Page 60 of Secret Mission

Justice’s eyes narrow with his laugh.

He throws a wink my way. “I love pushing his buttons. So easy to rile him up. And boy, your brother, talk about a walking grenade.”

I wait to see how all this lands. Because truthfully, I know next to nothing about Truck and even less about his brother. But from what little I do know, Justice is on the mark about Axle.

“Did your brother leave?” Justice asks.

Truck nods tightly.

When we got off the boat and were loading the vehicles, Axle disappeared.

Truck withholds further comment about his brother, but stares at Beast. “Anyone else coming?”

“Scout’s finishing up with the prisoners. He’ll be here in a second.”

The tension grows as the room falls silent.

Glancing around, I try to put together the pieces of why these people are operating out of a ranch house on an agave farm. When I can’t take the crackling tension, I finally ask, “Who owns this place?”

Justice is quick to reply as he stands up. “Evan, one of our teammates, is engaged to the girl who grew up here. It is—was—is her family farm. It’s kind of a story. Agile owns it, she runs it.”

I’m more confused than ever.

“When’s Evan coming back, by the way?” another man asks as he walks into the room. He lifts his baseball cap and reseatsit on his thick hair as he pauses and looks at our clasped hands. “Well, that was fast.”

Justice laughs instantly from the kitchen where he’s getting a mug. “Pot calling kettle black.”

The other man flips him off.

“What?” Justice asks, his eyes alive with amusement. “Scout, you fell for Aria in four seconds flat, all that girl had to do was blink at you.”

The new guy kicks out a chair and drops his enormous, ripped body into it.

Where do they find these guys? They look like modern-day gladiators.

Beast snickers, surprising me.

Who knew he could make a sound like that?

“It was the taser,” he says.

“Oh, hell, not you too,” Scout mutters. “She didn’t taser me.”

Finally, Truck’s fingers ease the fierce grip on me as his body relaxes. He even joins the teasing with a chuckle. “Are you sure? I heard Beast found you out cold.”

“Fuck all of you.”

Truck leans in. “I wasn’t here, but Scout’s girl?—”

“Enough!” Scout bellows, shaking the windows in the small kitchen. “Ask Aria. She’ll settle this once and for all.”

The team leader jumps on this. “And where is your better half?”

My eyes ping-pong between the guys.

Their affection is very clear, even if the three of them couldn’t be more different.

Justice with his easy laughter. Beast with his commanding presence. And Scout with a hard edge and eyes clouded with secrets.