Page 9

“Are you okay?” Riot asks me, his hand moving to grab mine as he threads his fingers through mine, “You were in the gym for a long time this morning, and that’s not including however early it was that you left Jensen earlier.”
“Yeah, I’m okay. My brain was just doing that thing where it wouldn’t shut up, and it was making me antsy, so I decided I’d work it out, literally. It helped, and although I’m still annoyed that we can’t immediately start this case, we’d be in limbo with it regardless of whether it was Christmas or not because of Pete’s computer program needing to find all the locations and how long that’s going to take,” I reply.
“It’s frustrating us too, knowing that she’s potentially in trouble and we’re sitting here enjoying Christmas,” Luc says from beside Riot, having overheard our conversation. Determination fills his eyes as they meet mine, “but we will find her, and she will be okay.”
“I know, we’re damn good at what we do, and we’ve got Jynx and the guys helping us too, so we have some more reach through them into the criminal world since we’re not technically a part of that world anymore,” I reply.
“Exactly,” Luc smiles. “We also can’t do anything with Trick, Jensen, and Cash still healing because something tells me that this job is going to require all hands on deck.”
“Yeah, I think you’re definitely right with that,” Rafe replies and then nudges me to stand up, “I can feel your stomach rumbling, go and eat, we’ve got plenty of time to talk about everything to do with the case.”
“I don’t need to be told twice,” I tell him, kissing him again and then getting up and kissing Luc and Riot too, before going and kissing all of my men because why the hell not?
Before I take my seat between Atty and Trick and opposite Pete and Elijah, I kiss them both too, and the guys on either side of me start to load up my plate for me with all of my favourite foods. I’m still not used to how they care for me, and I should be by now since it’s been long enough. I don’t ever want to take it for granted though.
“Thank you guys,” I tell them both, as Pete gives me a raised eyebrow look from across the table.
“Where are Noel and the guys?” I ask Pete and Elijah.
“They’re doing last-minute shopping, I think,” Elijah tells us, and I smirk as Peter rolls his eyes.
“I told them that they needed to get it done sooner, but none of them listened to me,” he says, his voice full of disapproval, which makes my smile widen even more.
“They’ll listen next time, babe,” Elijah reassures him, making those of us who have overheard the conversation chuckle.
I then become thoroughly focused on my food because I’m damn starving. Eventually, I eat enough that I tune back into the conversation.
“Back with us now?” Peter questions with an amused smirk as he sips his coffee.
I don’t bother replying, but I do flip him the bird because damn him for knowing me so freaking well.
Atlas clears his throat, gaining my attention and stopping me from carrying on, giving Pete an unimpressed look as I turn to look at him instead and smile sweetly, which instantly has his lips twitching and fighting off a smirk.
“You know, you’re just damn cute when you do stuff like that?” Trick says, and I glance at him instead.
I smile angelically and say, “I know, and you’re welcome.”
“I’m welcome?” Trick questions, raising his eyebrow.
“I am aware that didn’t make much sense, but I’m sticking with it,” I reply with all the confidence in the world, making everyone who is sitting close enough to us laugh. Ignoring the laughter, I turn back to face Atty and ask, “Did you want to say something before we got rudely interrupted?”
Trick scoffs behind me as Atty smirks and then says, “Yes, I was going to say that Alaric hasn’t gotten back to me, but since they’re all going to be arriving in a few hours, I’m sure he’ll answer any questions we have about the whole Rylie thing then.”
“Yeah, I was hoping he would.” I reply, “I still can’t get over how connected we all are. I mean, even Jynx knows Rylie and knew her before we did. It’s just odd.”
“It’s fucking wild, but her being Mona’s daughter actually makes a lot of sense. She was skilled, and she wasn’t surprised by most of the shit that she found out about us; in fact, it almost amused her,” Cash says from the other side of Trick.
“Which makes sense because the stuff with Tomlinson would’ve seemed incredibly small compared to the shit that she was used to seeing and dealing with, and she had no idea about some of the other shit we got up to,” Atlas points out.
“It doesn’t explain why she said to me that she didn’t want me to contact her anymore though, if she was just going to ask Alaric for help and shit,” I muse, trying to make sense of it all.
“We won’t know what happened unless we ask her, and we’re not going to be able to ask her until we find her, and we can’t do that until after Christmas,” Cash says.
“I know, it’s just the more I think about it, the more questions that I have,” I reply with a frown as I take another sip of coffee.
“That’s understandable,” Trick replies, “we don’t know what could’ve happened between talking to you and us leaving her and her talking to Alaric.”
“That’s true,” Cash replies.