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The most vanilla one among us has such a lock on bee lining to her heart. It honestly makes me so happy she has him. And with the way he deescalated her anger, I’m lucky to have him here too. We all are.
They’re still kissing when the van jerks to a stop. It’s the least smooth ride I’ve experienced with Vander behind the wheel.
Cole cracks his knuckles as he turns and climbs between the two front seats to make his way to the computer system he has in the back. He hands tiny boxes out that hold our com systems. “I’ll be just a few minutes. Grayson, if you could stop sucking face with our girlfriend, I’d like you to watch what I’m doing.”
Grayson presses one more kiss to my little bird, then moves seats to gain a better view of the screens he’ll be in charge of navigating in a few minutes. Cole’s fingers fly over the keys hacking into the final systems he couldn’t do remotely.
At the moment, we’re around the corner from the Tulip Broker’s mansion. His house is in an underdeveloped gated community, which helps him conceal what he’s doing and reduce the number of eyes on him. But it also meant it’s harder for us to know the headcount of the staff he keeps on the grounds. We’re going in partially blind. There’s a chance we’ll be overrun the moment we step out of the van.
We prepared as much as we could. Well, at least as much as we could without sending someone undercover. Raven wasn’t about to let Vander or Grayson do that, since Cole and I weren’t options. Not that she’d let us go, either. We ran out of options. Now it’s time to hope for the best.
I’m ready to put the plan into action. Get all this bullshit over with. Move into the next phase of our lives.
“All set,” Cole calls out. His hands instantly check his collection of weapons. It’s a wonder that we hadn’t been better friends before this started. I respect his attention to variety.
Raven kneels in front of Grayson. “Okay, let’s go over the plan again.” I’m barely able to hold back my laugh. She’s doing the same thing she ridiculed me for doing. “When we jump from the van, what are you doing next?”
The man is a saint. He truly is. He goes through his part of the plan again for her—without showing any irritation like she did. In fact, you can see the love shining in his eyes. When they get to the end of his role, he grasps her face on either side and brings her to him, brushing a soft kiss to her lips.
“I’ve got this, Remi. I promise I’ll stay safe.” He pats his leg where I strapped a gun to him. “I even have a weapon, and I won’t be afraid to use it.”
She narrows her gaze on him. “You better not. If you get hurt, I’ll make you pay.”
Grayson simply smiles at her, Vander makes an amused sound, Cole gasps and holds a hand to his chest in his dramatic act, and I bark out a laugh. Raven isn’t the coddling type, but that’s exactly what she does when it comes to him. He’s the soft spot in her world of darkness.
Her fake hardass act with him diffuses some of our nerves about what we’re about to do. The thought once more crosses my mind that it’s dumb to feel this way when we never have before. It just shows how much we love her. Life wouldn’t go on without her.
“We need to stop stalling,” Vander finally says. “The longer we sit here, the higher chance we become discovered.”
“He’s right,” I begrudgingly admit. My damn emotions are all over the place.
“You need to get your head in the game, man.” Vander’s hand lands on my shoulder, even though I already knew the statement was directed at me. I rub a hand over my face and push my worries into an imaginary box.
Our girl is a badass serial killer. She won freaking competitions on her marksmanship—something she proved to me the first time we interacted. And she has us protecting her back. Everything will be fine.
“Let’s do this,” I say, clapping my hands together. “Grayson, get in the driver’s seat. Everyone else, get ready to jump out when we’re inside the gates.”
Cole hacked into the gate and programmed a garage door opener to operate it. We won’t have a problem getting in or out.
Grayson settles into the front seat, his movements lacking any signs of freaking out. This is the first time he’s played a major role in a mission of ours. It’s really one of the first real assignments we’ve done—even if we came up with it ourselves. Hanging the man with Raven doesn’t seem to count in my mind.
This might be the first, but there will be many more to come.
The van lurches into movement as Grayson drives it toward the only entrance to the property. My heart speeds up as we get to the gate and it opens steadily. Everything is going smoothly so far, but will it stay this way?
Once his path is clear, Grayson steps on the gas, shooting us down the drive until he’s slamming on the brakes in front of the mansion. Cole slides the door open and jumps out, Vander following him with his gun held up.
The distinct sound of a bullet blowing through a silencer goes off, the first victim going down as a guard falls to the ground. Raven and I jump from the van and I close the door with a snap. Grayson doesn’t hesitate; he zooms back down the driveway and leaves the property.
I don’t like the idea of splitting up, but Vander is the only one willing to break off. I’m not sure there’s a single one among us who doesn’t want to watch TB die. The idea of torturing the man until his heart can’t tolerate another second is more than tempting, but it’s simply not worth the risk of him ever escaping.
“Stay sharp,” I needlessly order Vander as he turns left to do a perimeter sweep.
Cole takes a tablet out of his cargo pants—something Raven scrunched her nose at—and uses it to double check there aren’t any other alarms we have to concern ourselves with before opening the door. He told us earlier that he was fairly certain there wasn’t anything else we needed to worry about, but the man wants to be extra certain. Something I appreciate.
“All clear,” the tech genius says. At the same time, he replaces the tablet with a knife as his other hand reaches for a gun. A manic smile twists his lips and death shines from his eyes. I’m not sure how long he’ll hold on to his sanity right now. Hopefully, having my little bird with him will help anchor him.
If not, we’ll have a new problem on our hands.
