Sitting at the head of the family, Savage takes every wound suffered by anyone onto himself, when it really should be me who bears that burden.
He put his trust in me to protect everyone.
It isn’t his fault I failed.
Only my own.
Dani steps up behind his chair and rests her hand on his shoulders, rubbing gently, trying to calm him before he explodes.
He looks to Gabe. “Postpone. Yay or nay?”
Gabe shakes his head. “Nay.”
Savage looks to Dad next, who gives me a sympathetic look but shakes his head. “No.”
Mom releases a sigh. “Sorry, sweetie, but no.”
Savage’s gaze finally meets Luca’s, and he stands stock-still for a few moments, considering all the options available before he shakes his head. “No.” He offers me an apologetic look that does nothing to ease my annoyance at his sudden flip. “But only because I ultimately think that giving anything to Satriano only grows his ego and his belief that nothing will ever be beyond his grasp.”
I throw up my hands. “Am I the only one who feels like I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop? It’s been one thing after another for years, and now both Jack and Allegra are pregnant. What the hell do you think the man’s going to do when he finds out his grandchild is coming and is going to be a Hawke?”
Everyone shifts restlessly.
The question has been on everyone’s mind since we learned that there wasn’t technically anything medically wrong with either of them.
No nefarious plots that made them ill.
No poison or other means of hurting them physically.
Just the Hawke sperm going to work creating the next generation.
And one of them also carries Satriano’s blood.
Gabe shifts restlessly. “All we can do is keep pushing our sources and hope that one of them comes up with something useful on McDonald or Satriano.” A ding sounds in his pocket, and he reaches in and pulls out his phone. “Speaking of which…”
He scans the screen, his jaw hardening.
Shit.
That doesn’t look good.
His eyes darken as he reads the message. “Shit.”
Savage raises a dark brow. “What?”
Gabe lifts his head and meets his best friend’s gaze. “That was a text from one of my contacts in Europe who is familiar with Satriano and his group over there from before they moved here.”
My frustration starts to boil over waiting for him to tell us whatever he’s learned. “And?”
Hard green eyes sweep from Savage to me, and when he’s like this, I truly see the lethal sniper he once was still living in his gaze. He’s pissed. And worried. Bordering on murderous. “He says Michael McDonald is a munitions expert. Specifically…explosives.”
The word sends a shiver down my spine as flashes of what happened to The Grind flicker through my head.
Flames shooting into the night.
Charred wood.
Broken tile and ceramic.
