“Nyet. Give me his number. It would be best if I present him with the opportunity directly. We’ll invite him over so I can decide if I have a good feeling about the arrangement, but we must do all this immediately.”
My heart did a quickstep at the idea of Switch living in our home. This would be an opportunity for him to make good money and earn respect from the packs, but more importantly, I selfishly wanted a friend around. Someone not linked with Keystone secrets.
Christian coolly sipped his wine and then gave me a long look. Though no one else caught my excitement, Christian could no doubt hear my racing heart and quickened breath. I wondered if the tables were turned, how I would feel about him inviting a beautiful woman who was attracted to him to live with us. I decided I wouldn’t care. If they had no relationship history, I’d trust him. But I wouldn’t trust her, so I understood Christian’s reservations.
“I’ll give you his number after dinner,” I said to Viktor. “If he accepts, Christian’s idea about a trial period is a good one. That’ll give us a smaller window to scrub his memories if we decide it’s not working out.”
“He’ll have to prove himself in more ways than one,” Viktor tacked on as a condition. “Shepherd, do you have any issues?”
“Nope. But I want to talk with him before I decide.”
“Perhaps I should have a private talk with him as well,” Christian muttered before finishing his wine.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
Chapter 4
Immediately after dinner, we skipped the usual wine and conversation and went to our rooms to pack. Well, everyone except for Wyatt and Gem, who stayed behind to have extra helpings of apple torte. I grabbed a camouflage backpack and considered Viktor’s instructions to pack light. Without knowing where we were going, I packed a grey hoodie, a T-shirt, underwear, sweatpants, socks, gloves, and daggers. Just in case we had to look presentable, I threw in my toothbrush, hairbrush, and a little makeup. Uncertain if we were heading north, I draped my leather jacket over the bag.
I took inventory and glanced around my dimly lit bedroom. “What else?”
Clothes I could live without. I certainly wasn’t a stranger to wearing the same thing for weeks at a time. As long as I had weapons, that was all that mattered.
“Pack light,” I muttered. “What’s light?”
Did that imply a short trip, or did it mean we were going to be carrying our bags for long distances? With Viktor, you never knew.
I ventured toward Wyatt’s World on the second floor. His desk lamp was on but the TV off. “I’m out of change. Can you open your machine and give me some of those packaged peanuts?”
He wiped up torte crumbs from his plate with his finger and licked it. “What do I get in return?”
“To live another day?”
“I’ll take the jerky,” Shepherd said from behind me. “Hurry it up, Spooky. I’ve got shit to do.”
I noticed the holster on his belt. “Great minds think alike.”
“Always pack for survival, not comfort.”
Shepherd’s dark hair was so short that he didn’t have to do anything with it after a shower. It looked glossy, and his face was freshly shaved.
Wyatt stood up and straightened his threadbare orange shirt, which had somehow survived since the 1970s. “Seeing how this is a special assignment, I’ll make an exception.” He jingled the keys as he opened the front panel. “Switch working as a nanny at Keystone, huh? That’s a twist I didn’t see coming.”
I caught the peanuts he threw my way. “I like easy solutions. Hunter needs a good teacher, and Switch needs a better-paying job.”
Wyatt tossed a couple of bags of beef jerky to Shepherd, one of them sailing off in a different direction.
Shepherd ambled over and dipped down to pick it up. “You don’t trust anyone, so that’s saying something.”
I glanced down at my peanuts. “You got that right.”
Wyatt shut the front panel to his vending machine and locked it. “I’m offended. Who’s the one who gives you pertinent information at the drop of a hat when you’resupposedly”—he used his fingers to make air quotes—“on a routine errand?”
I gave him a frosty glare for bringing up Christian’s call earlier regarding the red Corvette.
“Your lethal stare doesn’t frighten me, buttercup.” He sat in his chair and spun around. “If you don’t mind, I’m doing super top secret James Bond shit around here. Privacy please.”
“Thanks for the snacks.”
