Page 112 of Burdened Bonds

“Yeah,” he says, yawning.

“But can you take others with you?” I ask.

“I took Rhi,” he says.

“That’s one person. This would be four excluding yourself.”

He shrugs.

“Could you shoot us inside the house too?” Phoenix asks, hopefully, clearly still unhappy with my proposed plan.

“Better not to push my luck,” Barone says, and I conclude shooting four people with him across time and space is going to be harder than he’s making out.

“That’s decided then,” I say.

“No, it’s not,” Phoenix insists. “How do we take Barone with us?”

“You pretend you’re working together. That you captured Rhi together and you’re both handing her in to collect the reward.”

Phoenix laughs. “Me and him?” he says, thrusting histhumb in the assassin’s direction, the assassin peering up at him from his knife. “Working together? I don’t think so. Maybe your uncle will buy the fact I’m some money-hungry bastard with no morals. But he won’t believe I’m working withhim.”

“Phoenix,” I say, walking towards my friend, “the entire world has turned upside down. People are desperate out there. People are leaving their morals and their scruples at the door. There are men and women who have always despised my uncle, now licking his asshole. It isn’t so unbelievable.”

“And we are old friends, after all, right, Prof.?” My gaze flicks to the assassin. Old friends?

“We were never friends, Barone.”

“Friends?” I say. I thought I knew everything there was to know about my best friend. He’s certainly revealed his deepest darkest secrets to me and I’ve revealed the same to him. We’ve seen each other at our best and at our worst, at our downright lowest. But friends with Barone? That has never been mentioned before.

“Something to discuss later,” Rhi says. “Do you think that would work?” she asks Winnie. “Do you think Azlan is right, that they’d believe Stone and Renzo were working together to hand me over?”

Winnie leans on the table. Perhaps I should feel insulted that my mate doesn’t trust my judgment, but actually I can see she’s smart. She wants to gauge everyone’s opinion – like any good leader would – and Winnie is intelligent.

“It’s a crazy amount of money, Rhi. And people are motivated to do really crazy things by money like that. Plus, I think if anyone could use his charm and wit to fool Christopher Kennedy, it would be Stone.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, Miss Wence.”

“You can be rather charming when you’re not being a complete asshole,” Rhi tells him, smiling at him and, my friend, for all his bravado, sarcasm and downright grumpiness, can’t help but smile right back at her.

“Fine,” he says, utterly weak in the face of Rhi and what this girl wants, “fine, I’ll do it – I think it’s a crazy, stupid, completely ridiculous idea – but I’ll do it.”

“Surely by now, you’ve worked out that I am crazy, stupid and on occasion completely ridiculous.” Rhi walks up to him, balancing on her tiptoes, twining her arms around his neck and kissing him. “Thank you, Stone,” she says earnestly.

“Hey,” Renzo calls out. “How about me? Do I get a thank-you kiss too?”

“No,” Phoenix says, curling his arm around Rhi’s waist and kissing her right back.

When the kiss goes on for a little longer than is necessary, the pig starts snorting loudly and butting his snout against Rhi’s ankles.

“For fuck’s sake,” Phoenix mutters, glaring down at the pig as Rhi pulls away from him, “I preferred it when you were unconscious with a fever.”

“Ignore him, Pip,” Rhi says, “he was as concerned about you as the rest of us.” Phoenix looks at me with an expression that tells me he disagrees.

“Come on,” I say to them all, “let’s pack up. We can finalize the details of this plan on the drive to Los Magicos. We’ll take Winnie’s car.”

They all nod, filing out of the kitchen, Rhi cradling the pig in her arms. Only Phoenix remains.

“You do know this is madness,” he says with concernwhen we’re alone. “And it puts Rhi right in the heart of danger.”