Page 173 of Mended Hearts

“I will,” he promised, the words tight and raw. “I swear, I will. Just get inside. Get to Captain Reynolds. I love you.”

“I love you too.” The fear bled into my voice, no matter how hard I tried to keep it from the kids. I stood from the patio chair, smoothing my face, swallowing my panic, and heading back toward them with measured steps.

“Wait for me there, Trouble.”

“Kay.”

26

Fight Naked

OLIVER

“Let me get this fucking straight,” Leighton said, about an hour later. Her tone was deceptively calm—terrifyingly so. But her eyes gave it away, flashing with uncontained rage. “You”—she jabbed a finger at my brother, where he sat braced behind his desk—“fund and oversee a covert,illegalmercenary ring with a name that sounds like some dumbass teenage boy’s street hockey team.”

“Thunderstrike,” Greyson muttered against his clasped fists, elbows braced on the desk’s polished wood.

“Essentially, you’re the dollar store equivalent of Bruce fucking Wayne—only with a whole motherfucking team. And you’re fighting some equally bullshit covert group of psychopaths who use their secret powers for evil instead of good.”

“Obsidian,” he added, not catching the fucking hint.

Leighton’s fists clenched at her sides. Her knuckles blanched white as her body started to shake.

“Andyou,” she snapped, eyes cutting toward her sister, nostrils flaring, “fucking lied to me. Formonths, sissy.” Her furious blue-grays hesitated on Alice’s bowed head, then lifted to mine.

I hadn’t moved. Just stood there, statue-still, one arm folded under the other, propping up my chin with a clenched fist like it was the only thing holding me together.

“Youtoo,” she breathed. “You’ve all been fucking lying to me.”

“Trouble, I?—”

“Save it.” She sliced me off without looking, then turned her fury back to Alice. “It wasmein that car with you.Methat almost died. Me that scrambled through that goddamn SUV as it fucking sank in that frozen fucking water to save that idiot—” she flung an arm toward Captain Reynolds, who smirked incrementally from where he leaned against the study door.

“Thanks for that,” he muttered.

“You’re fucking welcome. You’d be even more welcome if any of you had been honest with me. Like I couldn’t handle it or something? You three paint a target on our entire family and think I’m better off in the goddamn dark?!”

“Leighton,” Greyson started.

She slammed her hands on his desk. The sound cracked through the room, sharp and final. Death burned in her eyes as they locked on his face.

“You, of all people, Greyson Hart, disappoint me the most. You’re the one who kept me in the dark, are you not?”

“It’s classified.”

“Bullshit,” she snarled. “Youclassified it. You should’ve unclassified it when I hauled Tillie out of that fucking car and to shore. You should’ve unclassified it when the twelve of us were huddled in that goddamn waiting room, not knowing if Alice would come back through those double doors.”

My throat tightened. My eyes flicked to Alice as she wet her lips. She had almost died—because she refused to let them treat her until she was sure Jackson, Tillie, and Leighton were safe.

Greyson had almost lost the only person who’d ever cracked him open.

He sucked in a long breath, shoulders back as he leaned into the chair and laced his fingers over his stomach. Calm, precise—until you noticed the twitch in his jaw. Then he stared straight into the eyes of the very pregnant, very pissed-off woman across from him.

“You’re right.”

Two words. That’s all it took. Her spine straightened. Hands dropped to her sides. Her mouth parted, stunned.

“What?” she whispered.

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