“What is happening? Why are there so many of you? I thought it was just supposed to be Noah, Aiden, and the two of us talking with Levi and Shiloh,” Atticus said.
“I’mnothere,” August retorted, then tipped his imaginary hat. “I have to stop at Château de Lumière’s and hope they’ll sell me an entire salted caramel cheesecake so my husband will have sex with me again sometime before our children graduate college.” He was already in the corridor when he hollered, “Be more careful with your texts…rookie.”
Noah’s mouth fell open, his hand clutching imaginary pearls before yelling back, “Don’t you care about the plan at all?”
“Just call me when it’s time to torture somebody.”
August’s words echoed through the space ominously, and they all stood silent until the slamming of the door seemed to bring them back to the task at hand.
“Well, what’s the plan?” Levi said, another yawn breaking free.
Noah cleared his throat. “So, here’s the deal. The plan is simple. You feed your brother the coordinates of the murder cabin, he goes to investigate, we intercept and torture him until he tells us who is after Dad and why, and then you guys can decide if you want to kill him or if you want us to do it.”
“That’s it?” Nico said. “I feel like this could have been sent in a text.”
“It could have, if someone’s crew had end-to-end encryption on their phones, but since you don’t, we have to do this the old-fashioned way,” Noah said, tone pissy.
“Oh, I’m sorry we don’t all have Mulvaney Monopoly money to pay for our spy equipment,” Levi shot back.
“I would be happy to—” Thomas started.
“Absolutely not,” Jericho said, raising a hand. “You cannot support the entire world, Thomas.”
“I don’t know, I’ve seen his net worth, and it’s possible he could,” Nico said. When Jericho leveled a glare at him, he shriveled, muttering, “Fine, we’ll just use our loser phones and meet in slaughterhouses at midnight ‘cause that’s not sus at all.”
“Is that seriously the whole plan?” Levi asked, looking at Thomas.
“Your brother cannot possibly be the mastermind behind some huge conspiracy to take us down,” Aiden said. “While he definitely sees himself as Al Capone, he’s honestly just a sociopath with an economics degree. There’s a much bigger bad at play here and we have to figure out who that person is before we kill your brother so we can handle them as well. Does that make sense?”
“Start with the district attorney,” Mal said. “He’s the one who keeps dragging his feet on my case and he’s the one who handpicked the dirtiest prosecutor. Whatever evidence Micah manufactured was enough to get a grand jury to indict me. Enzothinks the DA wants to use the Mulvaneys to make a name for himself.”
“Like using our connections or outing us to the world as psycho killers?” Asa asked.
Mal shrugged. “Isn’t that the information you’re supposed to torture out of him?”
“You two seem surprisingly calm about us torturing your brother,” Adam said, looking between Shiloh and Mal.
“I’ve watched my brother use Shiloh as batting practice more times than I can count,” Mal said flatly. “Do you know how many broken bones this kid has had?”
Shiloh shrank back against Levi’s chest when they all turned to look at him. “It wasn’t that bad.”
Malachi marched to Shiloh and yanked his shirt up. Noah and Thomas sucked in a breath at the mottled bruises on his torso. Shiloh yanked his shirt down, looking at Mal, betrayal etched on his face.
“What do you mean, batting practice?” Noah asked. “A bat didn’t make those marks.”
“No, the baseballs did. The ones he fired at my brother while he was practicing his swing,” Mal said, his voice icy.
“I can’t wait to kill this guy,” Noah muttered.
“I’ll bring my bat,” Avi said, eyes lighting up.
“I’d like to do the killing myself, if it’s not too much trouble,” Mal said. “You know, him being family and all.”
“Are you certain you could do it?” Aiden asked. “Killing family is a lot harder than you might think.”
“I was planning to kill him when he made me his scapegoat and had me thrown in prison,” Mal fired back.
“What?” Shiloh gasped.
