“I can take him to the house,” Max calls over.
“No, I need you to stay here and take command of our security staff. The guards shouldn’t have let Grace through with an unidentified passenger. They need to do better. Everyone needs to be on high alert.Everyone, Max,” he repeats.
“I’ll take Killian,” Calder offers. “If anyone knows how to sneak in and out of the house, it’s me.”
“Are you armed?” asks the Irishman.
“We all are,” Duke says and I immediately tense.
He pulls me tighter against him and I press my head to his chest. This is not how I imagined the evening would go. Fitz was meant to be handed back without a hitch, and the worst I was supposed to endure was watching Duke dance with Katarina. The biggest shock for Duke was meant to be when he saw me in my dress. I thought I’d be shivering with cold, not terror.
Duke kisses the top of my head. “We’re being cautious, that’s all. It’s only one mad Irishman,” he reassures me. His head tilts towards Killian. “Unless you’re not alone?”
“Just yours truly,” he says. His eyes narrow. “And when you lads snitch on me to Ash, I’d be obliged if you asked the Griffins not to tell Dad I was here. If he asks, Katarina was fooling around with some handsome devil of a hairdresser, but you never met him.”
Calder whistles. “Two warring families. Two star-crossed lovers. Someone should write a story about that.”
“Fuck off, gobshite,” Killian says, picking up his wig and sunglasses from the serving cart. I’m expecting him to put them on so he can leave with Calder, but he moves them out of the way to get to the cake box. There’s stunned silence as the Irishman brandishes a cake covered in pink butter cream.
“Are we throwing cream pies now?” Calder says, asking what we’re all thinking.
Killian tips the cake upside down and it lands on the cart with a loud splat. He peels off the silvery cake board and shoves his hand inside the sponge.
“Are they grenades?” I ask, clinging harder to Duke. This is another level of crazy I wasn’t prepared for.
“Smoke bombs,” Killian replies as he unbuttons his jacket and straps four black cylinders onto a utility belt. I catch a glimpse of an automatic handgunattached to the belt that’s in addition to the one holstered at his shoulder. “You never know when they’re going to come in handy.”
“I’d ask that you don’t use them on us,” Rory says, “but apparently you’re not above threatening the people who are meant to be your allies.”
“Jeez, can everyone stop giving me a hard time about a little bump in the car?” Killian says, wrongly assuming Rory’s talking about the car crash and not him threatening me. “You don’t look any worse for it.” Killian stops talking, registering the confused looks from Duke’s brothers. “What?”
“Youcrashed into me?” Rory asks when realization dawns.
“It was a gentle bump.”
“A gentlebump?” Rory repeats. His fuse isn’t as quick to light as Duke’s, but as he inhales, his chest expands and he looks ready to explode. “You totaled my fucking car!”
Killian waves his hands in the air. “It’s not my fault you’re a piss poor driver, Rory. It was a little reminder to lovesick Duke here to keep to the script. Vasili was threatening to recall Katarina back to Russia,” he says, looking to Duke to back him up. “Tell them.”
Duke’s jaw feathers when he says, “We don’t have fucking time for this. Just go if you have to go, Killian.”
“Fine.” He grabs the gift bag for Katarina from the serving cart, wipes a glob of splattered buttercream off the bow and licks his finger clean. After slipping on his wig, he turns to Rory one last time. “I’m sorry, OK?” There’s a glint in his eye when he pouts and adds, “Are we still friends?”
“We watch each other’s back tonight,” Rory says, not quite agreeing.
Killian winks. “Don’t you be worrying. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Come on, Romeo,” Calder says, pulling Killian towards the rear exit. “Let’s go climb a turret.”
We all take a moment to breathe, but the calm left in Killian’s wake doesn’t bring a sense of peace, only trepidation. “We can contain this, right?” I ask.
“We’re prepared for anything,” Duke promises, pulling me in for a kiss that doesn’t last nearly long enough. “But I’d feel better if you and Ed left.”
“I’m not leaving you, Duke.”
“Nor me!” Ed shouts, emerging from the tunnel.
“We can get one of our guards to take you back to Grace’s apartment,” Duke says, ignoring us both. “It has the best security.” He turns to Rory, already moving on to his next task. “And I suppose we should let the Griffins know what’s happening.”
