Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 59119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
I talked to my mom almost every day—unless I really couldn’t. She texted a bunch too. I texted with my dad all the time. I talked to Uncle Greer and Uncle Angus at least once a week. I had dinner at Uncle Roe’s a couple times a month—and we had a weird but fun relationship, ’cause I was the eldest kid in my generation, and he was the youngest uncle; there were only a few years separating us.
All this closeness had one downside.
I didn’t know how to function without having someone to talk to about whatever went on in my life. Every uncle had a piece of advice to offer. Every aunt sent care packages and support.
I was the last person who would complain, because I fucking loved our family dynamic. It was just glaringly obvious sometimes that no matter what I did, no matter how much I accomplished, I was a kid. I was someone they needed to care for. Someone they needed to check in with. Someone they wanted to protect.
I seared the shit out of the sausage and mushrooms, then added everything else, including the pasta.
There was the office, too. I was surrounded by people older than me. Even more so now that my best friend had been killed. God-fucking-dammit. Elliott was protective of me, Javier was protective of me, Tariq was…had been protective of me.
No, fuck this. I could protect myself.
When the food was done, I grabbed two forks, two bottles of water, and the skillet. Then I returned to the living room and set everything down on my own bed.
“You’re angry,” Adrien stated.
“Nope.” Just ticked off. I pulled out the key to the handcuffs and walked over to him, and I removed the restraints altogether before I threw the cuffs out the open patio doors and into the lake. “Get up,” I told him. Before he could, I hauled out my knife and cut the zip tie in the middle.
“Crew—”
“No. Just get the fuck up. Come on.” I took a step back and waited till he’d awkwardly pushed himself up off the bed. Then I extended my hand. “My name is Crew James Finlay. All I know is how to be a Marine—and I wanna see the good in people.”
His brow furrowed, and his expression turned a bit solemn. He grasped my hand firmly.
“I might trust too easily according to some, but if I see a threat, I won’t hesitate to eliminate it,” I said. “I’m giving you this one chance to meet me in the middle. To be part of what we’re trying to do. And you can help us, or you can fuck me over and go against me. If you choose the latter, I will not stop until there’s a bullet in your brain. Because at the end of the day, I’m loyal to my team, and our absolute top priority is to find my boss’s cute-as-shit niece, my coworker’s sweet-as-hell wife, and my friends’ funny-as-fuck partner. And then we’re gonna kill Carillo.”
He let out a breath and gave my hand a squeeze. “Do you want a similar speech from me?”
“I would prefer it.”
His mouth twitched with mirth. “Adrien Jackson Mercier. All I know is how to be a Fed—and I’d lost sight of what’s good in this world until Jack called me Daddy.”
Tension drained out of me, and I withdrew my hand.
“I believe we can work together,” he said. “We may have different priorities, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish wholeheartedly that you get your loved ones back safely and swiftly. I’ll do my best to assist you in that work—and I will gladly hand over Carillo on a platter the moment I’m done with him.”
A breath gusted out of me. Okay—didn’t this feel better? I felt better.
We could make this work.
I smiled up at him. “Now we can eat.”
He smiled back.
“What I wouldn’t give for a beer right now…” I wiped my mouth and tossed the fork into the skillet.
The springs in the camping beds were clearly meant for only one person, so we’d dropped the mattresses onto the floor by the fireplace so we could share the skillet. And I had to say, I wasn’t a shitty cook.
“Or a glass of wine. Or whiskey.” Adrien stretched out his legs toward the fireplace and dropped into a semi-lying down position where he supported himself on his elbow.
I scrunched my nose. Whiskey was all right, but wine? Gross.
“You know what makes whiskey even better?” I asked. “Ginger ale.”
Adrien looked at me like I’d offended his mother or something. “You heathen.”
“With a shit-ton of ice,” I added. “My youngest brother mixes the best drinks.”
“After hearing your preferences, I have doubts,” he chuckled. “That would be Maverick, correct?”
He remembered from my ramble about my ink.
“Yeah.”
He shifted his gaze to my rib cage. “And you had another brother…”