“I already didn’t want you at home knowing what we knew, but with Seamus involved, it ratchets up security concerns,” I add.
Fitz smiles an evil smile. “So what’s our plan?”
Ren stretches his neck like he’s warming up for a workout, but Cian’s gaze drifts to the stairs.
“Any plans we have will include keeping the women out of it,” Christian says.
“No.” I slap my hand on the stone of the island.
“No? You want them involved?”
I shake my head. “No. Where we’ve made plans, it was to save or rescue. We aren’t ‘making plans’”—I make air quotes with my fingers—“because we’re not vigilantes. We’re not a military unit.” Though Fitz and Ren were. “We’re men. You’re family.”
Fitz starts to interject, but I stop him with a hand. “For the purposes of this moment, you are too. And we don’t risk family. I won’t jeopardize Wills growing up without his father, or Sariah losing you again.” I look from Cian to Christian. “I took a bullet forty-eight hours ago, so Sophia didn’t grow up not knowing you. We’re not risking the families you’ve made, the family we found”—I tap Ren’s shoulder—“or the family forged in trials just to play God.”
Hunched over, hands to the island, Christian lifts his head. “What would you have us do then? Be sitting ducks? Hole up in this house as a compound until our kids don’t know what sunlight is? I applaud your loyalty, Liam, but something must be done.”
“Oh, I didn’t say nothing would be done. I just said I wouldn’t risk you.”
“But you would haveusrisk losingyouas if that would be better?” Cian bows up beside me, flaunting the two inches he has on me.
I stand chest to chest with him. “To protect you? Fuck yes, I would.”
“I don’t need your protection.” My brother’s voice is quiet, not in anger, but as if he’s vowing something to me. “I need my brother at my side. You don’t get to go rogue on this.”
“Not without me at your back,” Fitz says.
“Or me,” Ren adds.
“Or me,” Christian vows.
Cian merely raises his eyebrows, letting his face say it all. None of this is happening without him at my six either.
Fuck. I scrub a hand down my face, through my beard and pull it to a point.
They’re undeterred. And I’m not used to this pack mentality. I save myself. I’d save them. Hell, I’ve killed for my brother.
More than once.
But for them to risk that for me? I’m at a loss.
“What do we do then?”
Lorien
My alarm is going off but the tone is wrong. I’m also on the wrong side of the bed. How did that happen? It’s neither the left looking from the front or nearest the bathroom.
“Wifey, no alarm tone should be that chipper.” The man beside me grumbles, disabling the alarm.
“I like starting the day happy.”
“I can give you happy.” Liam’s voice is thick with sleep and sex and oozes both.
I bet he can. No. Iknowhe can. My body still feels where he was.
Liam’s chest starts to shake, making my face bounce on his pec.
“What? Moving my pillow is rude, you know?”
