, knock me up twice, and thennotmarry me?” she says, forcing me to take a step back, as she advances on me.
