Page 40 of Barristers & Bones

“Damn, their stripper stories are funny as shit,” Sylvie muttered.

“Did we really agree to take pole dancing lessons?” I asked.

“Yep, I think we did. You wouldn’t shut up, and we might still be a little buzzed.” She wasn’t wrong.

Ezra invited us to dinner on Monday night, and all the cousins were there. I sighed when Fenn and Declan started in about Roman before we’d even dished up our plates.

“You seem to spend a lot of time with your mentor. Is there something you want to tell us?” Declan asked mildly while he dished up several helpings of lasagna.

Sylvie pointed her fork at him. “Hey, Porky Pig. Save some for us.”

“Here, have some garlic bread.” Fenn tossed a piece of bread on her plate. “Yeah, Lou. What the fuck’s going on, and why’d he sound like a jealous boyfriend at Thanksgiving?”

My back went up. “He didn’t sound like a jealous boyfriend, and it’s not like Iwantedto do my internship with him, okay?”

Declan finally passed the lasagna. “I’ve never heard of an attorney picking up their intern and driving them to work. You sure nothing’s going on?”

Kilian dished himself some salad and shook his head. “Leave her alone, it’s none of our business.”

My heart warmed at him defending me. “Thank you, Kilian.”

He kept going. “If she wants to get involved with her mentor, she’s old enough to clean up her own fuckups now.”

I sighed and took the salad bowl from him. Protesting my innocence wouldn’t do any good; I just needed to ride it out and wait until they changed the subject.

Fenn nodded. “Why is it you and Sylvie are always up to your eyeballs in trouble, and it always turns into a big fucking mess?”

“We are not, asshole. You’re the one sitting there with a black eye and a split lip,” Sylvie retorted.

“Yeah, but my messes usually don’t require a full clean-up crew and new paint and carpet.”

Callum winced. “That was disgusting, I didn’t know a head could explode that way.”

I set my fork down and sighed. “I was only fourteen, okay? It’s been over ten years, and you guysstillthrow that in my face.”

Sylvie nodded. “It’s not like we ask for it, and you can’t blame us since you’re the ones who taught us how to shoot.”

Fenn grimaced. “Yeah, but I didn’t know you were going to shoot a man in the gut and splatter his head against your bedroom wall. It was a fucking mess–no drop sheet, no clean kill, no exit strategy.”

Alexa set her fork down and pushed her plate back. “Maybe you could wait untilafterwe eat our lasagna to take this trip down memory lane.”

Ezra reached over and patted her hand. “Unfortunately, they have the manners of troglodytes.”

Sylvie glared at Fenn. “Well, she didn’t know how to make a clean kill back then, and I didn’t have access to a cremator.”

“True. That has come in handy a few times,” he admitted.

My father sent a hitman to kill me when I was fourteen years old. I should have seen it coming, and I didn’t know for certain, but I thought it was my mother who’d warned me. An envelope with no return address showed up one day containing a scribbled note on the back of a business card for an exclusive hair salon in Phoenix. The note saidHe took a K out on you.I’d had to google what “K” stood for–it was short for a contract.

Three days later, a man entered my bedroom window at Ezra’s house. When he straightened, I shot him. I’d meant to shoot him in the chest, but hit his groin instead. He’d stumbled and howled in pain before coming after me again. Even though my breath was coming in short gasps, I steadied myself and remembered what Kilian had drilled into me.If you want to incapacitate or kill someone quickly, aim for their head.

The second shot hit true. Blood, bone, and brain matter splatted across the wall behind the dead man. Sylvie ran into my room when she heard the shots, and I clearly remembered theBart Simpsont-shirt she had on that night. Without his hearing aids in, Ezra had slept through the whole thing so we called Fenn to help us.

When he walked into my room that night and saw the carnage, Fenn had exhaled slowly and put his hands on his hips. “We’re done fucking around here. I don’t care how young you two are, you’re officially part of the House of Spades. Now quit bawling and pull yourselves together, we need to get a cleanup crew in here.”

The hitman had anAssassin’s Creedtattoo on his forearm, which I thought was unoriginal. Fenn casually cut off the man’s arm and prepared a package for my father. He sent the arm and paper copies of bank account statements I’d stolen and delivered them to my parents’ doorstep in Phoenix. My father had apparently gotten the message because he hadn’t tried anything since.

Sylvie and I stared at each other now as we relived that horrible night. “That was…”

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