Vee eyed him briefly, before smiling. “Okay good, because there’s no one in my crew that I’d trust with such a task. Not for Angelo.”
There was an immense feeling of relief at the thought of Grayson being the guardian angel watching overmy Angel.
“So, we have a sniper placed to take out the main guards,” Giana continued. “We will be in the wings waiting, just outside the Riccis’ security sweep area so they’re not alerted to our presence until we want them to be. Wilson won’t show up until the prisoner is on the docks, to prevent any early ambushes. But even so, we will still be up against”—she paused as if doing math in her head—“probably thirty trained assassins.”
“If you’re waiting in the wings, I’d suggest taking out any men you find on the edges,” Grayson added. “Trim those numbers for the final battle. Because they won’t let Angelo go easily.”
Vee and Giana nodded. “Oh yeah, we totally plan on doing that,” they said almost at the same time.
“The aim is to thin their ranks enough for an advantage,” Vee continued, “but not enough that the lack of radio chatter alerts them to our presence. We’ll also stash some weapons in easy reach for Angelo, provided he’s in a condition to fight.”
Angel was tough enough to withstand a lot of punishment, so if he couldn’t fight, he would be badly hurt. I couldn’t think about that, so I would go with their plan. Get a weapon into his hands.
“Will Rhett and Jace be there?” Vee asked, even though Rhett was in the room with us.
“They will.” Rhett was the one to answer, meeting her gaze dead on. “We can handle ourselves, and the more people on your side, the better.”
Vee didn’t look convinced, but she also didn’t argue.
And this was my time to shine. “I’ll be there too,” I said shortly. “This is my Angel, and there’s no fucking way I’m letting you all walk into danger without me. I can handle a gun, and I want to help.”
The silence was near deafening until Grayson laughed. That asshole of a brute just straight up laughed at me. “Little Prickles,” he said with a shake of his head. “There’s not a hope in hell. We’ve already discussed this… do you need a reminder?”
The clenching of my core told me that a part of me very much wanted a reminder, and the punishment that went with it, but this was too serious to get distracted with sex. “We’ve worked out a compromise before,” I tried. “Can we do that again now? Is there a way for me to be there but not right in the midst of danger?”
I didn’t have to be down on the docks fighting against mafia assassins. My proficiency with guns wasn’t that strong, and my street survival skills were woeful.
No one else answered, leaving it up to Grayson to make this final decision about that night. He let out a deep breath, lips thinning, and I prepared myself for his final no.
“If I’m in position as a sniper, then you can act as my look out,” he finally said, shocking the fuck out of me. “I’d prefer you be with me, where I can keep an eye on you. And you will wear a vest and doeverythingI tell you.”
Leaping from the couch, I threw myself at him in the same breath, wrapping my arms and legs as tightly around him as I could. He let out another chuckle, but this one was lower, more intimate, as his arms enclosed me tightly.
“Okay,” Vee said, ignoring me as I thanked Grayson for his compromise. “It’s set then. I’m going to take my people for training sessions at a small dock here, on Lake Michigan, with a similar set up. There will already be Ricci and Wilson goons hanging around the New Jersey area, so it’s too risky to head for Jersey yet. But we can train in a similar setup. I’ll be in touch if we have further instructions.”
I felt her pat me on the back as she left, but I was too busy clinging to Gray like a damn monkey to respond. His hands went under my ass to haul me higher, and then we were striding from the room.
“Time for that punishment, Prickles,” he rumbled, and every part of me tightened in anticipation.
Fuck yeah. I got to go to the docks and get punished by Gray. This was turning out to be a great damn day.
twelve
RHETT
When my phone rang, disrupting what was turning out to be a very nice nap, I rolled over and knocked it off the table. These days, sleep was precious to me, and the fact that I could finally nap without Billie told me that my mental health shit was heading in the right direction.
Finally. After too many fucking years of suppressed rage and pain. Therapy was my drug of choice these days, and the fact that I’d been sober for the past week, or longer, had me wondering who the fuck this new Rhett was.
The ringing cut off, and I shook away the last tendrils of sleep brain, pushing myself up to sit. Reaching down to grab the phone once more, I checked the number in case it was Billie looking for me. Not that she didn’t know where I was, and we were all in the same house still. But she might have gone out with Gray while I was asleep, and I’d never leave a call from her hanging.
I blinked at the unfamiliar number, before my stomach swirled in dread. I didn’t recognize the number, but I knew that area code. It was from my hometown of Townsend, a few hours west of here. The very fucking town where my mother andher ownerlived.
Why would I be getting a call from Townsend, though? I had no contacts left there, no friends or family that would ever call me. Fuck, my number was almost impossible to even get, so there was literally no fucking explanation for this call today.
Did that bastard somehow know that I was finally,fucking finally,starting to move on from my past and had decided to yank me right back in? Yeah, not a chance. I’d kill him with my bare hands before I let that happen again. I’d had that surprise visit from Johnny—a guy I’d grown up with—in Europe, but surely, he wouldn’t go passing my number on. He’d said he was out of the cult, long gone, never to return, and I still believed that was the case.
The phone rang again suddenly, and I almost dropped it for a second time as the same number flashed on the screen. For a moment, I pondered the decision I was about to make. Silence this call and block the number so I could keep moving forward and forget that fucking town with its insidious little cult even existed. Or answer, deal with whatever fucking shit was being stirred, and then schedule an emergency therapy session for today.
