Alexis rolls her eyes. “Obviously. I’m here.” She stomps away from the table but pauses a few feet away to send us all the most disappointed and annoyed look I’ve ever seen. I want to melt into the floor. “Be quiet, keep your heads down, and absolutely, under no circumstance, are you allowed to kill someone.”
She heads back to the mat by the front door, puts on her shoes, then leaves without another word. Wow. I fear her but am also a little bit in love with her take-no-shit attitude. The door opens again to reveal a broad-shouldered, barrel-chested man with light brown curls and a permanent-looking five o’clock shadow.
“What the fuck!” Reid screeches. He’s halfway across the table before Parker grabs his legs and tugs him back. “Let meat him! I’m going to chew through his chest, eat his heart, then spit it out into his mouth and make him eat it!”
Hayden’s eyes go wide, and he starts to laugh hysterically. “Oh my god, this takes the fucking cake. Robin hired you? I’m going to go kill myself. Goodbye.”
“Everyone shut the fuck up!” Parker yells. He tosses a look full of vitriol toward a still seated Dante. “Handle your bulldog, will you?”
“Uhm, if Reid doesn’t kill him, I will, so you need to decide who is going to jail for first-degree murder beside Jacob.” Dante delivers the sentence with an air of finality that sends a shiver down my spine. “Reid! Stop squirming on the table. You look ridiculous, baby.”
Reid flips over onto his back and shoots a lethal glare at Dante. I can’t help but laugh because it’s so reminiscent of when he’d glare at me when I’d first gained custody of him. Back then we were just kids, how had I ever been deemed fit to parent him as barely twenty myself. My laughter must be louder than I realized because Reid tips his head back to aim that terrifying glare at me.
“Shut up! He’s the man who tortured me, Mason.”
I swing my head back to the new addition to the room. All the blood in my body boils and my heartbeat rushes in my ear, the sounds of everything around me disappearing until all I can see is a funnel of violent crimson that zeroes in on the man who tore my brother to bits. Forgetting about germs, about touch, aboutanything, I lunge across the room but don’t make it far enough to make contact with the intruder. Parker’s arms wrap around me tight, squeezing me to him, even as I keep trying to escape his grip.
“Mason,” Parker says gruffly into my ear as I try to lungeat the oddly grinning man standing with a self-satisfied smile in my entranceway. “Alexis said it was fine.”
“He turned Reid’s stomach into ground beef!”
The man lifts one hand. “I was paid to turn your brother into ground beef. It was not because I wanted to, do you understand?”
Reid screams behind me, and Parker just squeezes his arms tighter around me, enough to make me focus on him and nothing else.
“Excuse us for a moment,” Parker says with false cheer.
“Okay.”
Parker drags me backward toward the backyard, where Dante is already wrangling an extremely pissed-off-looking Reid. If I didn’t know better, I would think Reid was going to bite. Hayden follows us all outside with a bored sort of look, that damn neon cast hanging limp at his side.
“You guys put on a fun show, little psychos.” Hayden tosses himself into a chair and stares up at the sky in exhaustion. “Robin hasn’t said anything, but Alexis said Claude is legit so… we go with it.” Hayden turns his head to fix me and Reid with a stern stare as our boyfriends hold us tight. “Can your minders let you go or are you going to commit a felony against that kind Russian in there?”
“Kind!” Reid exclaims in shock. “I’ll show you fucking kind! He tore me to pieces!”
Hayden rolls his eyes. “And now we must play besties. Well? Can you both behave?”
Reid goes to make what I assume is another snipe, but I whistle out of the corner of my mouth, forcing him to turn my way. We stare at each other for a fraught moment before I lift my arm over Parker’s to sweetly tap my nose. The corner of Reid’s mouth quirks up in a frustrated tilt of a smile.
“Jeez, Mason, teach me your ways,” Dante says with a smile.
Reid elbows him in the ribs, making him yelp and let Reid go. “You did not defend my honor.”
“I was too busy ensuring you don’t go to prison, sue me.”
Reid gives Dante the stink eye, then warily joins Hayden at the seating area. Parker is not so quick to let me go. He grips my chin, tilting my face so he can look into my eyes. That smile I love so much covers his face, making me feel safe and secure in the circle of his arms.
“You gonna be okay, baby?”
“I won’t murder him, I promise.”
“No bodily harm either,” Parker amends with a proud smirk.
With a pained sigh, I tilt the rest of the way to press my lips to his and kiss him softly in promise to not inflict bodily harm onto Claude. Although I want to, very badly. But if anyone deserves to be able to, it would be Reid, so I’ll leave that up to him.
A knock on the sliding glass door grabs all our attention. Claude is standing on the other side with a terrifying little smile, one hand tucked into the front pocket of his jeans, the other resting on the glass like a bored child being asked to be let back inside. Jesus. Who is this guy?
Hayden clears his throat and gives Parker a look I can’t parse, but Parker clearly understands because he lets me go, taking a moment to guide me into a chair beside Hayden. Again he pushes me down, with a look that clearly says stay, and I obey again because Parker usually knows best. I watch with bated breath as Parker heads to the door, slides it open, then invites Claude out with a flourish of his hand.
