Page 12

Chapter

Twelve

GRACE

W ith just four hours to go on the clock, Bones drove us up toward a stucco and clay house with shuttered windows painted a dull blue. It perched at the edge of the Rh?ne, south of Arles. While it seemed isolated, it was close enough to the city to keep it from being truly isolated.

Bones didn’t bother with Goblin’s leash here, just opened the door and let him get out to run.

The puppy was the happiest I’d seen him in the past few days.

He rolled, wiggled, and dashed around. Not that he went too far or ever got out of sight.

No, he checked on us frequently and kept coming back before ranging out again.

“It’s almost like he’s scouting,” I said, shielding my eyes from the sun. It had put on an appearance after a couple of truly gray days.

“He is.” Bones hadn’t retrieved the bags yet. “Give me a moment to clear the house.”

He didn’t wait for a response. Frankly, he didn’t have to. I waited close enough to use the car for cover. I also had my taser in the pocket of my hoodie. The night before, I’d gone to sleep with him wrapped around me. Different hotel, still with only one bed.

We hadn’t discussed how he’d held me or how he’d wrenched orgasm after orgasm out of me until I’d finally slept and slept deeply. Nope, we just got up and acted like nothing happened. I wasn’t sure whether he didn’t want to talk about it or if it wasn’t that big a deal or what.

Maybe I was being a coward, but I didn’t want to be more of a girl than I’d already been.

He’d helped me. And it had helped. Maybe that just had to be enough.

But when we got to the new hotel, we didn’t follow up then.

He just wrapped around me and settled me in place and then—I was out like a light.

“Clear,” Bones said from the door and I sighed.

“On my way.” I detoured to the back of the car and opened the trunk. I’d barely gotten one of the bags out before he took it and the other from me. He whistled and Goblin came trotting back.

Inside it smelled like dried lavender, hints of lemon, furniture polish, and linseed oil. The furniture was sturdy wood and very clean. The curtains were closed, but they weren’t dusty. While it looked lived in, it didn’t look like anyone was there now.

“Whose place is this?” I asked, more to add some sound to the silence than because I wanted to know. Though, I wouldn’t mind knowing.

“A friend.”

Helpful. A direct non-answer. I had to admire it.

“Rooms are upstairs,” he said. “Three up, one down here. You can take your pick. Two full baths up there, just a water closet down here.”

Take my pick.

He set the bags on the old oak table in the corner, then moved around the kitchen taking an inventory. Someone had stocked it with food. There was fresh looking items in the fridge too. The place had to have a caretaker of some kind. Made sense.

I licked my lips. “Do they have laundry machines?”

“They do,” he said, twisting to glance at me. “Good idea. Probably need to wash what clothes we have. I’ll take care of it.”

That wasn’t what I meant but he was on the move again. “I’ll go check the rooms…”

“Sounds good. I’ll start coffee soon. We have supplies for sandwiches.”

“I’ll make something when I come back down.” Not waiting for his response, I took the stairs two at a time. Goblin trotted right along with me.

As promised, there were three bedrooms upstairs. One of the bathrooms was an old school Jack and Jill with a door to the hall too. The third bedroom had an ensuite and it jutted out over the kitchen below but the ceiling seriously slanted on this side.

The bed was a queen. They were all queens. Like below it was clean, dust-free, even if the linens were a bit frillier than I would expect for the guys. Who said they had anything to do with the decorating?

Honestly, I didn’t care where I slept. I guess we wouldn’t have to share tonight and he probably wasn’t getting a lot of sleep with babysitting me. Voodoo would be here… so would Alphabet.

“You’re going to like that, aren’t you?” I asked Goblin. For his part, the dog sat there tail thumping as he watched me. I finally went for the ensuite because at least then I didn’t have to worry about running into someone in the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Yeah, that’s why you’re picking it . My inner snark was not impressed. Well, she could just shut up.

I took some time to wash my face and hands in the bathroom. Then I eyed myself. There were shadows beneath my eyes. I could pack for a fortnight in the luggage I had there. My hair was more than a little wispy, and looked kind of sad.

The cut on my neck had mostly closed. The other bruises and bumps I had were fading to a sickly yellow-green or had finally begun to disappear. Hiding in the bedroom was not a good plan.

One, I already felt like a coward. Two, I really was hungry. So, Bones and I should talk before the guys got here. Having sex with Voodoo and Alphabet when they both not only knew about the other but seemed very okay with it was one thing.

Bones and me? Well, that wasn’t a thing-thing. At least, I don’t think it was a thing. We were just starting to not hate each other. Goblin bumped my leg.

“Right, I’m circling. Let’s go find food.” The scent of coffee drifted upstairs. “Coffee too.”

Bones was in the kitchen, shirtless and with his gun holster prominently displayed. Coffee brewed and hissed. He had food set out on the counter—sandwich fixings—and he moved around like a machine getting things done.

“Can I help?”

He just shook his head at the offer. When the coffee was ready, he set out two mugs and filled them but his phone rang. The sound was enough to make me jump. Worry immediately plunged through me as he pulled it out of his pocket and scanned the screen.

“I have to take this.”

Coffee cup in one hand, phone in the other, he disappeared into the other room and then a door closed distantly. The downstairs bedroom? Maybe.

I set up my coffee how I liked it, then got to work assessing what we had for sandwiches.

I started building different types—roast beef and cheddar along with ham and swiss.

There was horseradish so I added that to about half the roast beef sandwiches and left the other half free.

I used butter on some of the ham sandwiches, and some spicy brown mustard on the others.

When I had four plates of sandwiches halved and stacked, I covered them up then started cleaning up the debris. I’d used all the bread and most of the cheddar. I’d also finished my coffee, so I poured another cup and there was no sign of Bones.

It was the better part of an hour before he emerged once more—once more wearing a shirt—and I had a fresh pot going. Bones eyed the sandwiches then me.

“I swapped the laundry too.” Since the washer had buzzed.

He nodded once, but said nothing as I leaned against the counter, arms folded and watched him. I’d had plenty of time to stew. Whatever this was, we should talk about it.

“You’re not going to say anything?”

Bones paused, then glanced at me. “About?”

“Us? The weather? Food? The call? I don’t know. Something more than the stony silence.”

Hands stilling on the sandwich, he paused to study me. I would give a year’s damn salary to know what the hell was going on in his head. Just a little peek would be worth it.

Goblin stood abruptly from where he’d been flopped at my feet. A door rattled and there was a knock. It carried from the front of the house. Unlike most dogs, Goblin didn’t start barking like mad. No, he went right behind Bones as the man stalked out of the kitchen to head for the door.

As frustrating as it was to be interrupted, excitement kindled in my belly.

They were here.

I lasted all of three seconds before I pushed away from the counter to follow. He hadn’t told me to wait and that was good. I didn’t want to wait.

The door swung inward just as I got there. The guys were just there, filling the doorway. Mud on their boots and looking a little bruised and battered. Voodoo’s hair was disheveled, but his eyes warmed the moment they lasered onto me.

Tension bled off of me like static.

They were here. They were safe.

Blowing out a breath, Voodoo strode across the open space in three strides. He pulled me into him, a fierce embrace of adrenaline-fueled intimacy. Yet, it was with infinite care that he pressed his forehead to mine.

“You good?” Two little words to sum up the past few days of separation.

“Now,” I admitted in a voice as low as his. I’d been okay. Bones had kept me okay. But I was so much better now that I could see all of them. Now that I could feel him.

He traced my jaw, the contact featherlight but it grounded me. The connection between us just sizzling back to life with a surge of power.

Goblin barked once, bolting across the space as Alphabet stepped inside. Dropping to one knee, he welcomed Goblin’s excited yips and rough play as the sweet puppy seemed determined to maul him with affection.

Still leaning into Voodoo, I drank in the sight of Alphabet’s laughing smile and the relief that seemed to radiate off both him and Goblin. When he glanced up at me, stripped-down tactical calm barely hid the fire in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Gracie.” The apology caught me off-guard, and it must have showed because he rose with care still petting Goblin. “I’m sorry we didn’t have time to read you in. I’m even more sorry that we didn’t find Amorette.”

My heart squeezed.

“Just—wanted to tell you that,” he said, exhaling a sharp breath like a man who could finally take a deep one again. He didn’t reach for me, but that was okay. Goblin was radiating happiness and I could see them both. It was enough.

As for his words? I planned to hold onto them as tightly as possible.

The last through the door was Lunchbox wearing a weary, but genuine smile. His knuckles were raw and scraped. There was a shadow of a bruise along his jaw. He dropped his bag, then closed the door behind him.

Gaze fixed on me, he nodded slowly then cut a look at Bones once before returning to me. “We need to eat. Kitchen stocked?”

“Yes,” I said, then added, “And I made sandwiches.”

His expression transformed into a kind of startled surprise. “Did you?”

“Don’t look so impressed,” I mimed a warning, even as Voodoo shifted, but only to stand with an arm around me so we could face them all. “They’re just sandwiches.”

“It’s food,” Alphabet declared with a laugh. “Let’s eat.”

“Status report,” Bones ordered as we adjourned to the kitchen.

The coffee was as much a siren for the guys as it had been for me.

They made short work of transferring the plates of sandwiches to the scarred farm table in the kitchen along with a carafe of coffee before they started another.

Lunchbox opened the fridge and pulled out large slabs of meat, then added some vegetables before he joined us.

It was fascinating to watch them move and split the story between the three of them as they brought Bones—and by default me—up to date. They covered the details of the attack at the house.

The men had been Gallo’s but they’d expected something like it and had planned for it. While Bones had indicated as much, I buried my irritation on the subject. Telling me wouldn’t have changed anything except, I’d probably have been on edge the whole time, so—not telling me was the way to go.

For now.

Alphabet picked up on the tracking data he’d put together just before the attack. “We knew that at least some of the sales had to be in Monaco, it just made sense and I’d gotten my first real bite. It took time to decode after that.”

“Gallo admitted that while he often participated in the auctions, he wasn’t one of the high bidders—twelve people who split the action between them, be it region, type of stock, or original location.

He admitted Grace was supposed to go through those channels and he’d put in the request for you specifically.

” Voodoo’s expression darkened on the last. He drifted his knuckles down my cheek.

“He’s dead now,” Lunchbox assured me.

“We should have made it hurt more,” was all Voodoo had to say on the subject.

“From Gallo we had the location of the auction and the time. We headed there directly,” Alphabet took up the story again. “I’d gotten a good chunk of it decrypted, at least the where . We just needed to get in.”

“Took a little finessing,” Lunchbox said with a shrug. “Some intimidation. Cracked a couple of heads, and Voodoo seduced the high roller—or pretended to let her seduce him and we were in.”

“I’m still working on names for all of them,” Alphabet said in between bites of his second sandwich. “We have IDs for some, they also know they were compromised but not how much.”

“Reznik,” Bones stated.

“Yes.” Voodoo rubbed a hand against my thigh, whether to soothe me or himself, I had no idea. Maybe both of us. “He’s a problem and one we will need to sort. It also means they’ll have our IDs and that could make problems for us getting to him.”

“Maybe,” Lunchbox said. “Maybe not. Depends on how we do our approach this time.”

“If we do an approach at all,” Bones said, his expression deeply thoughtful. “Hit and run might be a better option with him.”

“I have no doubts he’s got legitimate financial assets tied up in this mess.” Alphabet washed down his second sandwich with a long drink of coffee. “Once I pull those strings, we can start draining their nasty little pool.”

“We’re going to take them down?” I had to ask, I had to be sure because that was what it sounded like.

“One thread at a time,” Alphabet assured me.

“Or scorched earth and just blow the whole thing up,” Lunchbox said the last with a kind of feral smile. The glee in it made me want to smile at him even if he was referring to bloodshed and mayhem.

Yeah, I could totally smile about that.

“Just need to identify the best access point with the most leverage,” Voodoo stated. “Easier to get them if we can force them back together. Might be harder to manage that with the current situation.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Alphabet said.

“You just need bait,” I murmured. All four of them looked at me, the weight of their regard settled like heavy storm clouds filled to near bursting.

I didn’t shy away from any of them. Not the hesitation in Lunchbox’s eyes or the respect in Alphabet’s or the worry in Voodoo’s. The silence in Bones’ gray eyes held me though.

“I’m already the reason we’re in this,” I reminded them. They were in this because of me. Because they were helping me. So this was a we . “Let me be a weapon now, too.”

Bones pursed his lips, but he didn’t say no.

And he didn’t argue.