"Dare?" Zed prompted. "You still there?"
I let my breath out in a rush, squeezing my eyes shut. "Yeah, I'm here. Don't bother coming to Anarchy. Cops have shut us down indefinitely. Just head home, and I'll fill you in when we get back."
Tucking my phone back into my pocket, I offered Lucas a weak smile. "Sorry, I was stressing over nothing. Zed didn't even know what happened here."
"I should head out," Gen commented, grabbing her car keys out of her purse. "This is going to be a hell of a lot of paperwork, and I'd rather get onto it sooner than later. I'll check in with you in the morning, boss."
She gave Lucas a smile, then headed back to her own car. A few of the Anarchy staff were still making their way out, ducking under the police tape, but they didn't need me to stick around. Lucas and I made our way home mostly in silence, but his hand on my knee as we drove was a constant reminder that I wasn't alone. I no longer had to internalize everything, because I had a team around me.
When we arrived back onto Zed's street, our new neighbor was conveniently out checking his mailbox and gave us a sarcastic wave when we passed by.
A shudder of dread rolled through me, and Lucas grimaced. "He's completely unhinged," he muttered. "Cass needs to be so fucking careful not to be seen."
I sighed because I agreed. The safest thing to do would be to send Cass back out on the job he'd been doing prior to saving Seph. But selfishly, I wanted to keep him close. Just for a little while longer.
Morning provided a little perspective in the sense that the Anarchy shut down was simply an inconvenience. Money, mostly. Depending on how long they planned to keep us closed, we might have to postpone the main-event fight night. It'd sting and piss off some sponsors, but... fuck it. There were always more fighters and more fight nights.
The troubling parts to take away from the whole mess were the obvious attempt to start publicizing the Timberwolves again—directly contradicting my whole business model when it came to running my criminal empire—and the accusation Agent Hanson had made before getting her throat cut. Or that's what the method of murder had sounded like, anyway.
"I need to talk with you," Seph announced, busting through my bedroom door without so much as knocking once. "Dare, get up. I need to talk to you about—" She cut herself off, clearly having just noticed Cass beside me in bed, face down and sleeping but barely covered by my sheet.
With a silent growl of frustration, I slid out of bed and tugged Cass's T-shirt on before shoving my sister out of the room. I closed the door softly behind me, but I knew Cass would have woken up the moment I got out of bed anyway.
"Seriously, Seph?" I hissed at her, storming down the hallway as I pulled my tangled hair up in a ponytail. "You couldn't have spared three seconds to knock before barging in? You're fucking lucky you didn't walk in on anything more explicit."
I flicked a glance at her over my shoulder. Her cheeks were burning with embarrassment, and I rolled my eyes. Fuck, she was clueless sometimes.
"What did you so urgently need to talk about?" I demanded, heading downstairs with her tight on my heels.
"Uh, I wanted to tell you I'm going back to school on Monday." She announced it with a slight waiver in her voice, like she'd intended it to come out as a strong demand but had lost her nerve halfway.
I continued into the kitchen, where I found Lucas at his usual spot with his textbooks all around and an empty coffee mug in front of him.
"Hey you," I greeted, dropping a kiss on his shoulder as I leaned in to pick up his mug. "Want another?"
He shot me a tired smile and nodded. "Thanks, babe."
"Dare," Seph snapped, posing with her hands on her hips. "Did you hear what I said?"
Ignoring my sister and her drama, I yawned and headed for the coffee machine to sort out mugs for both Lucas and I. Then, after a moment's indecision, I grabbed one for Seph, too.
"I heard you," I replied after an uncomfortably long pause, within which I could see her temper boiling hotter.
Her brows tightened together in a scowl as I continued making coffee. "And?"
I handed her coffee over to her, then delivered one to Lucas, which he accepted with a grateful kiss on my lips. A kiss that could have easily escalated if Seph hadn't made an irritated sound and started tapping her foot on the tile.
"Just give me a fucking second to wake up, Seph," I groaned. "I need a vacation so bad it hurts." Cupping my own coffee between my hands, I perched my butt on the stool beside Lucas and shivered when the cool seat met my bare ass. Seph hadn't exactly given me time to hunt out underwear.
"Look, this wasn't a discussion," Seph pushed, popping a hip out with so much attitude it made my teeth hurt. "I was just informing you so you could do... you know... whatever you do." She flapped her hand, clearly referring to my security measures. The fact that she thought it could be summed up with a hand flap said just how little she understood.
Cass slouched into the kitchen a moment later dressed in low-slung sweatpants and missing his shirt. Oh yeah, it was on me. He could have gone back to his own room opposite Lucas's to grab a new one, but I was more than okay with the shirtless look.
So was Seph, apparently, as her eyes just about bugged out of her head.
"What's going on?" he rumbled, heading for the fridge.
"Seph wants to go back to school," Lucas told him, sipping his coffee. A smudge of pink highlighter decorated the side of his nose, and I had to resist the urge to rub it off for him. Too damn cute.
Cass leveled a curious look at Seph, then gave a vague grunt and buried his head in the fridge without offering an opinion on the matter.
"Why?" I asked my sister as she continued standing there growing more and more agitated by the second.
She scowled. "Why what?"
It took everything I had to keep my patience. "Why do you want to go back to school? Haven't you been doing the online learning courses that Lucas is enrolled in?"
She folded her arms tightly across her body. "I have," she bit back. Then her gaze ducked away. "Sort of. I find it really hard to focus online. Besides, I'm bored as hell already and want to socialize with my peers. You know, be a normal teenager. Isn't that what you always go on and on about? Normal girls don't hide out in their sister's boyfriend's fortress and attend online classes under the guise of some long-term illness."
I clicked my tongue, feeling Cass's heavy gaze on me as he popped out of the fridge with a raw steak in hand. "Guess you've got me there, Seph."
She knew I was mocking her, and it wasn't amusing her in the least. Her glare just darkened, and her lips pursed with anger.
"I'll think about it," I told her with absolutely no intention of doing anything of the sort.
Frustration flashed over her pretty, doll-like face. She drew a breath to argue, but Lucas beat her to it.
"Actually, come to think of it," he commented quietly, "I would really benefit from going back for at least a couple of my subjects. We're so close to exams now; it'd only really be a few weeks of classes. I could play bodyguard to Seph and make sure Chase doesn't snatch her again."