“Rush,” Briggs mumbled, then jerked his chin in the direction of his office.
Rush nodded as he pushed from his chair, never once stopping from where he was furiously tapping his phone against his palm.
“Ada?” I asked when Briggs turned to head that way.
Irritation slashed across his features, barely masking the amusement there. “She said she’s never heard the name Davis Shaw, hasn’t seen anyone new, and she’d introduce anyone who might come for her to her shotgun...including me, if I tried moving her to a different house.”
A huff of a laugh escaped me. “At least she’s aware.”
Briggs rumbled a noncommittal grunt as he stalked to his office.
The door had barely shut before Mallory said, “We’re not switching.”
“It isn’t the worst idea,” Thatch argued.
“Great, then the rest of you can switch, and I’ll stay at my condo,” she shot back. “No one’s setting foot in my place.”
Her paintings. Right.
But I could see the draw behind the idea. The otherDaviseswouldn’t be expecting whoever we switched with. They wouldn’t be looking for their cars or know their schedules.
It was a good plan.
“Peach,” I began, but she shot a cold glare in my direction.
“That’s my space,” she softly seethed.
“I know,” I mumbled back as I reached for her hand, already knowing she wouldn’t let me take it, but wanting her to know I was there, on her side, regardless. When she curled her hand into a fist, I gently gripped her wrist and added, “But think outside that. We’ll all be at a disadvantage if we stay where they expect us to be.”
As if to mock me for trying to get Mallory to see past her fear of someone seeing who she was beneath all that hardened exterior, Briggs quietly slipped back into the main office and said, “You’ll be there anyway. I wasn’t thinking when I suggested the switches—we’d all have to go back to our places to pack, and the Davises would see that. It’d just make it worse. So, we’ll be going to our own places.”
Rush brushed past Briggs as he spoke and stalked through the office, not saying a word or looking at any of us as he headed straight for the front and left Shadow.
Thatch pointed after him, but Briggs just looked at Evans as if nothing had happened. “This is one of those situations that’s going to take us well outside the legal boundary to do what needs to be done. You okay with that, or do I need to send you away before we start planning?”
So many times in the past, just the mention of something toeing the line of legality had Evans hesitating—wavering. Even showing little sparks of anger within that golden retriever personality that had been so distinctly him before the truth of who his dad had been had destroyed that too.
But he just sat there then, all that unending anger present as he met Briggs’ assessing stare straight on. “We apparently have a mafia family preparing to do who knows what to a bunch of women.” One of Evans’ eyebrows ticked up. “Tell me who I’m killing first.”
“Go home, Gray,” I snapped that evening before slamming the passenger door of his truck. When I heard the sound of his door opening, an irritated breath escaped me as I whirled to face where he was getting out of the truck as well, anger and worry etched across his unreasonably and infuriatingly handsome features.
“We need to talk.”
“We need to talk, Mallory. This isn’t something we can just ignore.”
Pregnant. Two pink lines.
No, no, no. Not right now. Don’t think about that now.
I pushed a condescending sound from my too-tight lungs. “We talked. You just refuse to listen.Go home.”
“Mal—”
“No,” I seethed as I stalked toward him. “We tried, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why we even did that, because we can’t go five minutes without doingthis.” I gestured between us in emphasis. “We were never meant to last, Gray, so let us be done. Aruba was a mistake. Marrying you was a mistake.”
Pain flared in his pale green eyes as he staggered back a step, but then he was coming closer. Determination written over every inch of him, his voice dripping with an anguished plea as he said, “You don’t mean that.”
“Would you listen to yourself?” I cried out on a frustrated laugh. “I just told you that you refuse to listen. This...”—I angrily tossed a hand in his direction—“thisis what I mean.”
