Zed once again waited in the car, but Diana peered at him through the window, then asked if he was my boyfriend. Ugh, kids were the fucking worst.
We arrived home just a couple of minutes ahead of Lucas and Seph; I'd barely even stripped out of my weapons when I heard the Mustang pull into the garage.
"Dare!" Seph's shout echoed through the house, alarming me. "Dare! Come here! Zed, are you home?"
I raced back through to the garage to where she hovered nervously in the doorway while the garage door rolled back down.
"Seph, what's going on?" I demanded, striding over to the Mustang, where Lucas was climbing out slowly. He winced as he pushed the driver’s door shut and held his ribs like he was in pain. "What the fuck happened?"
A more critical glance at Seph told me she wasn't nervous after all. She was... excited?
Lucas gave me a pained smile. "I'm fine, babe." Even though he was definitely not fine. "I handled it." He sidestepped me and circled to the trunk of the Mustang, then popped it open.
Inside, I found the absolute last thing I’d ever expected Lucas and Seph to bring home from school: a bound and gagged man all squished into the tight trunk space, blood coating half his face as he thrashed and twisted.
"Is that... did you restrain him with your tie?" I asked in disbelief, unsure whether I should be amused or horrified.
"Dare," Seph interrupted, bouncing on her toes with excitement, a huge smile on her face. "Dare, oh my god, you should have seen it! This guy just jumped out of fucking nowhere and, like, tried to strangle Lucas with this rope thing and—"
I stopped listening to her high-speed babble, grabbing Lucas's arm and spinning him to face me. Sure enough, there was an angry red line around his throat, and he winced as I touched a gentle finger to the welt. This dead man had tried to garrote my Gumdrop.
"—then Lucas tied him up and chucked him in the trunk, and we drove back here super fast." Seph was still gushing, her smile so wide it had to be hurting her face and her eyes sparkling. "Dare, you should have seen him! Like bam and pow and pop! Lucas is legit such a badass, like, wow."
"Where was your backup?" I asked him quietly, ignoring Seph.
"Huh?" My sister shrugged. "What backup? We don't have any. Besides, we don't need any because Lucas is a total weapon."
Lucas gave a faint smile. "He was across the road," he replied to me. "It was quicker to deal with it myself, and seeing as we were right by my car..." He shrugged, but I understood. Better to stash the bleeding, bound man out of sight before someone went calling the cops.
"Careful," I muttered, smoothing a finger over his bruised cheek, "don't let Zed hear you call it your car."
Lucas snorted as Zed and Cass came into the garage to investigate Seph's yelling.
"Well, that's unexpected," Zed commented, peering into the trunk with us. Then he glanced over at Seph, still grinning from ear to ear. "Seph, head inside."
Her smile disappeared in a flash, replaced by a scowl. "Fuck you, Zed."
"Get inside, Seph," I ordered, my voice sharp with anger. "Or would you actually like to watch me cut this guy's fingers off one by one until he tells us who sent him to kill Lucas today?"
My sister paled, but her eyes flashed with stubborn defiance like she was actually going to call my bluff. Except I wasn't bluffing. Nor was I offering her a choice in the matter. I wasn't going to torture a man in front of my innocent, eighteen-year-old sister.
"Come on, Seph," Lucas said gently, placing a hand on her arm. "I'll show you how to check for broken ribs."
Outrage was clear on her face, and I knew she wanted to stand her ground. But Lucas gently pulled her away from the car, and she sighed as she followed him. Zed, Cass, and I waited in silence until they were back inside the house, closing the door to seal us off.
"He shouldn't have brought this guy here," Cass rumbled, peering down at the man with bored eyes. "Gonna have to kill him now."
The bound man's eyes widened, and he made muffled sounds of protest as Zed reached in and hauled him out of the trunk.
"Fucking hell," Zed muttered. "Lucas is cleaning that blood up. Little shit should have put some plastic down first."
I scoffed at both of them. "Alright, geez. We all made mistakes with our first time, too. He's learning. Seph said he took this guy on without help from the backup I'd assigned."
"As he damn well should," Zed commented, dragging the bloodied man away from his cars to the workshop area of the garage. "I haven't busted my ass training him to have him garroted on the school playground."
"Parking lot," I corrected, going to the workbench to pull out a thick wad of plastic sheeting from a drawer. Shaking it out, Cass and I laid it down on the concrete floor before Zed marched his captive over to the middle and shoved him to his knees.
It was a routine Zed and I had been through countless times, and I imagined so had Cass in his own way. So it was nothing new or exciting for us to interrogate the guy. In fact, with Cass's input, we got the answers we sought with ease. Only when we were satisfied that the guy had divulged everything he knew did I put a bullet between his eyes. And two in the chest, for good measure. One never could be too cautious these days.
"What do you want to do with the body?" Cass asked as Zed washed his bloody hands in the small sink. "Benny's? Or shark food?"
I flashed him a grin. We were way too similar. "Nah, I've got a better idea. Roll him up."
Cass grunted and went to work packaging up the messy remains of Lucas's attacker, rolling the plastic like a giant rice paper roll. Or joint. When he was done, I grabbed a thick black marker pen from one of the tool drawers, and in clear block letters, I wrote on the plastic Return To Sender.
"Drop him on Chase's doorstep," I told the guys. "Let him deal with the mess."
Zed laugh sharply, shaking his head. "Done. Help me load him up."
Cass grabbed one end of the package, lifting with Zed to heave the body into the trunk of a car. Then Zed climbed into the driver's seat with a feral grin to go deliver our package to the neighbor.
We watched him back out of the garage, then Cass banded his arm around my waist and boosted me up onto the work bench to kiss the ever-loving crap out of me.
"What was that for?" I asked when he eventually let me breathe.
His beard scraped my face as he dipped in to kiss me again. "I need a reason?" he growled after a few moments. "I've never been so fucking horny during an interrogation in my life. Fuck, you're beautiful. Like an angel of death."
Laughing, I pushed him back slightly and shook my head. "You're too damn charming, Saint. Come on; we need to go deal with Seph. She was probably in shock or something before."
Cass huffed a short laugh. "She didn't seem in shock. Too busy fawning over Lucas like he'd just outed himself as the newest Avenger."
I rolled my eyes, but he was right. She hadn't seemed scared or stressed out. Her hero worship for Lucas was all encompassing.
They weren't in the kitchen, but I took my sweet-ass time pouring a glass of wine anyway. Zed was only taking the body next door; he'd be back any minute, and maybe he could deal with Seph for me. Such a cop out, but whatever.