Page 33 of Shark’s Pride

“Maybe a relative’s number?”

“I just explained that too,” she retorted, and the tuning fork chin returned. “I don’t have any family.”

Without faltering my stance or my tone, I leveled, “Well, you can’t expect me to just let you disappear again.”

“Seriously?” She forced a laugh. “Why not, Shark? Who am I to you?”

I knew how I wanted to answer that. Instead, pretty damn sure I would kick myself for this later, I said, “You’ll stay here, then.”

She turned that glassy gaze into a lemur-worthy gawk. “Huh?”

Even Abbi whipped around, her green eyes huge and gorgeous with surprise. “Sebastian?”

“Not in here,” I growled. “But in the pool house for a few nights. Until you feel safer and are ready to move on.”

But as the words spilled, I instantly tagged them for their special brand of bullshit. My place on the World’s Biggest Bastards list was safe. I had no idea what possessed me to make the offer, but it wasn’t from any magnanimous notion about her well-being. It had more to do with preventing her from slipping through my fingers before Elijah could interrogate her properly.

“I…I don’t know about this…” Tawny hugged herself while taking a step toward Abbigail and me. Before she froze again. Then slowly turned back toward the patio windows.

In response, Abbigail and I did the same.

“What is it?” Abbi asked.

Tawny stepped backward. I was about to counter by rolling my eyes—could the woman be any more melodramatic?—but I was more preoccupied with how she swung her chin to her right and stared harder out the windows, across the pool deck. There was a crazy urgency to her motion—almost a fear—that made me nudge Abbi back from where she still stood between my legs, allowing me to stand and get a better view out the window.

“What in the actual fuck is that?” Tawny added to my trepidation with her careful, almost fearful, enunciation.

At first, I had no answer for that—and the realization was comforting. Maybe the woman was truly strung out and had simply cloaked it better before now. All I saw was a vibrating dark haze, standing out in the perfect cerulean morning sky. Most of the lots in the neighborhood opened up on the backside to unincorporated county land. It wasn’t unusual for wildlife to stray into the boundaries of the housing development.

“Looks like a murder of crows,” I said, ducking down to see past the valances that lined the kitchen windows. “There’s probably a dead animal close by, and they’re looking for breakfast.”

I turned back toward the spot where the women stood.

And came face-to-face with both their horrified looks.

“What?” I scooped up Abbigail’s empty mug and walked it to the sink while I explained the situation. “It’s nature, ladies. The circle of life and all that shit. It’s not a big—”

“They’re getting closer!” Tawny was now nearly flattened against the French doors that led out to the pool deck, still fixated on the circling birds. “Look.”

“Oh, for the love of—”

But this time, I interrupted myself.

While at the sink, I could see clearly across the pool deck. I didn’t want to alarm either of them, but it became gruesomely apparent what the scavenger birds were feasting on. And Tawny was right. Horrifically so. The object wasn’t beyond the property line. It was in my own backyard. Right on my goddamned pool deck, as a matter of fact.

“Stay inside.” I issued the command before covering the distance between the sink and the back door in two long strides. I whooshed the door open, and a dozen blackbirds took flight from their carcass feast lying on the patio.

When I stopped abruptly, Abbigail collided into my back, trailing so tightly on my heels she didn’t have time to stop. I whirled and hissed, “I said to stay inside!”

“What’s going on?”

“Damn it, Abbigail.”

“Oh, come on!” She clearly had no intention of retreating. Worse, Tawny followed right behind her. Damn headstrong women.

I muttered several colorful incarnations of my favorite profanity, but taking the time to rip out appliance cords and tie them both down wasn’t a luxury right now. Not with what I had to contend with here. Which, after years of handling complex contracts, tricky negotiations, a thousand hostile competitors, and one delightfully spirited niece, wasn’t ever on my radar of possible “situations” to face.

As we carefully approached the enormous, gray, bloated, and foul-smelling tiger shark sprawled across the pool deck, the remaining crows dispersed in a flurry. Wings flapping and batting, their caws rang off the stucco of the surrounding mansions.