“Other people’s rooms?” he said with a short laugh, reaching out to push the blade of her sword to the side. She simply brought it back, ignoring his grimace. “Who do you think paid for this room?”
“That would be our family’s security company, obviously,” she said.
She realized with a certain sense of humor that Deven was still holding his weapon. He wasn’t pointing it at Lorenzo anymore, which was a sign of good training, but he hadn’t put it back in its holster. Instead, he was holding it down at his side, typing out a text on his phone with his other hand in between glaring at their older brother.
“And since damn near every penny the company makes is thanks to me, one might say that I paid for the room,” she added coldly. “But let’s skip the unlawful entry part and get right to the important stuff. What are you doing here?”
Without waiting for an answer, Karissa flicked her sword away, then headed for Deven’s fridge, disappointed to find there wasn’t a Snickers to be found.
“What am I doing here?” Lorenzo said in that irritating condescending tone of his. “Did youreally think none of us would see the news footage of you fighting those supernaturals in the middle of a hunting preserve with that moron Hale Delaney at your side?”
Karissa was stunned at the burst of anger that roiled through her at hearing her ass-clown of a brother refer to Hale as a moron. The urge to pull her sword and lop off his head—or at least an ear—was difficult to resist.
“I’m still not hearing the part where you explain why you’re here,” she said as she continued to look for something to snack on. The only thing that seemed even close to interesting was the box of Fruit Loops, but she was hesitant to eat it, not sure why Deven had put the box in the fridge in the first place.
“Are you honestly that stupid?” Lorenzo demanded, getting to his feet and stomping in her direction. Once again she had to fight the desire to pop her sword back into existence and poke him in the chest with it. “I’m here to straighten you out and get you focused on dealing with this job so you can wrap it up and come home. Where you belong. With family.”
“Family?” Deven said with a derisive snort, having put his weapon away at some point when she wasn’t looking. “Please. Like Karissa has ever been anything more than a source of income for thefamily.”
“Keep out of this, Deven,” Lorenzo said harshly, turning to confront him. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“Of course it doesn’t.” Deven let out a sarcastic chuckle. “It’s not like I pissed away the majority of my high school education running around helping my sister. Not that I ever regretted being there for her since the rest of you are always too busy sitting at home counting the money we earned to ever put your lives at risk.”
Karissa was a little surprised at the anger in Deven’s voice. She’d never thought about the baggage he’d been dragging around with him thanks to their parents. The truth was he’d given up as much for this life they both led as she had. In some ways, maybe more. At least she’d almost been an adult when her parents had thrown her into the deep end. Deven hadn’t been more than ten or twelve when they’d expected him to start using his computer prowess and pulling his weight.
“Somebody has to stay focused on finding clientele and minding the bottom line,” Lorenzo snapped, looking at the two of them like they were children. “The business would dry up and blow away if it wasn’t for the constant flow of new clients I bring in. We can’t all have fun gallivanting around the world playing with our swords and guns, fighting supernatural bogeymen.”
“Fun?” Karissa slammed the fridge shut. “Seeif you think it’s fun the next time someone with a sword tries to cut you in half. Oh, wait, that’s never going to happen. You never do field work anymore, do you? Which makes me wonder what you’re doing here now, since you’ve never come out before regardless of what kind of bad guy we were facing.”
“I don’t think Lorenzo’s visit has anything to do with us wrapping up this job—or helping us deal with the bad guy,” Deven pointed out before their older brother could say anything. “Mom and Dad sent him here to make sure they don’t lose control of their meal ticket.”
Karissa stared, baffled for a moment, not sure what Deven was implying. Until she remembered that Lorenzo had made a point of mentioning that Hale had been in the woods with her at the hunting preserve. She could definitely see her parents freaking out at the thought of her and Hale getting together again. But did that mean they were genuinely worried she’d leave their security company for Hale?
She thought back to her conversation with Deven that morning about finding a way to make things work with Hale. Was quitting her job at her family’s business really an option?
It took her a moment to realize that while she’d been lost in thought, Deven and Lorenzo had gotten in each other’s faces, the volume of their arguing climbing higher by the second as it becameclear that Lorenzo’s visit was more about the family losing money than any concern for Karissa’s health or safety.
“Do you have any idea how much money the company is set to make on this Patterson job?” Lorenzo shouted. “Half a million dollars! And it’s like you’re doing everything you can to blow it, all because our sister can’t stay focused on what’s important!”
Karissa ground her jaw. She’d always known that her parents were making a lot of money off the work she did for them, but she’d never actually thought of the amounts. She’d never imagined it was this much. Half a million was obscene. And the part that hurt the most was that she and Deven were making the same amount of money for this job as they’d made on all the previous ones, basically a field stipend, as her parents called it. It was sort of like a travel per diem to cover the cost of food and any incidentals they might incur while working. It didn’t add up to much, and after ten years of working for them, she didn’t have more than twenty thousand in her personal bank account. Deven probably had less. Their parents were raking in more on one job than she had made in her entirecareeras a Paladin.
And she was the one who had to fight a frigging Greek god!
A sudden commotion jerked Karissa out ofher musings, and she looked up to see that her brothers were close to a physical fight. Which would not end well. Deven might be scrappy, but Lorenzo outweighed him by at least seventy-five pounds and had a lot more experience in hand-to-hand combat. Cursing, she quickly moved to step between them.
“This is all that asshole’s fault!” Lorenzo shouted as he attempted to push past Karissa like he didn’t even see her. He was so focused on Deven, it was as if she wasn’t even there. “Hale Delaney. He’s gotten into our sister’s head again, poisoning her against us. Making her turn against her own family!”
Karissa’s sword was in her hand before she even realized it, the sharp tip pressed against Lorenzo’s chest. She forced him across the small living room with it. Lorenzo scrambled back as fast as he could, having no choice if he wanted to avoid being skewered like a piece of meat. The far wall stopped his retreat.
“You lied to me,” she hissed in a low voice laced with anger. “Hale never left me. You and our other two pieces-of-crap brothers ambushed him and beat the hell out of him. My three older brothers—all of you full-grown adults—beat a teenager so badly that he spent nearly a week in the hospital. You told him that I didn’t want to see him ever again and then threatened to send his family to prison if he didn’t disappear. So don’t you dare talk aboutHalepoisoningme against my family. You did that all on your own.”
Lorenzo tried to push the blade aside with his hand like he’d done before, earning a nicked finger for his troubles. “Karissa,” he pleaded with a wince. “We had to do that. For your own good. He wasn’t right for you.”
“And who the hell decided you were ever the arbitrator of what’s right for me?” she demanded furiously, fighting the urge to shove the blade into him. To make him feel even a tiny smidgen of the pain he’d caused her. “I was in love with Hale and you went out of your way to destroy that.”
“Love?” he scoffed. “You were sixteen! What the hell did you know about love? He was using you to try and clear his family name.”
“Using me?” she repeated with a harsh laugh. “I think you, Mom, and Dad have already cornered the market on that concept. I’m not stupid. Once you all figured out how to make money off my gifts, you needed Hale gone so you could keep control of your—how did Deven put it?—oh yeah, your meal ticket.”
