Page 24 of Hell In A Handbasket
“Your wife. I remember.”
“Ellie,” he continues, pointing to the next. “You’ve met her.”
Yep. Sure have.“And Jen.” I hook a thumb over my shoulder. “I know her, too.”
“Mmhm.” He points toward another exceptionally large dude. “Romeo.He belongs to Ellie. And Corey,” he gestures to the next, “belongs to Jen.”
“So what you’re saying is you brought your wives on this dangerous mission?” I bring my gaze back to Jess. “It’s soooo dangerous that you all decided to come, too?”
“What we’re saying,” Corey rumbles, “is we’re vulnerable, too. So tell your Malones to cool their bad attitudes and calm the fuck down, or this is about to get real uncomfortable.”
“The fact you think I can control them is funny.” I startle at a hand placed on my back and glance over my shoulder to find Archer, his fiery eyes burning straight ahead, his stress lines, plain to see. “They mean you.” I swallow and back up until his chest holds my weight. Comfort for me. But comfort for him, too. “Sophia is the one pulling everyone’s strings today, but they’ve brought their families, too, which means you need to chill.”
“I’d be less unchill if we were summoned with truth,” he grumbles. “Telling my brothers we were in danger, which makes them worry, isnothow we enter peaceful interactions.”
“Yeah, but we’re all here now.” Soph strides along the sleep-aisle, all smiles and swinging hips, and though she brings Jay with her, she releases his hand so he can continue past to the—cockpit?—and start the bus. “Find a seat and settle in. We’re not supposed to move unless everyone is buckled in.”
“Can you even drive this?” Cato follows Jay to the front, dragging a captain’s chair around and revealing a dash overflowing with buttons and dials. Screens and sensors. “Jesus, Bishop. You need a special license for this?”
“I can drive an Abrams. I can drive this.” He plops into his bouncy chair and tugs the seatbelt across, then he hits that horn again—da-do-do-doo-doo—and beams. “Sit on your asses, or fall on ‘em. We gotta clear this driveway before the feds get pissy about airport interference.”
FLETCH
Hey. I’m just checking in. I know it’s not time to get Mia from school yet, but I’m kinda anxious about all this, so if you could over-communicate, that would be helpful.
Hey. We just landed. Checking in.
Sera. You’re okay, right? I don’t need entire conversations if you’re not comfortable with it.
But a thumbs up’ll help. Proof of life and all that.
Seraphina, I’m not trying to be that guy, but this whole situation makes me anxious, and you’re literally my baby’s safety net right now.
School’s out in twenty minutes. Don’t forget her, please. I’m begging you.
“Who are you stress texting?”
I slam my phone against my thigh and wrench my head around to lock eyes with not one, not even two, but three of Bishop’s women.
And Aubree.
Jess’s blue gaze swings from my phone to my eyes—her lips quirked in a high smile. “You’re texting a woman, but it’s not flirty and fun. It’s serious. Your girlfriend giving you trouble?”
“He doesn’t have a girlfriend,” Aubree teases. While the bus ambles away from the airport and onto a potholed road in the middle of a fucking cow field, she settles in on the seat beside mine and crosses one leg over the other. “He has a situation, a deceased ex-wife, and a little girl he’s a little obsessed with. He couldn’t bring her with us, since we’re working, which means she’s still in Copeland. And hissituation,a woman who wouldn’t even talk to him not so long ago, is supposed to be picking her up from kindergarten soon.”
“Aw.” Jess preens. “I have two little girls, too. We should get them together so they can play.”
“Blondie.” Kane sits across from us, his elbows on his knees and his eyes burning holes in the front of his wife’s face. When she brings her focus up, he merely shakes his head.
There will be no play dates between the cops and the criminals.
She waves him off. “I’ve heard such nice things about her already,” she continues, her inquisitive eyes dropping to my phone, though it remains infuriatingly silent. “I’ve walked in on more phone calls between Justin and Jen than I care to admit, and I swear, every single time, he’s waxing on about his friends in Copeland. Minka this, and Aubree that. Mia Fletcher is the cutest little bug he’s ever met besides his own granddaughter.”
“He laughs about Mia, though.” Jen folds in beside Aubree, half hugging her so she doesn’t fall off the end of the chair. “He seems to think Mia’s got it out for him. Like, she hates him or something.”
Text. Me. Dammit.
“I didn’t believe him at first, but he was saying how he was at the medical examiner’s office last week, and Mia just happened to be there, too. He said she was staring at him.”
