"Right." He dropped his arms to his sides. "Apparently we're expected to have an…" He grimaced, disgust evident on his face.
"A Christmas party."
The words hung in the air like he said we needed to jump off a cliff into the churning waters of Dusk Bay itself.
Ice enthusiastically broke the silence. "I love Christmas parties."
"Of course you fucking do." Ares narrowed his eyes at him.
"Why wouldn't I?" Ice asked. "Christmas parties are fun.” He snapped his fingers. "Right, you don't like having fun."
"I like—" Ares started to protest. "No, notthatkind of fun. Christmas is a waste of time. "
Ice stared at him. "Who doesn't like Christmas?" After a moment, he started to smile slyly. "The Grinch doesn't like Christmas."
"Yeah, but in case you forgot, there are two Grinches here," Ares said. "Me and Mannix, he hates that bullshit too."
"Kennedy and I will celebrate. Together, just the two of us. Right, Kennedy?" One of Ice's eyebrows twitched the way it did when he was trying to get a rise out of Mannix or Ares. Often, both of them at the same time. He rarely took things too seriously. The exception being his job. That, he was deadly serious about.
Literally.
At the moment, though, he couldn't resist stirring the pot. Sometimes, it was too easy to get them going.
He was right though, Mannix liked him too much to hurt him, no matter how annoyed or angry he was. It wasn't worth it for Mannix to get on Ice's bad side anyway. Ice knew more ways to kill someone than anyone else I'd ever met.
And he enjoyed doing it.
A lot.
"We'll all fucking celebrate," Ares growled. "Not like they're giving us a choice."
He scowled like he might go down into Ice's workroom in the basement and chain himself there until Christmas was over.
"Whose order was it?" I asked.
Reuben Brantley, head of the biggest organised crime syndicate in Australia, occasionally requested things of the guys. Some stranger than others.
This though, was out of left field, even for him. For one thing, Christmas was festive, and festive wasn't a word I'd use to describe Reuben. It wasn't even in my top thousand words. Maybe the bottom thousand.
"Caleb," Ares said with an irritated flick of his finger against some imaginary piece of dust on his jeans. "It's a front for some other shit. Probably."
When it came to Caleb Brantley, that was a reasonable assumption. The second oldest of the Brantley brothers, he was the one who organised logistics for smuggling gems, guns, whatever. You name it, he was smuggling it. It didn't surprise me he'd use Christmas as an excuse to shift something or someone.
Honestly, I'd be more surprised if hewasn'tup to something.
"How many people are we supposed to invite?" I asked. "Please say it's not thousands."
"I'd love to have a party with thousands of people." Ice rocked back and forth on his toes, excitement too much for him to keep still.
Ares rolled his eyes. "You would… You're easily the most unhinged person I've ever met."
Ice grinned. "That's the nicest thing you ever said to me. I love you too, Ares." He leaned over to kiss his cheek, but Ares pushed him away and stepped back.
"Let's organise this stupid fucking party and get it over with."
"Have you told Mannix about it yet?" I leaned back against the door frame and watched Ares' expression change.
"Not yet. This is going to suck. He's going to be pissed." Ares rubbed a hand over the back of his head. "You know how he is about being told to do crap like this."
