Page 111 of Tactically Acquired

I stared at them with wide eyes as Spencer gripped my hand tightly beside me. When we came to sit in the living room with some coffee, we didn’t exactly picture three men walking through the door, talking about all the ways they were going to die.

A loud whistle pierced the air, followed by a petite woman who shook her head at all of them. “Can you all stop? Geez, it was bad enough I had to listen to it on the flight.”

She did a double-take when she saw Spencer and me sitting on the couch. “Oh my gosh! You’re Audrey. You’re actually here!” She rushed over to me and sat down beside me, grinning at me like I was her new best friend. “When I told Zoe I was flying out to see you, she was so jealous.”

“Um…thanks?”

“No problem,” she laughed. “God, this is so surreal. Not that you’re better than meeting God. That would be weird to think about.” She frowned, then smiled up at me again, shoving her hand out for me to take. “I’m Christa. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Audrey.”

“I knew that,” she laughed again. “Sorry, I’m not usually like this. Normally, I’m much calmer, but this is my first time meeting a celebrity.”

“Hey!” one of the men said, a frown filling his face. “What about Anna?”

Christa glanced over her shoulder, barely sparing him a look. “Anna doesn’t like being famous. Besides, she’s not in movies anymore.”

“Okay, then what about Juliette?”

“Juliette hardly does any modeling,” the woman argued. “Again, she’s done with the whole fame thing. But Audrey, she’s still in the business.”

“Still,” the man grumbled, kicking his toe on the ground like a toddler. “Just doesn’t seem right you would push aside all your friends like that.”

Christa rolled her eyes, turning back to me. “Anyway, I’m Christa, and that,” she said, pointing at a man in a straw hat with a cigar sticking out of his mouth, “is my husband Max. He’s a pilot.”

“The one who almost got you killed?” I asked.

“I wasn’t nearly sober enough to get them killed,” he grumbled. “Trust me, if that was my plan, I wouldn’t have had a drop of liquor this morning.”

She grinned at him, then pointed to the man who was kicking the floor with his toe. “That’s Fox. He’s married to Anna.” She held her hand up to her mouth to whisper. “Anna Brooks.”

My eyebrows shot up at that, and then my eyes darted over to the man. “You’re married to Anna Brooks? The actress who took out the man who tried to kill her?” Holy shit, that woman was my idol.

“She’s pretty badass,” he grinned.

I studied him for a moment, the quirky grin on his face and the dangerous look in his eyes that bordered on psychotically playful. This was the man who took Anna Brooks away from her seemingly charmed life in Hollywood, and saved her from a killer.

A shiver raced over my body at the sight of him. Yeah, I could definitely see the appeal. And then he pulled out something that looked suspiciously like weeds out of a tin from his back pocket and started chewing on them.

Okay, maybe not so appealing.

“And that’s FNG. He’s married to Honey— she was some kind of cartel princess. We’ve never gotten the full story because he can’t manage to finish telling any of them.”

“That’s not fair,” FNG growled. “If you didn’t keep asking questions, I could get through a story.”

“Yeah?” Christa said, turning to face him. “Then tell us right now what really happened in Cuba.”

FNG let out a mocking laugh. “Like you could handle what happened in Cuba.”

“Try us.”

“Alright,” Thumper said, walking into the room. “As much as we’d all love to hear another unfinished story by FNG, we have a few more important things to think about.”

“Right, the whole famous actors on the run thing,” Fox said, now munching on Funyuns.

Where the hell did he get a bag of Funyuns?

“Spencer, Audrey. This is Max, Fox, and FNG,” he said, pointing to each of them. “And the woman next to you is Christa.”

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