Page 42 of Veiled Vengeance

Asher gives her a mock glare. “That’s the only time you’ll get away with something like that.”

“I’m not interested in a repeat performance,” Zane adds.

“You can hit me anytime, Mama. Just don’t get mad when I fuck you raw against the wall.” I give her a wink.

“You’re impossible, Rio Flores.” She tries and fails to suppress a smile.

When we all get a flash of her perfect teeth, we attack. Asher holds her wrists, Zane tickles her stomach, and I go for her feet.

“Oh my God! Stop! Not fair!”

Her laughter rings in the air, filling the room with light.

“I’m going to pee on you!” Spencer threatens.

We all pull our hands away, panting.

“Wouldn’t be the first time you peed in front of me,” Asher remarks with a smirk.

“That wasn’t by choice!” Spencer retorts as a blush spreads across her cheeks and down the length of her soft neck. “Now, tell me what y’all were talking about with Berkowitz.”

“His name was on the list,” Zane repeats.

Spencer rolls her eyes. “Yes, yes, you said that already. I mean, what happened today?”

Asher fills her in. “I turned him in. He was arrested.”

“Oh . . . So you don’t . . . Umm . . .”

I snort. “No, Mama. We don’t kill everyone who breaks the law.” She nods her head. “Only some,” I add.

She scrunches her brows. “Okay, that makes sense.” Once she’s done puzzling out how we operate, she continues. “All right. Now what?”

Asher gathers Spencer in his arms. “Now we enjoy our evening together.”

“But what about tomorrow?”

Zane dips his head and kisses her neck tenderly. “We’ll deal with that together as well. And the next day and the next.”

“So, what’re we watching? Is that a documentary?” Asher makes himself more comfortable and places himself and Spencer under the blanket.

Spencer hums her confirmation. “Yes. It’s about John the Baptist.”

Asher and Zane groan, and I scoff at their contempt.

“What? I think this kind of thing is interesting.” Spencer defends her choice.

“Why would we watch a documentary about something we lived through?” Zane argues.

Spencer’s eyes light up. “Did you help catch him?”

The rest of the night we spend in bed, finishing the documentary, with Asher and Zane injecting their own comments into the mix. They give Spencer details that the documentary skimmed over or didn’t mention at all. Spencer is like a little girl on Christmas morning who got the pony she’d been hoping for. Asher and Zane eat our leftover Chinese takeout from lunch, and Spencer falls asleep as soon as the documentary ends. We quietly tuck ourselves in around her.

Spencer has become our center of gravity. We’ve always been drawn by this inexplicable need to be in her orbit, to exist where she exists.

She couldn’t get rid of us if she tried.

CHAPTER 17

---