“That’s what you’ve been doing?” he asked, clenching his hands against his knees, obviously in male frustration since I hadn’t let him drive my car. “Skulking around some of the most dangerous streets in America, asking for fucking trouble?”
“Well not just that. I also had a Stranger Things marathon. That show is the shit,” I replied. “Plus, I don’t go looking for trouble. I am trouble.”
“Yeah, I fucking knew that. Just didn’t think you were stupid.”
I glared at him. “And why am I stupid, Luke? Because I don’t know my place in the kitchen, in the nursery, minding the babies? Because I don’t let myself be weak just because I’m a chick? I think that’s reasonably damn smart. But I see from a man’s perspective, one who thinks the man’s job is to shield, protect, it could be perceived as stupid. Never mind that whole perspective being fucking stupid, not to mention utterly dated,” I shot back.
“Fuck, Rosie, this isn’t about whether I doubt your strength, or because you’re a woman. It’s because you’re my woman. Anyone, me included, going out there alone is putting their life in the hands of something that isn’t them. Of people who consider life to be worth less than their next fix, the patch they wear, the crime boss they answer to,” he seethed. “So no, this has not a fucking thing to do with the fact that you’re a woman. This has everything to do with the fact that you’re you. You’re precious. You’re fucking irreplaceable. So yeah, no matter how dated you think my notion is, when a man finds something irreplaceable and he has it in his hands, he does anything and everything to protect it.” He paused, anger filtering away like a deflated balloon. “I thought you would’ve realized that by now. After everything.”
There was something in his voice that had a similar effect on my own anger. It was a kind of hurt, a manly and brisk one, but hurt just the same.
I thought. Backward. Through everything, through every interaction, every sacrifice, every stolen moment.
He did it.
Everything.
For me.
To protect me.
And he might’ve succeeded.
But even he couldn’t protect me from myself.
“Luke,” I whispered.
But we were pulling up to a familiar apartment building. I hadn’t even realized we were this close and I was driving. Driving under the influence. There wasn’t a breath test for that one, though.
I was under the influence of Luke.
Of love. Otherwise known as fucking insanity.
“Okay, so let’s talk about this job,” I said, right after I’d sat down and Lucy had handed me a cocktail. She settled next to her husband, who immediately yanked her to his side, as close as she could possibly go.
I glanced to the purposeful space between Luke and me, ignored the strange and intense pain that came with that tiny space, and focused on Lucy.
“Job?” she repeated.
I nodded. “Your dutiful husband has offered me a job. Though I’m guessing it’s to placate me and I’ll likely be expected to sit behind a desk, look pretty, and do the bidding of various alpha males.”
Keltan stroked Lucy’s arm. “I look like I came down in the last shower?”
I shrugged. “Looks can be deceiving.”
“I wouldn’t offer you a job doing that shit, firstly because I know you’d refuse, and second, I suspect you’d suck at it,” he said, grinning.
“You’re not wrong,” I agreed. My employment career was almost as sordid as my relationship one. I barely stayed anywhere long enough to get to know my manager’s last name. Helping run Gwen and Amy’s store was my longest-running venture.
Legal, at least.
The Sons of Templar men may have promised to stay above the law. I made no such promises.
So that meant I was rarely idle and rarely hurting for money. I also liked shoes, expensive ones, and I had nosy relatives, so I needed the appearance of a job. Not that Wire didn’t already know about my various ventures—fuck, he was involved in half of them. Which was the reason why Cade didn’t know. Wire knew if my brother found out that he’d helped not just run a site on the deep web that worked like an outlaw version of eBay and Facebook merged into one, but helped create it, Cade would likely skin him alive.
But we weren’t under much risk of getting caught.
There was always risk. That’s where the fun was.
“What the fuck is this job, then?” Luke demanded.
I rolled my eyes.
Lucy smiled into her cocktail glass.
“Same job as you have… almost,” Keltan said.
I smiled. I liked the ‘almost’ part. He made it sound like the ‘almost’ was the badass part.
“We’ve become popular since we opened.”
“Four guesses why,” I muttered. “Biceps, abs, ass, face, in that order,” I continued.
Keltan grinned. “Whose?”
“Take your pick. That’s the point.”
Luke let out a low growl at that.
We all ignored it.
“Well, I’d like to think it’s because we’re fucking good at our jobs,” Keltan said.
I shrugged. “That too.”
“The demand is going beyond regular security shit. Which makes sense, since my guys have experience way beyond security. We’ve been getting a few bail skips. Family members of victims whose attackers have been let off on a technicality, frustrated with the police. These are off the record, of course, though the bail skips are legit.”
“Yep, I was right. Almost meant awesome.” I smiled at Luke, resisting the urge to poke out my tongue.
“Depending on your view, yeah, awesome,” Keltan agreed. “It’s not quite the same as seeking out crime lords on the street and pistol-whipping them, stabbing them so they can’t reproduce, but it’s along the same lines,” he continued. “And you’ll get paid.” He looked to a seething Luke. “And she’ll be a fuck of a lot safer. Monitored. You can ride out with her.” He paused. “If she lets you.”
“That’s not happening,” I countered at the same time Luke said, “Of course I fucking would.”
I sipped my cocktail with a frown. Almost didn’t just mean awesome. It meant babysitting.
“You’ve been lucky so far,” Keltan said, “not to be caught by the authorities. Despite the fact that you’re doing society a favor, the laws don’t like favors done by civilians. Especially when they highlight what a fucking farce law enforcement is. Can’t hurt to have people making sure you’re not arrested. Or killed.”
He was talking to both me and Luke.
“Am I missing something?” Lucy cut in, her eyes narrowed on me. “What the ever-loving fuck have you been doing that could get you killed?”
I shrugged. “Existing.”
She scowled. “And you didn’t even invite me.”
Keltan lost his easy demeanor pretty fucking quickly. “And she never fuckin’ will,” he growled.
Lucy poked her tongue out at him, and he yanked her into his embrace, as if to make sure she was real, as if the mere thought of her in danger changed the past so she didn’t survive that day on the sidewalk.