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“And this is why Cove will love me the most,” I grumble.
“What I mean is, there is nothing about her family that would have Rafe wanting anything to do with her. So why would he be sending men after her?”
“No idea,” Saint says. “We’ve only managed to keep a few of them alive to interrogate and not for very long.” Saint hits me with another look.
“What?” I grin. “I’m a little trigger happy. They were trying to hurt my Bunny. Can you blame me?”
“I can when we need the assholes alive to question them,” Saint snaps.
“Not much good that’s done us. The ones we have questioned didn’t crack. No matter how much we made it hurt.” I reach over and grab one of the apples from the bowl on the table and take a bite. “What the fuck?” I spit the piece of apple across the room. “That’s fucking disgusting.”
“That’s because it’s fake,” my dad deadpans with a bored tone.
“Why the fuck would you have fake fruit?” I stare at him in horror.
He turns his attention back to Saint. “I can’t deal with him right now. I swear to god.”
Saint holds up a hand. “Ignore him.”
“Rude,” I grumble, tossing the apple back into the bowl.
And I thought I was messed up. Who teases someone like that? Cruel fucking joke, if you ask me.
“You three are drawing too much attention to yourselves. I know there’s no point in trying to forbid you from having anything to do with that girl. I lost that battle years ago. But I’ve looked past it because it wasn’t interfering with business. Now, it has. And things need to change.”
“We’re not giving up on Cove.” I sit up in my seat. “And I’ll kill anyone who dares to fucking blink at her wrong.”
“I know. That’s the fucking issue,” my dad snarls. And then, as if he’s just realizing Maverick isn’t here, he looks around. “Where is your brother?”
As if the universe conjured him up, Maverick walks through the door.
But he’s not alone. “Right here,” he grunts, slamming a body down on the table.
Excitement flutters through me as I get to my feet. “Nice,” I chuckle at the gash across the man’s throat. “Clean cut?” I ask my oldest brother.
“Is there any other way?” He smirks back.
“I mean, a mess is fun sometimes. Hearing them scream is entertaining.”
“Enough!” my father bellows, getting all of our attention. “What the fuck is this, Maverick?”
“A dead body.” He blinks at my father.
Dad’s lip twists into another snarl. I feel bad for the man sometimes, we really are a handful. I blame it on my lack of motherly love as a teenager. It’s when a growing boy needs it the most.
Not that it was his fault. Our mother died when I was ten.
She became collateral damage when a rival family tried to take out my father. He was never the same after that. None of us were.
It’s why we’ve been working so hard to protect Cove. We already failed once, something we’ve all been hating ourselves for every day. We won’t let it happen again.
“I know it’s a fucking dead body. Want to explain why it’s here? And who the fuck it is?”
“I was checking up on Cove,” Maverick starts, and all the humor inside me disappears. “I was heading back home to clean up before coming here when I got a notification for the cameras. When I saw this fucker trying to pick her lock, I bolted back. Took him out just in time. He was about to step inside her house.”
“Fucking hell,” Saint hisses, then glares at the body like he’d like to bring him back to life and gut the guy himself. I wish I could do the same.
Our father stares at the man for a long time. Too long, if you ask me.
