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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SEBASTIAN

I glance down at my phone, smiling at the slew of messages coming in from Leena to our group chat, telling Luke and I to quit working and come home.

We only got back from the op yesterday, but after being shot at on the way home, we couldn’t waste any time getting right back to work.

Luke has a contact in the Ace of Clubs, and we’ve spent the last twenty four hours coordinating a meeting that, unfortunately, brought us nowhere closer to figuring out who else wants us dead. We are also no closer to learning how the Jack of Spades figured out when and where to come after us. Our location isn’t something we generally broadcast. It’s safe to assume it’s not the Ace of Clubs, seeing as Luke’s uncle is The Ace, and his cousins help run it. We made it very clear to them that Leena is with us now. If the Ace of Clubs want her, they’ll have to go through their own flesh and blood. As shady as they are, they’re still family. Luke and I don’t trust them, not one fucking bit, but we believe them when they say they won’t come after us or Leena.

I get behind the wheel, and Luke gets in beside me, slamming his door shut. I glance over at him, noticing his displeasure. He’s either upset they didn’t know anything, or that they do know something, and chose not to tell us.

I’m betting it’s the latter.

Our phones chime again, and we both chuckle, finding a text that is absolutely from Colton texting us using Leena’s phone. We know this, because the text is graphically descriptive of what she wants to do to us when we get home. Luke and I both know Leena wouldn’t text us that.

She would just do it when we got home.

I smile, wondering what we can do to make it clear to our little troublemaker that she needs to take better care of who gets their hands on her cell phone.

Colton insisted on staying at the penthouse last night to help protect Leena, and we’re grateful for it. Knowing someone is after us, after her, has us all on edge. We didn’t want to tell Leena about what we were doing today, knowing she would insist on coming with us.

So we left Colton in charge.

Not only to protect her, but to keep her occupied so she wouldn’t start asking questions. He wasn’t happy about lying to her, but we knew he would rather stay and help then go back to his studio with everything that’s going on.

I pull into the private parking garage at our penthouse and look over at Luke, who’s still grimacing.

I grumble.

It sucks we don’t have any answers, but I wonder how long he’s going to brood about it. So, when we step into the elevator and he punches in his code, then places his thumb on the biometric scanner and presses the floor for our penthouse, I decide I need to do something about the situation.

The second the doors close, I slam him against them, hard.

“Seb–” he starts to say, but I cut him off, my mouth covering his, my fingers gripping his hair.

He groans.

I do too as his mouth opens for me. I run a hand down his hard body then lower, groping his cock through his pants, giving it a hard squeeze before tasting his tongue with mine one last time, biting at his lip, and shoving away from him.

I stand in the center of the elevator, my hands casually crossed over my quickly growing erection, looking up to see the floor numbers tick higher.

Luke stays against the door, his hair disheveled, trying to control his breathing as he glares at me, a smile playing at his lips.

I quirk an eyebrow, loving how I can unravel him like this.

I’ve never kissed him without Leena in the room. But it felt… right.

I keep staring at the numbers, keeping my own smirk under control, then force myself to think about something else so I don’t try to unravel him again.

When we decided to get out of the city where Leena grew up, away from her father’s bullshit and the endless gang war, this seemed as good a place as any to start over. Luke and I grew up not far from here, where Luke’s family still lives. Colton, Ryan and Jace were already here, and we knew we wanted to recruit all of them for the team, so it was an easy choice.

Colton said yes to the job before we even had our bags packed, Jace called after talking to Colton and Ryan joined us once he finished out his last two weeks at the police department where he was working in analytics. And Ava has been a great addition so far. I have no doubt we’ll have a more permanent position for her after her internship.

We pass the floor to the office. It seemed like the perfect commute since we knew how many late nights we would be working. A few floors down, you’re at work, a few floors back up, and you’re home. It also helped with security, seeing as we only had to set up monitoring for one building instead of two. With the mess we made out of the Jack of Spades, we weren’t taking any chances. And, as it turns out, that was a good fucking call on our part.

Luke finally comes over to stand beside me, and I can’t help but notice he’s still smiling when he does. I press my palm a little harder against the bulge in my pants, trying to get the situation under control.

When the doors open, we step into our penthouse, but quickly stop at what’s waiting for us in the entryway.

I let out a frustrated breath.

Our mistake was leaving Leena and Colton unsupervised. So this one’s on us. We should’ve known they’d pull some shit like this.

I stare down at what’s sitting on the dark marble floor before us.

“Are those?” I grumble.

“Yup,” Luke replies.

I set my keys down and step closer, reading Leena’s handwritten sticky notes stuck on top of the two Nerf guns lying on the floor. One note that says “Sebastian” with a little heart, the other with Luke’s name.

And a fucking cutesy heart.

I stare, unamused.

“Fuck no,” I say definitively, stepping over the toys and into the living room, but what I find there has me pausing once again. “You’ve got to be fucking me.” I glare into the room.

We only left them alone for a few hours, and these motherfuckers decide to use string to connect every single fucking object together, creating a webbed sort of maze through the entire goddamn penthouse.

I don’t even know what to do in this situation.

I’ve never fucking been in this situation.

Living with Leena is never boring, so this shouldn’t surprise me. But adding Colton to the mix clearly made her step up her game.

Luke stands beside me, carrying the two Nerf guns. I glare at them, then at him, then at his stupid dimpled smirk and the amusement in his eyes. Oh, for fuck’s sake.

I duck under the first string, stepping over another, grumbling my displeasure as I do. “Leena Rose Hart! Get that pretty ass of yours out here, sweetheart,” I shout angrily, my voice echoing off the large glass window that spans the entire living room.

I stand here, trying to decide my next move to get through the wall of fucking string in my path.

My gaze darts up to the movement coming from the hall.

I stare, unamused, as Colton crouch walks from around the corner. He’s wearing all camo with black streaks painted on his cheeks, his Nerf gun trained on Luke behind me. He ducks quickly through the strings surrounding him, then shoots. I roll my eyes as Luke and I watch the silly little plastic tipped foam bounce off his bicep.

This is fucking ridiculous.

Colton somersaults to hide behind the dining room table. The table they tipped over in order to create a barricade.

I let out an exasperated breath.

Suddenly, Leena pops up from behind the kitchen island. I can’t help but chuckle, seeing she’s also wearing camo, and has those same black lines smeared over her cheeks. A very serious look comes over her face as she aims her Nerf gun at me.

My smile fades.

I stare at her, cocking my head and daring her to fucking shoot me. Daring her to find out what will happen if she does.

She stares right back.

This is a stand-off, and she fucking knows it.

I watch her think over her decision carefully.

Then, she squeezes the trigger.

I watch as the little dart hits me square in the chest. I look down at it in disbelief, then back up to where a wide-eyed Leena ducks back behind the safety of the counter.

I take a deep, frustrated breath before speaking, “Campbell, give me the gun. This. Means. War.”