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T he door to the room flew open, startling Juliana. She jerked back, then quickly leaned forward when her chair teetered. Simon reached out and steadied it.

Monk paused in the opening, then grimaced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so…forceful.”

Her heart raced, but she managed a nod. Simon’s hand came up and rested on the nape of her neck again. He seemed to like touching her, and she definitely didn’t mind.

“Good timing,” Philly said. “Juls asked if we were going to sit around twiddling our thumbs while Leo and Griswold did their thing.”

Monk’s hooded gaze darted to her. “Uh, we’re not really the thumb-twiddling types.”

“Not unless asked, of course,” Philly added with an eyebrow waggle.

“ My thumbs don’t twiddle. Ever,” Viper said. “They move in a very smooth?—”

“Aaand enough of that,” Simon interrupted. Both he and Monk shot her an apologetic look. She shrugged, although truth be told, she was a little curious about what Viper had been going to say.

“I have records,” Monk said, holding up both a thumb drive and a paper file.

“Of?” she asked, reaching for the folder he offered her.

“A few things,” Monk replied. “You remember the list we drew up a few days ago? The one tracking the crime stats in areas where Gregor had development projects?”

“And whether those projects were helped along by Lowery’s land use support,” she said.

“That one,” he confirmed, taking a seat. “Some of those projects received federal funding so had government files on them. I also dug up records of what state-level development bills Lowery supported, a detailed analysis of the crimes we identified, and a summary of all internal affairs investigations into the SFPD.”

Juliana stared at the behemoth of a man. Not only were those the most words he’d spoken in one go, but they packed a punch. “Ah, okay. Wow. That’s quite a day’s work,” she said, casting a glance at Simon, silently asking if this was the normal course of business for them.

“We know a lot of people through the work we do,” he said.

“So let’s get a better picture of these fuckers,” Monk said, tossing the thumb drive onto the table. It slid across the smooth surface and bounced off Philly’s computer, coming to rest a few inches away. “Sorry about the language,” Monk added with a nod to her.

“I’m a librarian, not a nun. I’m not offended by words. At least, not those,” she said. “Now, who’s going to do what?”

After some bickering between Viper and Monk, they decided that she and Simon would review Lowery’s political activities, Viper the government records on the developments, and Philly and Monk would take both the analysis of the crimes and the internal investigations.

They were deep in the thick of it when a knock came at the door, followed by Dottie poking her head in. “Dinner’s on,” she said. “Salmon, corn, potato salad, and fresh bread.”

Viper and Philly shoved back from their seats. “Sorry, we have to get there before Superman and Lovell. I swear those dudes are part bear,” Philly said as the two dashed out.

“Bear?” Juliana asked.

“They like fish,” Dottie explained. “So does Hawkeye, but he’s deployed right now. You going to join us?”

She glanced at Simon, who appeared in the middle of a silent conversation with Monk. A beat later, Monk rose. “We’ll finish this up tomorrow. Ten o’clock?”

Simon nodded, and Dottie stepped to the side to let him pass. “What about you two?”

“Can we take some to go?” Simon asked. “It’s been a day, and I wouldn’t mind getting home.”

Dottie’s gaze darted to her, her expression softening. “Of course. Give me five minutes and I’ll wrap some up for you,” she said before letting the door close.

“It’s amazing that you have someone that cooks for you all,” Juliana said, shuffling the papers they’d been looking at.

“She loves it,” Simon said. “We pay her, of course, but she was the one who came up with the idea all those years ago. We were setting up here, getting businesses going, getting familiar with the network we work with that connected us to her in the first place. All of us came from backgrounds as dysfunctional as mine, although in different ways, and then all of us joined the military at eighteen. We can clean like the devil, but none of us had ever learned how to cook. And she felt safe here. Probably for the first time in decades.”

“Then it was a win-win all around,” she said, tucking the papers into the file. “Should we leave all this here?” she asked, gesturing to all the research.

Simon nodded. “Only people I trust will come in here.”

Juliana preceded Simon into the hall then immediately drew back, almost stepping on his toes. His hand came to rest on her hip and he leaned forward. “Everyone except Hawkeye is here. It can get loud.”

Her stomach fluttered at the thought of walking into a room filled with Falcons. All of Simon’s closest friends—his brothers. Except Hawkeye, of course. “I thought you all discharged. Why’s he deployed?” she asked, buying time.

“He’s a medic. He stayed in the reserves in a training capacity. One weekend a month, he trains reserve medics, and twice a year, he’s deployed for six weeks. This year is unusual, though. He was gone all of May and the first part of June, and he just left again about two weeks ago. Normally, his second deployment starts in September. Are you nervous about meeting everyone?”

She winced. “A little.”

“You’ve already met Mantis, Monk, Philly, and Viper.”

“That leaves nine others, excluding you and Hawkeye. And all at the same time.”

He remained silent, letting her come to her own decision.

Mustering her courage, she took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, let’s do it,” she said.

He chuckled under his breath. “I promise, you’re not walking into a den of lions.”

A den of lions, no, but a pack of huge, fit, good-looking, and mostly tatted up men, yes. Never in her entire life had she felt small, but the Falcon’s Rest guys gave her a glimpse into what it must be like for most women who were dwarfed by men. And as they all walked over to meet her, she couldn’t help feeling like a mouse. Not that they were predators—they all came forward with smiles—she’d just never had that much man and muscle focused on her at one time.

To her surprise, Simon stepped back and let Philly do the introductions. He slung a brotherly arm around her shoulder, grinned, and called out, “Everyone, meet Juliana Morganstern. Librarian extraordinaire, crusader against crime, and Stone’s woman.” She liked that he’d started with her name, then added the identifiers rather than introducing her as Simon’s girlfriend—not that either of them had used that title.

Then, one by one, as if in a receiving line, each man came up and either shook her hand or gave her a hug. She met Lovell, a stunning Black man easily eight inches taller than her, with watchful eyes and a somber expression. Then Superman, not as tall as Lovell, but with a charmingly tousled head of brown curly hair and stunning golden eyes, set off by his Mediterranean skin tone. After that came North. He was closest in height to her and the smallest of the bunch, but his dark eyes held a knowing that was both unsettling and fascinating. Following that, Juan stepped up to hug her—she decided he came by his name from his looks and charm rather than ethnicity. Scipio nudged Juan out of the way and hugged her as well. He appeared to be the oldest of the bunch, although not by much. The last four came in a blur—Dulcie, Wesson, Einstein, and Marley. Dulcie looked like the world’s biggest teddy bear and sealed that image when his ginormous hand closed so gently around hers. Wesson seemed like an all-around American boy—the type of guy who was probably the star quarterback on his high school’s football team. Marley had a mischievous glint in his eyes and a subtle Caribbean accent—she couldn’t tell from where, though. And Einstein, tatted up pretty much everywhere she could see, had a pair of eyes so blue as to be almost shocking, especially when set against his dark skin.

None of the men made her feel uneasy, none of them shot suggestive looks at either her or Simon, and most of all, they seemed genuinely pleased to meet her. They invited her to sit with them, but Simon declined, saying they were heading home. That earned a few chuckles but nothing that made her uncomfortable—just the kind of ribbing she’d expect from a sibling. Not that she’d ever experienced it, but she’d imagined it.

“Where are the women?” she asked both Juan and Marley, who’d hung back. “There were a few when I was here a couple of days ago.”

“Amber is in the kitchen with Dottie, where she prefers to be, and the others have gone to a movie. Some romance that everyone’s been talking about but I don’t know the name,” Marley answered. Juliana knew the one—it was the movie of the summer, although it held no appeal to her. Movies with romance—sex—made her uncomfortable. It was all Hollywood, but the scenes always left her feeling inadequate.

“Your dinner,” Dottie said, exiting the kitchen with a cake tin covered in foil, a glass bowl with a lid, and a bag. “Salmon and corn,” she said, handing the tin to Simon. “Salad and bread,” she said, passing the bowl and bag to her. “I threw brownies in the bag, too.”

“Thank you,” Juliana said. “This is amazing.” Her aunt and uncle had a cook, but Juliana could barely remember her. Not because she’d taken the woman for granted, but because the cook had learned that the easiest way to survive in the Morgan household was to stay invisible, and she’d been a master at it.

“Just enjoy it,” Dottie said. “That back patio of his is the perfect place to eat tonight now that it’s cooler,” she said with a nod to Simon.

“Which is right where we’ll head,” Simon said, setting a hand on her lower back. After thanking Dottie again and telling Philly, Viper, and Monk that they’d be back in the morning, he ushered her out to a different truck.

Too tired to ask, she climbed in, then took the food from him, setting it on the floor by her feet. “Tell me about the names,” she said as Simon backed out of the spot and headed down the long driveway leading to the main road.

“Short version or long?”

She laughed softly. “I’ll want the long version someday, but with fifteen of them, you only have time for the short version before we get home.” She paused, then smiled, noticing she’d referred to Simon’s house as home . Presumptuous, but she wasn’t going to take it back.

“All right,” he said. “Here goes. Lovell is after Jim Lovell.”

“As in ‘Houston, we have a problem’ Jim Lovell?” she asked.

He nodded. “He was paraphrasing Jack Swigart when he said that, but yeah. Lovell is the most understated man you will ever meet. Nothing, and I mean nothing, flusters him. Then there’s Marley. He’s from Jamaica and loves Bob Marley. Is always listening to him.”

“I heard a hint of an accent but wasn’t sure where from. Is Philly from Philly then?”

Again, he nodded. “He doesn’t talk about it so much now, but he used to talk about that city nonstop when we were deployed.” He turned left onto the main road. “Mantis is named after the praying mantis—he has an almost preternatural ability to see things and read a situation. Viper is, well…”

“Well?”

He grimaced. “His is the most graphic-ish. He killed targets quickly.”

“Like a viper,” she said. It was hard to imagine the man with the easy smile and off-color sense of humor as Simon described, but she’d take his word.

“Wesson?”

“Some distant relative is the Wesson of Smith & Wesson.”

“Dulcie?”

“Sweet as sugar,” Simon replied with a grin. That name was easy to see.

“Einstein?”

He laughed. “He had to grow his hair out for an undercover op, and if he didn’t pull it back, it stuck up like all those pics of Albert Einstein.”

“Superman? He does not look like Clark Kent.”

“He doesn’t. But he was a sniper. One of the best in active duty. He has laser sighting skills.”

She wasn’t unaware of what the men and women in the military did, but Superman’s boyish charm and haphazardly wavy hair seemed at odds with Simon’s description. Then again, never judge a book by its cover.

And so it went. North’s name came from his eerily accurate internal compass, Scipio after a Roman general renowned for his battle strategy, Juan—as she’d predicted—because of his way with women, and Monk because he seemed to live like one. No one knew if he was abstinent or not, but they’d never seen him with a woman or a man. As a medic, Hawkeye’s name came from the famous character in MASH.

“That leaves you,” she said as they pulled onto his driveway.

He hesitated. “They say I’m steady as a rock.”

She studied him as he navigated the drive. She’d bet that explanation was sufficient for most people, but she wasn’t most people.

“That may be true, but that’s not where the name came from, is it?” she asked as he pulled into his garage.

Again, he hesitated. “It’s not,” he finally said before switching the engine off.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

He stared at the door leading into the house for several seconds, then turned. “I want to tell you. Or rather show you. Come with me.”