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Night had fallen by the time they got home, meaning they could open the main gate and drive to the manor house and straight into the garage. Brodie parked and they got out, so she queried his choice of destination.
“Why are we here?” she asked. He’d given up on going to Rigor’s without putting up any kind of fight, so the why intrigued her. “I thought you wanted to—”
“When a member of the team goes AWOL twice in the same month, something has to give.”
When she moved toward the trunk, he took her hand and pulled her away from the car. “Am I going to be punished?” she asked, traipsing along behind him.
“In private later,” he said.
The squeeze of his hand was bruising, and she expected him to take her upstairs to their bedroom. But he didn’t. Taking her out through the garage door, they traversed the slope and kept on going until he pulled her into the trees.
Confused by his strange actions, she sought an explanation. “Where are we going?” she asked, but he didn’t answer, he just got faster as he shoved branches and pushed leaves aside. Zara struggled to keep up, and it was so dark that she could barely see her own feet, increasing her chances of falling over something. Uncertainty and overexertion made her breathing grow to a pant, but he didn’t let her go. “Brodie, you’re scaring me, where are we—”
The trees thinned and they broke into a clearing she recognized. Brodie stopped and pulled her forward to reveal the scene. Tall, burning torches had been driven into the ground around the family headstones, lighting up the whole clearing with a warm, yet mystical, orange glow that faded into the mists that hung on the ground. But they weren’t the only things of note. Tuck was there, too, beside Zave, who had Thad on his other side. The whole gang was here.
Brodie lowered to whisper in her ear. “I still think Saint was a prick.” The Kindred moved aside, and she sobbed when she saw a new headstone next to Art’s. Both hands flew to her mouth and Brodie put his arm around her. “This is why we need you. You think like Art. We just have to nurture that.”
Turning to gaze up at him, she twisted into his arms and stroked her hands up to his face. “I love you.”
“Remember that next time you think about ditching me,” he said, taking her chin between his thumb and curled index finger. “The guys have beers over there, and maybe a bottle or two of dry white wine. Want to get drunk?”
Curving her lips, she didn’t know if she wanted to laugh, cry, or jump him. “What about business?”
“It will all be there in the morning,” he said, dipping to kiss her. “Art and Saint didn’t get any send off. Funerals have never been a Kindred thing.” Because until recently, the deaths they’d dealt with were ones caused by them. A body would be left where it lay or disappeared, but there was no ceremony attached to that, only evidence removal.
Grieving for Grant was a symbolic way to grieve for her past. Her naivety was gone, along with her CI career, and she needed closure. Being out here, surrounded by Brodie’s lost family was a great initiation into her future with the Kindred.
Zara wasn’t sorry Grant was gone, the man he’d become was cold and cruel. But she did grieve the loss of his innocence. After losing his mentor, Frank Mitchell, something in Grant had changed and if she’d been paying closer attention, she might have noticed it. Brodie had a support network to help him deal with loss while Grant had no one. At the end, it was clear that there was no going back for Grant, he was too far into his deluded psychosis to see the consequences of his actions. All he wanted to do was win and by doing this, the Kindred were proving that he hadn’t won.
They’d spent long enough observing the party from afar, and Brodie slid his hand up her spine to twine his fingers in her hair and take the back of her neck. “Come on.”
Guiding her over to the others, she was met by smiles from Thad and a hug from Tuck. Zave nodded at her, which was an improvement over ignoring her. Business had drowned out most of their chances to kick back and enjoy each other’s company because when they were together, they all had to be on. Even her time with Brodie had often been cut short or hampered by missions, Game Time, and/or thugs with a plan.
This was a long overdue chance to bond and relax, and she was interested to find out how the Kindred partied when they weren’t using it as a cover for something else. If they could all get into the spirit of the night, this was going to be a joyful learning experience.
And it was. Zave didn’t drink alcohol, but she did hear him laugh for the first time. Thad was a hoot and everyone shared stories of Art and Grant. Yes, the latter was a twisted maniac who wanted his revenge on them. But he had no one to grieve him. There was no body in the ground.
Sutcliffe’s compound had been wiped clean before Rigor and his crew got in there. The Kindred didn’t know where Grant’s body was, probably in a mass grave with Rigor’s fallen men and Sutcliffe’s dead followers. Much blood had been shed and for no purpose.
More than just beer was consumed after Thad retrieved supplies from the house. Brodie was persuaded to demonstrate his skills by building a spit to roast the meat that Thad had been desperate to try in the great outdoors—even though they were only a hundred meters or so from the house.
Saying goodbye involved stories and jokes, mostly Thad’s, and while Grant and Art were celebrated, Brodie’s parents’ graves weren’t discussed as much. Their loss had become relevant in Brodie’s life again, and he was still working through what that meant for him. Toward the end of the night, she caught Brodie staring at his parents’ headstones when Thad was singing a song, which he seemed to do a lot of when he was drunk.
At that point, after praising Thad’s singing skills, Zara had taken Brodie away from the party. Her goal was to get him to open up, he had other ideas and they ended up making love on the rocks above the crashing waves surrounded by the scent of the sea. By the time they got back to the graves, the torches were out and the others were gone.
Music in the manor betrayed that Thad was still up and partying. But Brodie wasn’t interested in continuing festivities and instead took her to bed where they stayed until the sunshine woke her up.
The natural light betrayed Brodie’s absence from their bed. Stretching into a seated position, she considered how to tackle Kahlil’s offer with Brodie when her gaze snagged on something in the corner. Far left of the bed, on the same wall as the entertainment center, in the corner shadow… Zara smiled. That was Brodie’s chair, or Raven’s chair, from her apartment bedroom. Cuckoo wouldn’t have the pleasure of sitting in the chair that meant so much to her relationship with Brodie.
The piece had probably been there last night when they came to bed, but she hadn’t noticed. Exhilarated, she was even more determined to see her love. Given that they had guests, she assumed he was somewhere in the manor with them. So, she got up and ready for the day before she went on the hunt for the others.
They weren’t in the kitchen or in the dining room, not that she expected them to be sitting down to a lavish breakfast. Breakfast was more often missed in this house than eaten. The guys were probably hung over, too, making it even less likely that they were indulging in food.
When she didn’t find her cohorts in the security room, she sat at the keyboard to activate the motion sensors, so she wouldn’t have to wander aimlessly in her quest to locate them. Technology featured more in her life than it had been before. As the system booted her request, one of the screens flickered to a new picture, and she saw her apartment. An initial pang of longing became curious surprise when she noted the unfamiliar interior.
Shifting along to the left keyboard, she typed in the code that brought the picture from the monitor bank and put it on the smaller monitor in front of the keyboard. Zooming in for a closer look, she hunched over the desk. The furniture in the apartment wasn’t hers, none of it. She exhaled a laugh and sat back. Brodie hadn’t just handed over her personal space and possessions. He’d cleared the place out and had it redressed before Mischa set foot over the threshold.
The motion sensor system bleeped to indicate it was live, so she exited the image of the apartment and rolled her chair sideways to access the system she’d started. But before it could display the results, the door behind her opened, and she spun the chair around to see all four men come in. The door closed behind them and they stood in a row.
