“Do you have any questions?” Amanda asked gently.
I took a bite of the jambalaya mostly to buy myself a second, and my eyes widened almost immediately.
Ariel grinned. “He’s a good cook, right?”
I nodded slowly. “Okay. That’s… annoyingly good.”
She beamed with pride like she’d personally raised him in a culinary boot camp.
Maybe I’d been too quick to lump them all together.
Maybe Ghost really had been trying to help.
“He still put cameras in my apartment,” I muttered.
Amanda scrunched her nose. “Yeah, that part wasn’t his smoothest move.”
Ariel snorted. “He’s many things. Subtle isn’t one of them.”
Despite myself, a laugh slipped out.
Amanda followed. Then Ariel.
And suddenly the tension cracked wide open, the three of us laughing like this wasn’t some nightmare involving secret cameras and criminal conspiracies and masked men with unsettlingly green eyes.
For a few seconds, it almost felt normal.
Which was probably the strangest part of all.
I had to wipe the tears from my eyes before I spoke. “I have to check up on my father. I have to make sure he’s safe from all this.”
Ariel looked at Amanda. “You think they’re done yet?”
Amanda grinned. “Only one way to find you. You doing it, or should I?”
Ariel giggled. “I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” I asked.
“RIED!” Ariel exclaimed.
A thunderous set of boots slammed against the floor as the sound barreled toward us. Cap emerged into the kitchen, his eyes darting around before he quickly made his way to her.
He even got down onto one fucking knee just so he could be eye level with her.
“What is it, princess? You all right?”
Ariel winked at me before she placed a kiss on the grizzled man’s forehead. “Jasmine here wants to get in touch with her father. You know, make sure he’s safe from all this.”
“He can’t fend for himself much,” I explained, “and I’m over there sometimes during the months. What if they went to his place, too? He’s in the beginning stages of dementia. He doesn’t know how to defend himself like that. What if he’s?—?”
“Hey.”
Ghost’s voice came from out of nowhere and I immediately whipped my gaze to him. I watched him come over to me before he got down onto one knee in the same fashion that Cap had with Ariel.
My eyes danced in between his before his hand settled on my knee. “Electronic communication is a bit risky right now, considering all of the plates spinning in the air that still don’t have answers. But me and Scout are going to personally go check on your father for you and make sure he’s okay. Do you have an address we can use?”
My lower lip wobbled. “Wait, really?”
