Fuck.
He knew I was here?
I slowly peeked out from behind Brutus and saw my brother glaring at me. I smiled sheepishly and waved.
“Hey, Cap,” I said.
He pointed at me. “Your job is to lay low and not cause any trouble. And if you can, help the new woman Brutus found to settle in a bit. I hear from King she’s struggling.”
I stepped out from behind Brutus with a grin on my face. I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’ll have her laughing up a storm by the morning. Is she a fan of pickles? We just got a fresh jar.”
“Jesus Christ,” Brutus groaned.
It made me giggle.
Which, for some reason, only made my brother glare harder.
I stuck my tongue out at him, much to the chuckling amusement of his crew. But even still, he had that look of disappointment on his face. The muted anger that I always remembered my father carrying around whenever he was perturbed at something Mom had done.
Whatever.
If he wanted to be a stick in the mud, then so be it.
“All right,” Cap said with a nod of his head as he turned to the rest of the guys. “Is there anything else anyone wants to discuss?”
Silence followed.
“Any questions?” he asked.
And again, silence.
“Then,” he said as he picked up his hands and clapped three times, “church dismissed.”
I clapped three times along with The Iron Battalion while my brother just let out the rhythmic whistle he always did when meetings were dismissed.
Now, to gossip with all of the girls about what I’d found out.
6
BRUTUS
Watching King muscle his way through the men in the storage shed after the meeting didn’t shock me one bit. He didn’t even cast a look in his sister’s direction, who openly stood next to me at that point.
All he did was storm out the shed door and make a beeline for the safehouse.
“Well, we all know where he’s going,” Anna muttered beside me.
One by one, the men filtered out of the meeting place that had become more of a sauna than anything else. The sun gave us one last battering before fall descended, and the shed absorbed all of the heat like a goddamn sauna. Some of the guys shot looks at Anna, and for some reason, I wanted to claw their fucking eyes out.
But she just stood there at my side.
Arms folded over her chest.
Staring right back at them.
Fucking hell, the woman was a firework ready to explode.
When everyone was out of the shed, I looked over at my president. Cap stood there, watching the two of us. I nodded at him. His eyes bounced in between me and Anna before henodded. And when I was satisfied that no one else was in the shed other than the three of us, I cleared my throat.
