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Mathew chuckles. “I run an organisation that isn’t on the right side of the law. I’m surrounded by killers and other people who don’t shy away from violence. I sometimes go out to ‘take care’ of jobs myself, when my team either isn’t available or if it’s someplace they’d struggle to get into.” He looks at me, grinning. “Anything you’d like?”
I kiss his cheek. “A tour around the place?” I feel slightly nervous, especially since he’s been keeping us mostly in his bedroom since we got here.
He nods. “We’ll do that in the morning, once everyone has woken up and I can introduce you to the rest of the people who work and live here.” Then he looks at Caleb. “You?”
“Clothes.” Caleb grumbles. “I’d like to wear something else than a bathrobe.”
“But I like you in a bathrobe.” Mathew grins, then he smirks at the glowering look Caleb is giving him. “I’m taking care of that. If you walk around like that all the time, I probably wouldn’t be getting much work done.”
Before any of us can say anything more, there are loud footsteps in the hallway and angry voices.
Mathew slides me onto Caleb’s lap as he lunges for his desk and pulls a gun from one of the drawers before coming back over and dropping two knives onto the couch next to us.
He crouches behind the couch and we join him. My eyes on the door while Caleb scans the garden outside for movement.
The door to the office slams open and a group of men and women barge in, dressed in tactical gear and all carrying weapons, scanning the room before their eyes fall on us.
Then the one in the front lets out a sigh and pulls his mask off. It’s Derrick. “Fucking hell.” He sighs deep, like he’s trying to relax himself.
“It would have been nice if you replied to calls and messages. We thought they found some flaw in the security and had gotten to you.”
He makes a quick signal with his hand and the people behind him leave the office, probably off to tell the others that they found Mathew.
I purposefully relax my hand and put the knife next to me on the floor.
“Why?” Mathew stands up, walking over to his desk to put the gun away.
“What do you mean, a flaw in the security?” Caleb also stands up, putting his knife on the table next to the couch. “What flaw?”
Derrick’s eyes go from Caleb to Mathew and back, questioning, until Mathew jerks his head in Caleb’s direction and he decides to answer Caleb.
“We don’t know exactly. Tim just heard from one of the tech guys that they saw something strange in the security footage. They’re still trying to figure out what it is.”
He puts his finger to his ear, probably listening to an earpiece or something. “It looks like the system hasn’t been breached, but they still can’t explain what the strange thing was. They’re about to finish a sweep of the grounds, but haven’t found anything unusual.”
“Okay.” Mathew sits down behind his desk and checks his computer. “Thanks. Tell Timothy to send me the details as soon as he has them.”
I stare between them, my heart only slowly coming down. Fucking hell.
This is very different from how Caleb and I normally live, much more high-tech and lots more people involved.
Then Derrick freezes and his angry and heavy clove pheromones roll off him as he listens to his earpiece intently.
I grab for the knife again and Caleb has me in his arms in moments, also holding a knife, while Mathew is at our side in a flash, holding the gun.
“Fuck.” Derrick stares at us, his eyes wide, alarm in them. “Someone put a bounty on your heads. Tim just saw it. It just went up.”
Mathew makes a dismissive motion, almost relaxing. “They put a bounty on my head all the time.”
“Heads,”I whisper. “He saidheads. Plural.”
Derrick meets my eyes and nods. “Someone put a bounty on all three of you.”
My stomach drops and I feel sick.
No way.
No fucking way.
With Hubert dead, this was supposed to be over.
We were supposed to be safe.
We were supposed to be out of danger.
Are we going to have to run again?