“Here,” he says, handing it back to them.
They look confused at the screen, for a second.
Over their shoulder, I see the name,LagRabbit.
“They never call me,” Wren mutters.
And in spite of everything, the only emotion I have about their words is jealousy.
Who the fuck is LagRabbit, and why are they calling my Wren?
I force myself to look at my president. “The only thing I’ve done wrong is fall for Wren when I wasn’t supposed to. Everything else was in line with what we promised we’d do. You want to hit me with a punishment, get on with it, but if it involves handing Wren’s safety off to someone else, you can go fuck yourself.”
Grudge puts his hands on his hips. “It started off strong as apologies go, and yet, somehow you ended it by telling me to go fuck myself.”
“Live and let love,” Jackal says. “It’s not any of our business who Catfish is hooking up with. And from what I can tell, Wren is a grown-ass human being who knows their own mind. Figure if they didn’t want to be with Catfish, we wouldn’t be standing here in the arctic tundra quibbling about it.”
I try to pay attention to what Jackal is saying, but I’m partly listening to Wren’s conversation. It’s probably wrong, but I can’t help myself, especially when I hear them say, “How do they know about the contract?”
But I try to focus back on my brothers, who are all staring in my direction.
“Genie’s out of the lamp,” Wraith says. “No point trying to stuff it back in.”
“I’m docking a month’s salary because we can’t just go breaking rules,” Grudge says.
I look at my best friend, who secretly fell in love with Butcher’s daughter. “No?”
Atom flips the bird in my direction.
“But,” Grudge continues. “Because I’m not an asshole, I’ll send the twenty percent you give to your sister each month directly to her. Willa and the kids shouldn’t suffer because you were thinking with your dick.”
I let out a breath of relief. Willa is just about back on her feet after her jerk-off of a husband left her with a large mortgage and no money in their bank account. I was hoping to divert the money once she’s fully back on her feet to help her save for the kids’ college or something before I have any kids of my own to save for.
Wren comes to stand back next to me. “I think I just found us another lead.”
“What is it?” I ask.
“A friend. They found a hacker called Mika, talking about how they’d been approached by a federal agent. Mika was threatening to sell their story.”
Taco crosses his arms. “When you sayfoundis this one of those online founds where they could be anywhere in the world, or really found?”
“Really found. They’re in Woodside, Utah. Assuming they’re home.”
“Solid four-hour ride on a good day,” Smoke says. “Be slower in the trucks in this weather, even though it’s major highway most of the way.”
Grudge rubs his hand across his chin. “Some of us should go check it out.”
“We should keep it to one truck,” Wraith says. “The guy’s a fucking hacker. Gonna have pasty skin and no friends to back him up.”
“Assuming Mika is a guy, I doubt he’s going to hand anything over willingly,” Wren says. “I’ll go—I’ll know what questions to ask and how to access their setup without damaging it.”
“No!” The answer comes from several of my brothers.
And me.
Wren rolls their eyes. “For heaven’s sake, I’m as capable of solving this as anyone is.”
“You are,” Wraith says. “No doubting it. But you come with us, and Catfish’ll be distracted, worrying about you and whether you are safe. Which means, you coming with us is a liability.”
