My grin is an excited one, bordering the line of cruelty. “Sabotage.”
Chapter 15
Ezra
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“Should we be alarmedby how happy she looks right now?” Vyrian asks in a loud whisper, teasing.
For his benefit, I give my best villainous laugh, contorting the metal with ease. I’ve said for years that I would be the perfect fit working in the forge with my brothers, but they always had excuses. That this was manly work, that this was the only place they could get away from me. Bullshit of wanting to be the providers for the family. But now the gloves are off and I’m in my element.
Soren and Caius did a recon mission a few towns over to look into who’s been buying our weapons and what they’re doing with them. It looks like two of the neighboring cities not far off have been gearing up for war, but thankfully, with each other. The more we researched the leaders, the more it became clear where they stood politically and that signed one’s death warrant.
The neighboring city buys our weapons, marks up the cost, and then has been dealing with both of the feuding towns. It keeps us a few steps back from the fallout, but we have no illusions it won’t come back on us eventually. So, we needed to pick a side, and by default that means the one not advocating for rounding up women for genetic experimentation.
It also means my brothers can’t turn down my help because I can make this process go a hell of a lot faster. I may not have their technique and finesse, may not be able to make the same quality and beauty I adore in my weapons, but I can at least rush the process along and let the guys add the finishing touches.
We have two trucks outside we’re preloading since we told the main buyer we started doing delivery for large orders within a certain distance. Naturally, he freaked out, but tried to hide it. He started asking all sorts of questions to find out how far we go and how many other ‘loyal’ customers we’re dealing with these days.
The first truck will be taken to him. The second truck will be taken to the enemy’s city where we will charge regular price instead of inflated, ensuring he does business directly from us from now on. That’s the fun truck they put me in charge of; the sabotaged weapons.
I make sure they can stand up under initial scrutiny, but have weak cores and spots that won’t withstand a hard application of pressure. Primarily, I’m in charge of fucking up the process, which isn’t hard. Temperature plays a key role, so cooling something too quickly can cause microscopic stress fractures. Then I just coat the defective core in the proper metal and I let my brothers worry about the handles and such.
“Honestly, Yri, I was made for this. Ten points for heat resistance, am I right?”
He chuckles, kissing my temple as he passes by on his way back to work. There’s an unspoken rule that no one actually talks about the embarrassing or awkward shit and I love them for it. After the Soren incident, no one said a single word, though the stigma of keeping hands to ourselves has disappeared. Now, they don’t hesitate in their casual touches and I might actually appreciate that more.
Nope, totally lying, I want the orgasms.
Doing it yourself is one thing, but someone else doing it? Fuck, that’s addicting.
“Shit, why didn’t we train her to help again?” Kinsley tosses out there, struggling to keep up with me.
“Because she’s annoying?” Kaiden jabs, but his hands are flying just as quickly.
I scoff. “Because I make you look bad, you mean.”
