“Did you see the guys she had with her? Man, they screamed Mafia,” Lucas says, agreeing with Landon.
“What exactly screams Mafia?” Leo asks with a laugh.
“The guys she had with her. Duh,” Lucas laughs and then focuses on Leo. “Wait! You were there!”
Landon starts bouncing on the couch, animated. It’s like looking at Gage. “I bet the big dude’s the leader. Did you see his freaking arms?”
“Nah!” Lucas disagrees. “It’s the one who walked up behind us.”
Leo and I exchange a look; I have to try so hard not to start laughing.
“You don’t know how wrong you are,” Gerald says with a chuckle.
“Alright, G,” I say, standing up and pulling Leo to his feet. “We have to head out. If you need anything, call.”
“Oh, come on,” Lucas whines. “You can’t leave us hanging like that.”
I shake my head and walk toward the front door with them hot on my heels. I slide my feet into my shoes and then give my hugs to Gerald and Boone.
“See ya, Boss,” Boone says with a grin, shutting the door behind us.
“No way!” I hear one of the boys exclaim. “She’s the boss! That’s so fucking cool.”
“You hear that, Baby?” Leo says with a laugh, slinging his arm around my shoulder. “You’re cool.”
When Leoand I return to the house, Gage, Holden, Dex, and Ryder are sitting in the living room with grim faces.
“What’s going on?” I ask, sitting beside Gage on the couch, Leo on my other side. He pulls me to his side, kissing me on the forehead.
“We have problems,” Ryder says, slamming a folder down on the coffee table.
I pick up the folder and flip it open, and a feeling of doom settles over me.
It’s pictures of everything we’ve done over the past few days. Every shot of the guys has their faces scratched out. I flip through them, and that doom feeling intensifies. There’s a picture of Leo pulling the trigger on that guy yesterday, me meeting Zane at the docks, a shot of us walking into Xander’s garage and us leaving in Xander’s car, one of me pulling the trigger ending Xander’s life, and then Leo, Gage, and I at the cabin. Leo’s forehead is against mine, Gage’s head is thrown back in pure ecstasy, and you can see the bliss all over my face. If it weren’t so creepy someone else took these without my permission, they would be hot.
The last one is of just me, and it looks like I am looking directly at the camera, the word ‘mine’ scrawled across it in red.
“How the fuck did they get these, and how did you get them?” I ask, handing it to Leo. Some of the pictures look like they’re close-ups, and others looked like they were taken with a long-distance lens. The one of Leo pulling the trigger looks like it’s taken off a street camera.
“I ran to the store to grab a few things,” Gage says. “They were plastered all over my car when I came outside.”
“I ran every camera I could find from where Dex found his and now Gage. Everything’s been wiped. I’m trying to track it now, but I can’t find anything,” Holden says, running his hand through his curly hair nervously. Holden will take this personally if he can’t find out who is doing this.
A pale-looking Leo lays the folder down, and Ryder picks it back up. Ryder pulls out the last picture and lays it on the table. “This is serious now. Do you get it? Whoever this is, is claiming you.” He stabs his finger at the picture with ‘mine’ written on it. “They think you’re theirs.”
“I never said it wasn’t serious,” I reply. Maybe I didn’t take it as seriously as I should have, but I understood. “My life can’t stop because of this, though.”
“Goddamnit, Les,” Dex says hotly. “Two of those pictures implicate you and Leo in two different murders.”
“I’m aware,” I say evenly. “What do you expect me to do?”
“How about not going alone to meet fucking Zane?” Ryder says through gritted teeth, tossing the picture of Zane and me on the table. I notice that Zane’s face isn’t scratched out; it’s just my guys.
“I already got shit for that, Ryder,” I tell him, sitting up on the couch. “I promised I wouldn’t.”
“No more going out without at least two of us,” Ryder orders, and I can feel my blood boil. “No more little fucking trips to your cabin or anywhere else this freak knows about.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You remember who you’re talking to right now?”
