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I hurried back to the kitchen and pulled out my phone, attempting to look busy as she followed behind.

“Marco, are you free?”

He eyed her suspiciously. “Yes?”

“Can we spar?”

He shot me a look, but I quickly dropped my attention back to my screen.

“Sure.”

They disappeared, and I let out a sigh as I leaned against the counter and pulled up the food delivery app and found a highly rated Italian restaurant that could deliver somewhat quickly and put in my brothers’ orders before remembering to add hers.

When I finished, the silence alarmed me. The apartment hadn’t been this quiet since we moved in. No yelling. No TV. No one asking for me.

Is this what parents felt like when they had a moment to themselves?

I loved the guys. They were my family. But we’d been living together for over fifteen years—always on top of each other and in one another’s business. We knew this assignment would be different. We signed up understanding space would be tight, but that never bothered us before.

We were an excellent team. One built on trust, love, and respect. One that existed before the Pack ever officially hired us.

None of us were strangers to danger, pain, or loss. We wouldn’t know each other if we didn’t have that in common. After all, we came together in a place that was only for those with no other options. Too broken to be adopted. Too difficult to be fostered. Too dangerous to be around normal children.

Crockett County Boys Home was more of a prison than a house, but it was our salvation. It was the one place in the world where we belonged. The only safe space for boys like us.

It brought us pain and suffering worse than any child should know, but it also made us unbreakable.

If we hadn’t been there, together, the Pack never would have found us, saved us, and offered us a future we never could have created for ourselves.

So sharing a bathroom and beds was nothing new for us. It wouldn’t make the list of top one hundred worst things to happen.

And what would come next if we were successful? Unimaginable. Those four unwanted, unloved boys couldn’t have dreamed so big.

A pained grunt reached me, and I pushed away from the counter and reentered real life. Marco couldn’t injure or bruise Emilia this soon. She wouldn’t have enough time to recover before meeting the mark and couldn’t do that looking like she just got beat up.

I’d have to warn Cruz and Derek not to go too hard on her either.

“Say it!”

I nearly tripped over my feet when I saw Marco face-first on the ground, with Emilia straddling his thighs. She had his arms pinned under him while controlling his legs.

“Say it,” her voice dropped to a low growl.

I moved closer when Marco wheezed. What I thought was a knife was actually her index claw.

“What the hell?”

She didn’t react, but Marco attempted to turn his head toward me, earning a punch to his kidney with her free hand.

“Say it.” She was much too calm. She didn’t sound like she was straining at all to stay in control.

“Fuck you!”

“You wish,” she laughed.

The psycho actually laughed as she pressed her single elongated nail into his neck, millimeters under his carotid.

“Say it or I cut.”