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Trigger. Vice. Hitch. Hook. Her heartbeat did something unexpected. It stuttered. They weren’t just Nash’s brothers anymore. They werehers, too.
Nash opened the café door and motioned them in with mock ceremony. “The heroes have arrived.”
“Speak for yourself,” Hook said, ducking inside first with a grin and wind-tossed curls. “I’ve always been the lovable comic relief.”
Grace stood as they approached, her smile small but real.
Vice reached her first, all charm and smelling expensive and the kind of smirk that had to be illegal in several countries. “If this is what debriefs look like now, I’m filing a request for all future operations to end with lattes and beautiful women.”
Trigger rolled his eyes as he slid into a seat. “Jesus, Vice. Let her drink her coffee in peace.”
Grace blinked. “I’m a cyber whiz. I’ll program peace if I need it.”
Hitch cracked a smile, barely. “Hoo-boy. I like you already.”
Nash pulled out the chair beside her. Sat close. Close enough that his thigh brushed hers beneath the table. It wasn’t possessive. It was grounding.
She needed that today.
Hook dropped into a chair, nearly upsetting the sugar bowl, and leaned in with wide eyes. “Okay, but seriously,wasit really gone? GRAVITY, I mean? Like gone-gone?”
Grace hesitated.
Nash answered for her. “Destroyed.”
Trigger said nothing, just stared into his mug like it held the afterimage of a lost war.
Vice, uncharacteristically solemn, nodded once. “It gave him back to us.” He looked at Grace, all pretense stripped away. “You gave him back to us.”
The words landed like something sacred.
Nash reached over and threaded his fingers with hers beneath the table. “I didn’t know I needed saving,” he murmured.
She looked up at him. “That’s how it works. We never know until we’re already in too deep.”
Hook sniffed. “If anyone starts crying, I’m stealing their muffin.”
“Touch my muffin, and I’ll wire your toothbrush to a detonator,” Hitch said without inflection.
“Wait, we didn’t get any muffins,” Vice said, leaning back. “No muffins? That’s a tactical mistake.”
Hitch raised an eyebrow. “Tactical muffins...that’s almost kinky.”
Trigger didn’t look up from his coffee. “I’m not responding to that.”
Vice turned slowly toward Hook, his expression pure mischief. “You’re thinking about baking one, aren’t you? Sick bastard.”
Complete silence.
Then Grace, deadpan into the void. “Sick or not, that sounds amazing.”
Vice pointed at her like she’d just passed some elite operator litmus test. “First, it’s the red hair. Then it’s that steel trap of a mind. Then she gets our humor?” He looked at Nash. “Hey, brother, you wanna come to the range with me?”
Trigger didn’t even blink. “Don’t take him up on that. He’s got a bullet with your name on it.”
“God, I missed you freaks,” Nash muttered, shaking his head.
“No one threatens my man and gets away with it. You like that security clearance you have there, Vice? A few keystrokes will be all it takes.”