I shift around, tugging Mum off me like a limpet from a rock. When I have Mum looking directly up at me, I grasp her shoulders and say, “Go, Mum. I’ll come find you later.”
What I’m really hoping is that she’ll call Damon. He can alert FISA and get some backup down here.
Mum hesitates, staring at me with wide, wet eyes. After a moment, those eyes turn steely in a way I haven’t seen in years. But instead of saying anything to me, she looks around me to pin Dan with a fierce glare.
“Hurt my son, and I’ll cut off your cock and feed it to you,” she threatens him. She threatens the superhuman assassin. What the hell?
I shove her towards the door. “Piss off, Mum, now before the nice assassin decides to get less nice.”
Mum doesn’t need to be told three times, thankfully, and she scampers away like a mouse escaping a sinking ship.
Once she’s out the front door, I feel marginally more relaxed. Sort of.
Yeah, not really; this is all still fucked.
“I’m never nice,” Dan refutes out of nowhere, sounding almost offended, like it’s an accusation I’ve lobbied at him.
I shrug one shoulder, making a point to look unconvinced. “Really? Because Jack’s been telling me how you’re the good twin.” It’s not technically untrue. Jack seems to have a deep respect for his brother, bordering on hero worship, putting him on a pedestal. Like so many brothers do, especially the younger ones, and that’s the dynamic it seems they’ve had despite the fact there can only have been minutes between them at birth.
Dan snorts and speaks to his brother without looking away from me. “Does that make you the evil twin, Jack?”
Jack hums irritably. “Guess someone has to be.”
“Why?” I ask, feeling the need to keep the levity going in the hopes it diffuses the entire situation enough we can get the gun away from Dan before anyone gets hurt. “You looking to do someParent Trapshenanigans and swap places?”
Dan responds by repeating his earlier request, beckoning me over to him, dimming my hopes of an easy transition from DEFCON ten to all clear. I do as he says, unwilling to push too far, knowing I’ve probably reached the limits of what Dan will tolerate.
“You’re funny,” Dan proclaims when I’m standing on the other side of him, out of the way of the kitchen island, barely a few feet between us. He says it like it’s an interesting fact in a wiki article about me. He darts a quick look at Jack. “Your boyfriend’s funny, little brother.”
Jack’s expression darkens as if Dan just made a threat against me. “Yeah, he’s fucking hilarious.” He doesn’t quite shoot me a glare, but I can tell he wants to just by the tic at the corner of his jaw.
“Sexy too,” Dan comments, eyes flickering up and down my near nakedness with bold appreciation although I think it’s more to provoke Jack than anything. He looks me in the eyes again, a swell of spite in them. “So, Leo Snow, can I ask you something?”
I raise my eyebrows curiously. “Is this going to be a shovel talk?”
“Not quite.”
I gesture for him to continue.
Dan gives me a good long stare of appraisal. “Do you love my brother?”
I’m only just able to stop myself from choking in surprise. “Ah, so itisa shovel talk.”
Dan’s mouth quirks upwards on one side. “Answer the question.”
“Or what, you’llshootme? Now who’s the coward? Is it because I don’t have a weapon? Go on, give me a gun, or an appropriately lethal spork, and make this shit honourable.”
“You’ve got one hell of a mouth, you know that?” He sounds outrageously charmed by it.
“Yep. Grew it myself and everything,” I answer jauntily. “Impressed?”
Dan makes a theatrical growling noise. “Do. You. Love. Jack?”
I scowl at him. “None of your business, dickhead.”
“Leo!” Jack all but shrieks, shooting me an incredulous, wide-eyed look.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I huff irately. “Yeah, alright? Maybe. Probably. It’s a bit early in our relationship, and these really aren’t the circumstances during which I would have wanted to say it for the first time. But okay. Gun to my head, ha, I do love him.” I glance over at Jack, repeating the words, the oh-so-important words, more sincerely to let him know this part, at least, isn’t a joke to me. “I love him.”
