Elio snorted. “When is he not weird?”
Enzo glanced at Seven in the passenger seat, watching him bite that plush bottom lip to keep from laughing as his teen brothers started a shoving match in the backseat. There was a throbbing behind his right eye that was only getting worse since they’d left the city. He understood now why Calliope chose to work remotely. She and her wife lived in the middle of fucking nowhere.
“Why are we going to Calliope again?” Elio finally asked. “Not that I’m complaining! We’re dying to meet her. But don’t you have everything you need to get Neith’s charges dropped?”
Seven nodded. “Yeah. Brioni was arrested, made a deal for conditional immunity, and she and her mom are now stashedsomewhere safe until we know whether we have to disappear them permanently.”
“Kill them?” Ansel practically shouted.
“No, you idiot. Relocate them,” Enzo said, shaking his head.
He’d never seen two people so smart and yet so dumb in his whole life. Neith was all but in the clear. But that wasn’t good enough for Seven…or Neith for that matter. If there was one thing that truly tied Enzo and Seven’s families together, it was that they both believed that justice was best served soaked in blood. They’d spared Brioni because she’d made the right choice; the others wouldn’t be so lucky.
But in order to ensure all parties died screaming, they needed names, and while the names of the donors had been easy enough to identify, the names of Grant’s bosses were harder to pin down. Brioni had been forward-facing enough in the operation to easily corroborate which donors were actively buying victims, but not who ultimately financed the operation…or if the women were even still alive. For that, they’d need an expert.
An expert who had goats named after fictional vampire hunters and chickens named after a very real K-pop group. Their lives were really fucking weird. Calliope had already found the information they needed, but when they’d asked her to send it to them, Seven had let it slip that Enzo’s brothers were fans. She’d then asked if they wanted to come to her place. The answer had clearly been yes. That was how Enzo found himself on the longest short car ride of his life.
When Calliope had said she didn’t live on a farm, she hadn’t exactly been lying. There were houses dotting the landscape, sitting on land that had plenty of room, but it wasn’t farm country. There weren’t crops or cattle. If anything, the town looked more like a commune, or maybe an artist’s colony.
Did those still exist?
They drove through a small downtown area that looked quaint during the day with its little galleries and bookstores, but probably took on a far more sinister appearance at night, all darkened streets and a church spire that pierced the sky.
“Oh, can we stop there on the way out?” Elio asked, pointing at a cafe with a wooden storefront and a large window filled with baked goods. “It says they have apple cider donuts,” he cried, like a little kid.
Right. Hewasa little kid. At least in Enzo’s eyes. Both his brothers were still in their teens. He forgot that sometimes. “This isn’t a vacation,” he muttered.
Seven’s quiet laughter filled the car, low and warm enough to ease some of the tension at the base of Enzo’s skull. He could feel the boy’s amusement like sunlight through glass, soft and impossible to ignore.
His breath hitched as Seven’s hand found his on the center console, threading their fingers together and giving his hand a squeeze.
“Relax. Why are you so tense?” he asked softly.
Enzo looked at him from the corner of his eye, not sure he dared to look full-on. “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but if I had to guess, it’s because it’s my first time taking my baby brothers to a black-hat hacker’s home to plot a group murder.”
Seven grinned, flashing his pretty white teeth. “It gets easier. Especially if you get donuts after.”
Enzo huffed out a surprised laugh, shaking his head and giving Seven a raised brow. “Is that your way of saying you want to stop for donuts, too?”
“Yes, please,” Seven said, then mouthed,Daddy, giving him a look that would have melted solid steel.
Enzo’s cock twitched, his response nearly Pavlovian at this point. Seven saidDaddyand Enzo’s dick was at the readyimmediately. How had he gotten sucked so deep into this boy’s orbit without even realizing it?
He’d never had someone who could both short-circuit his body and steady his mind with the same look. Somehow, Seven had become his worst distraction and his calmest center.
Once they exited the little town, they ended up on dirt roads with houses sitting on four to five acre parcels of land. Enzo wasn’t sure what he’d expected of Calliope’s house, but it wasn’t the massive farmhouse that looked like it had been sitting there for a hundred years. He might have thought they were in the wrong place if not for the security measures.
They stopped just outside an ancient iron gate—too ornamental to simply be a barrier—and he wasn’t surprised when it swung open without them alerting anyone to their presence. Once on the property, they followed a well-worn gravel road, his tires instantly falling into the narrow grooves carved into the drive over time.
He found himself scanning the property as they drove the short winding path. There was a weathered outbuilding with oddly modern fixtures, a birdhouse perched a bit too straight on its pole, and a goat standing on the top of a small shed covered in solar panels, because, apparently, even the livestock here were preppers.
When they parked, they found Calliope standing on the porch, a dish towel thrown over one shoulder. She wore skin-tight jeans and a vee-neck tee that showed off her curvy body, dark hair flowing over her shoulders. She had to be close to fifty but didn’t look a day over thirty-five. She smiled, then gave them a wave.
“Holy shit. Is that her?” Elio whispered.
“She’s so hot,” Ansel said, mouth hanging open.
Enzo shook his head. “I thought you didn’t like girls,” he muttered, not addressing either of them by name.
