Page 4 of Kade

“Yup.”

Kade thanked him and took the file folder to study in-depth later. How the fuck was he going to tell Angel this after he’d promised her they’d go? Shit, shit, shit.

“What stuck a hornet up your ass?”

Kade looked up to see his younger brother, Nikoli, standing in the doorway to his sort of put-together office. At least it had chairs and a desk. Nik looked exactly like him, so much so they could be twins. Dark hair, black eyes, and a swagger that suggested more confidence than anyone had a right to possess.

“My wife.”

“What did you do now?” Nikoli strolled into the room and sat down. He and Angel were friends—more than friends, really. They considered each other family. She took care of him when he’d come into her bar drunk. Nik had no idea she was married to him. Hell, neither had Angel at the time, since he’d forgotten to file the divorce papers. She’d looked after Nik because she knew he was Kade’s brother. Once Nik found out she was his sister-in-law, he’d gone into super over-protective mode. All his brothers had, really. They didn’t have sisters growing up. The poor girl would have killed them, more likely than not, but the men were more than making up for it with Nik’s Lily, Dimitri’s Becca, and his Angel.

“Wipe the grin off your face and tell me what you did to my girl.”

The steel in the boy’s voice made Kade laugh. Nik was the most protective of all of them. He would sacrifice anything for the girls, especially Lily and Angel. They didn’t know Becca that well yet, but they were working on it, especially since she’d convinced Dimitri to leave sunny LA to move to snowy New York. Having grown up in Russia, Dimitri had been determined to escape the cold, but Becca hated LA, so he’d packed up his stuff and moved to New York. Amazing what their women could make them do.

“I didn’t do anything,brat.” He leaned back and cracked his knuckles. “I just have to tell her we can’t go to Miami.”

“Why not?” Nik checked his phone, frowning.

“I had Dylan check it out, and my name is still pretty high on their hit list.”

“Shit.”

“There’s more.” He rubbed his temples, the headache starting to bloom. “They’re here in New York. If they see me or Angel, we could be in a shit storm of trouble.”

“Are you fucking serious?” His brother’s eyes went hard and mean, reminding him of Conner, Viktor’s twin. Something had happened to him in Afghanistan, and he was harder, cold.

Kade nodded, suddenly feeling weary. “Dylan thinks just walking outside is too much of a risk. These people are brutal bastards, Nik. The things they would do to Angel…” He trailed off, shaking his head. It was too horrific to even contemplate.

“She needs security around the clock. I’ll pay for it myself.”

“Nik, it’s not just Angel. To get to me, they’ll go through my family. We’re all in danger, even Lily and Becca.”

He winced at the string of curse words that left his brother’s mouth. He had no idea Nik knew so many expletives. It came out in a mixture of Russian and English.

“How many men can we spare here?” Nik asked once he’d calmed down.

“Three, maybe four. We have everyone on cases. I’ll have to pull people just to get those three or four.”

“I’ll hire outside security, and your guys can supervise them. The women need round-the-clock protection.”

Normally, Kade would have told Nikoli no, but when it came to Angel, he swallowed his pride and did what needed to be done. His little brother was a millionaire, owning his own gaming company that put out a lot of popular titles. The boy could buy and sell as many security companies as he wanted. Kade made good money, but nothing like Nik. It irked him that the kid could do more for his wife than Kade could. This, though? He’d get no arguments out of Kade for providing security to their girls.

“I appreciate that, Nikoli.”

“Where are you?”

The cold bite in Nik’s voice startled Kade.

“Stay there until I get home. We have a situation. I mean it, Lily Bells. Do not go out. Hell, don’t even go near the windows.” There was a pause in which Kade assumed Lily ripped his brother a new one because of the wince that floated across face. “Now, Lily Bells…” He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it, dumbstruck. “She hung up on me.”

“If I spoke to Angel in the tone you just did to your woman, she’d do more than hang up on me. She’d lock me out of the apartment and withhold sex for a year.” He smirked at the boy’s alarm. “If I were you, I’d take flowers and wine home, apologize, and then show her how much I loved her.”

“Screw her until she forgets how big of an ass I can be, you mean?”

Kade nodded, grinning when Nikoli excused himself and headed home, his phone out to tell Dimitri what was going on and that he’d be sending security for Becca. The kid was in for it when he got home. Lily was the sweetest person he knew, including his wife, but the woman had a mean streak a mile wide. He almost pitied Nik. Almost.

But that brought him back around to his own problem. Angel was going to be pissed, and she was meaner than Lily and his mother combined. The first call he made was to Jasper Watkins. He’d been Angel’s guard during the serial killer scare, and she might not object so hard if her new guard was someone she knew. Besides, Jasper was the best they had when it came to a bodyguard. No one was better.

---