It wasn’t lost on me how similar Lucas’s voice was to Linus’s. At least in tone. Lucas’s plea felt nothing like Linus’s plea when we were at Kincade Slopes, though. Linus’s pleas had made me want to move heaven and earth to protect him, whereas Lucas’s just made me want to roll my eyes. They might have been identical, but the similarities were definitely only skin deep.
“Please don’t do this,” Lucas said, throwing his back against the back of the van and spreading his arms wide to shield it as we got there. “You really don’t want to do this.”
“Lucas, you’d better tell us what’s going on right now,” Linus said, almost like he was scolding a disobedient child.
“If Linus or your family is in any sort of danger because of your shenanigans, then I’m going to get to the bottom of it,” I said.
Lucas groaned, then dropped his protective stance. “It’s not that bad, I swear,” he said, stepping aside as I moved in to test the handle on the van’s door.
Unsurprisingly, the van wasn’t locked. I pulled the door open, but what I saw in the dim light coming from the house wasn’t what I was expecting.
“Are those…handbags?” Linus’s question reflected my surprise.
Sure enough, the interior of the van was stacked with handbags of all sizes. I didn’t know much about bags, but I would have been willing to bet that they were all designer. Or more likely, they were counterfeit designer bags.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, turning back to Lucas.
Lucas gaped for a moment, glancing between me and Linus like he was scrambling for some sort of explanation. He gave up, though, huffed out a sigh, and lowered his shoulders. “Okay, I confess,” he said. “I’m…I’m a mule.”
“A what?” Linus asked.
My heart tugged a little at his innocence.
“I’m a mule,” Lucas explained. “That means I transport illegal goods for people.”
“Lucas!” Linus shouted.
“I definitely think we should take this inside,” I said, wanting to get Linus away from the counterfeit bags as fast as possible. “We’re going to need more of an explanation than you’ve given,” I warned Lucas.
“Okay, okay,” Lucas grumbled. “I’ll tell you everything.”
We headed up to the house. My earlier impression of the building being magnificent was confirmed once we were inside the large but still cozy-feeling rooms. The house had definitely been custom-designed, but there were other things to talk about before I asked questions about when and how it was built.
“I’m a mule for a group of smugglers,” Lucas confessed more as we took seats in the spacious den. In the daytime, I was sure it would have an amazing view of the ocean.
“I can’t believe you would do something so illegal,” Linus said, moving closer to me once I sat on the sofa with him.
I wasn’t sure if he was fully aware of his movement, but I was happy with it. His bubblegum scent was almost overpowering, and I couldn’t stop myself from slinging an arm over the back of the sofa and halfway around his shoulders.
“No, wait,” Linus corrected himself. “Icanbelieve it. How could you use the beach house and put all of us in danger like this?”
“No one is in danger!” Lucas insisted. “It’s nothing. It’s just a bunch of handbags. The buyers are going to sail in sometime this weekend to collect them for the hand-off.”
“Sail in?” Linus asked, eyes bugging and face flushed red.
“Hand-off?” I asked more seriously.
Lucas glanced back and forth between the two of us, desperate and sweating. He’d gone bright pink as well. “Yeah, um, there are actually two smuggling gangs,” he said with a slight wince.
“Two of them?” Linus reached for the collar of his shirt and undid the top two buttons, but I didn’t think he was fully aware of the gesture.
“Okay, okay, I’ll explain,” Lucas said with a heavy sigh, like we were the bad guys for asking. He didn’t say anything at first, so I gave him my best disapproving alpha stare. “Okay!” he said loudly. “Geez!” He took another breath, then said, “I picked the van up in Trentanville this morning, after visiting you at school.”
Linus stared at his brother incredulously, panting slightly. My instinct to pull him into my arms was almost overwhelming, and his scent was?—
“I drove the van out here, and I’ve just been waiting for a text or call,” Lucas went on, seemingly unable to catch his breath as well. “The second group, the ones who do their business by sea, are going to motor in, park their boat at the dock, and exchange the handbags for turtles.”
“Turtles?” Linus shouted, going even redder. “What on earth, Lucas.”
