In fact, another reason we had been transferred to Kuwait, outside of the guy pissing people off, had been because Dallas had butted heads with the U.S. ambassador in Ukraine and the jerk had requested a change in security detail.
Not that he was totally in the wrong. Dallas had told him that he was a pompous, cheating bastard with elephant ears and a small dick because he caught him in a compromising position with his secretary.
I shot Dallas what I hoped was a quelling stare, wondering if he was going to get us fired before we finished this election or if there was an ambassador to the Antarctic for them to send us to if we botched this assignment. Knowing Dallas’s attitude, they’dprobably find something worse than the sandstorms of Kuwait to send us to.
“We don’t know anything about Lennon Holloway yet,” I pointed out to them, somehow becoming a defender of our new position despite my attempts to get out of the job only an hour earlier. “She could be totally fine to guard and it sounds like it’s just until the election is over and they’ll find her a more permanent team to replace the one she lost.”
Dallas shook his head with a derisive snort. “She’s a privileged rich girl who grew up in one of the most politically prolific families of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and to top it off she’s probably been put on a pedestal by her family because she’s an omega. That doesn’t exactly breed humbleness and someone particularly easy to deal with.”
“Wow,prolific,” Brooks teased, reaching back to elbow his brother in the stomach. “You’re really making use of that word-of-the-day calendar I got you, aren’t you, bro?”
“Shut up,” Dallas growled, but his twisted expression relaxed a bit thanks to Brooks’ joke. Leave it to the older Wilson twin to calm Hurricane Dallas with a finesse that could only be achieved by someone who had shared a womb with him.
He was the only one who seemed to speak Dallas’s language, soothing his temper with a few well-placed jokes that would get anyone else decked by the bespectacled alpha.
Which was ironic considering Dallas spoke four languages damn near fluently. I’d never seen anyone pick up a new language quite as quickly as the stubborn alpha did—it was one of the reasons why I put up with his temper tantrums. That and his ability to think four steps ahead of everyone around him. He was the logistician of our team, proving himself invaluable every time I thought he had pissed me off for the last time.
Zeke, who had been quietly observing everything, his dark eyes bouncing back and forth as we talked, finally looked up atme and shrugged his shoulders. “It doesn’t really matter how we feel either way though, does it, Mav?”
I shook my head. “Not really. Collier made it very clear that this is our assignment whether we like it or not.”
“Fine,” Dallas huffed, throwing his hands up in the air in surrender. “Let’s just get through this shit. What’s four months of our lives anyways? It’s not like we aren’t on a downward march toward death every day that we live and we won’t ever get these days back again. Might as well waste them following a spoiled rich girl around.”
“That’s the spirit,” I told him cheerfully, giving the alpha a hard slap on the back. “And one more thing. We meet her in the morning and, according to Collier, she has no idea about any of us.”
“What the fuck?” I heard Dallas say from behind me as I turned on my heel and headed out of the gym, a grin on my face despite our current situation.
Despite my irritation with the head of the Secret Service, I kind of understood why he liked to drop information like that. It was pretty fun.
“Have you called your grandpa yet?” Zeke, never one to leave questions unanswered, asked as he followed me on my heels to the kitchen.
“Have you called your dad?” I shot back, avoiding his question.
I was dreading having to call mypappouand tell him that we would be stateside for the foreseeable future.
It usually meant that I would be forced to attend as many events at the Greek embassy as I could and be trussed up in a tuxedo and trotted out like a dancing monkey for all of my grandfather’s old friends to hem and haw over.
Then there were the inevitable questions from everyone in my very large extended family about when I would settle down with a nice omega and a nice pack.
Just the thought of it made me shudder with distaste.
I wasn’t ready to settle down yet, nor did I think I ever really would be.
Which was not the answer my grandfather or my father were looking for because, out of the fifteen cousins of my generation, I was one of three boys and Demetrius and Nico had gotten married young and already popped out a bushel of kids years ago.
“Don’t try to distract me, Maverick Onassis, you and I both know what comes with being back in D.C.”
“You more than me,” I pointed out. “I’m not the son of a sitting state senator. Again, did you call your dad?”
Zeke grimaced but still shook his head. “Not yet. Though I’m sure he’ll have heard through the grape vine by now. You know all of those old heads still talk to each other.”
I did. In fact I was surprised that mypappouhadn’t already called me because he’d heard it from his friend who’d heard from theirs.
They must really be trying to keep this change in detail under wraps.
“In the excitement of everything I’d forgotten just how weird it is to be back here again,” Zeke continued, his gaze moving to the kitchen sink and the window above it that showed the bustling streets of D.C.
While we’d all grown up in the city to an extent, Dallas and Brooks had grown up out of the public eye whereas Zeke and I had grown up within the walls of the everlasting political arena.
