Cuckoo (Kindred Book 3) (10 page)

She wanted to believe him and she opened her hands on his chest. “If I lose you… you were going to let Grant kill you just to save my life. I can’t… I’m not sure I would’ve been able to live if I lost you. The guilt of you sacrificing yourself for me…”

“I was never gonna let him hurt me,” he said, peering closer until she read the love behind his tough façade. “Swift took you to the floor to protect you. All I had to do was take a couple more steps, and I’d have taken the gun from Saint. Murder in his blood or not, he liked the sound of his voice preaching at me too much. He’d have wanted to deliver another monologue before pulling the trigger, and all I needed was half a second to switch the advantage from their camp to ours.”

That was reassuring and something she wished she’d known at the time. But the intensity of her fear remained. “I can’t lose you. I can’t.” But if she didn’t trust herself to be useful to the Kindred, she’d never be able to hold onto him.

“Moving back here pretty much guarantees that you’ll lose me, baby.” She didn’t follow. It hadn’t been her intention to move into her father’s house. Brodie might be able to pinpoint her location, but his tech couldn’t read her mind. “If you come back here, I’ll end up in jail ‘cause there will be a wave of single men in their twenties, thirties, and forties dropping down dead with a single, high-caliber gunshot wound to the head.”

She smiled, though she believed his words to be true. “Any male of dating age?”

He nodded once. “Yep. I’ll eliminate them all before they become a threat to what we have.”

Being close to him eased some of her burden. “No man measures up to you,” she said, sinking into his arms when he spread his fingers on her spine to pin her body to his.

A creak made her turn, and she saw her father on the porch, between the door and screen, peering down the path as if trying to make out who they were. “Get in the car,” Brodie said, seeing what she did. He pushed her lower back to direct her toward the road as he turned toward the house.

But her love’s frown and willingness to address her father made her grab for his wrist to get his attention again. “Are you armed?” she asked.

The glare on his face didn’t budge. “Do you want me to kill him?”

No, she didn’t, but it meant so much to her that this man would do anything to make her happy. “No. What about the money?”

“Get in the car,” he said, bobbing his head in the direction of the vehicle then kissing her hairline. “Trust me.”

And although he didn’t need an answer, she gave him one. “More than I trust myself,” she said.

Before he started toward the house, he smacked her ass, probably in lieu of a kiss, then he strode up the path toward her father who was still loitering. It had been a long time since she’d seen him and he looked older, more weathered, his stance was more hunched and his face more creased. But she recognized him, even if his eyesight wasn’t good enough for him to be certain of her identity. 

He can’t have felt too threatened because he hadn’t run off to get his gun. Even if he had, he’d never have gotten a shot off. Brodie would disarm him if the conflict got physical, but her father would notice her love’s superior skills. In the event that he did, Brodie would have an explanation, though her father wouldn’t hear it because he’d be too busy getting himself riled.

Anything could happen in that house, as neither man was great at holding their temper if the right buttons were pushed. Brodie kept on going up the path and didn’t look back at her. Tearing her eyes from the men, she wheeled her suitcase to the car and put it in the trunk before taking a seat in the front passenger side.

She didn’t know how long Brodie would be or what excuse he would give to her father for being there. But when the men went into the house, her jaw fell. She’d expected an exchange on the porch, not inside in the bosom of the home. Brodie hated being social, and her father wasn’t much better at it.

Slumping into the seat, she slid her shoes off her feet and drew them up under her. Whatever the men were talking about, she couldn’t interrupt, she’d just have to wait until Brodie returned and then query the details. Staring out of the windshield, she thought about what Brodie had said, and it wasn’t so much his point about her research as it was his reminder of her being proactive. When Brodie hadn’t given her what she wanted, she stood tall and found it out on her own.

An idea hit her, so she bent to grab her purse from the floor. Taking her cellphone out of it, she began to make plans.

His cousins weren’t waiting for him with a helicopter, but there was a jet waiting for them at the airport. Brodie ignored anyone who tried to talk to him, so they eventually gave up. The employees interpreted their choice of transportation as a sign of frivolous wealth and tried to pander as though they were idle and spoiled. They didn’t want champagne or canapés. They wanted to get from A to B, that was it.

On business trips with Grant, she’d had the privilege of traveling in a private jet. But the sheen of novelty didn’t lessen, and enjoying the seclusion of a private plane with Brodie led to some unscheduled activities. Try as she might to press for details, Brodie hadn’t been forthcoming about what happened while he was in her father’s house, which he had been for about fifteen minutes.

After giving up on that, she tried to address the situation with Kahlil and what he knew about Future’s Hope. Brodie didn’t want to talk about that either. So instead, they used sex to pass the time and she was happy to cross sex in a plane off her bucket list.

Because he wasn’t interested in talking about Kahlil, he hadn’t been interested in discussing her plans either. But he did assure her that they would talk when they landed and regrouped at the manor. Just hearing that they were going to base instead of to Rigor’s place soothed her nerves.

Night had fallen by the time they got home, meaning they could open the main gate and drive to the manor house and straight into the garage. Brodie parked and they got out, so she queried his choice of destination.

“Why are we here?” she asked. He’d given up on going to Rigor’s without putting up any kind of fight, so the why intrigued her. “I thought you wanted to—”

“When a member of the team goes AWOL twice in the same month, something has to give.”

When she moved toward the trunk, he took her hand and pulled her away from the car. “Am I going to be punished?” she asked, traipsing along behind him.

“In private later,” he said.

The squeeze of his hand was bruising, and she expected him to take her upstairs to their bedroom. But he didn’t. Taking her out through the garage door, they traversed the slope and kept on going until he pulled her into the trees.

Confused by his strange actions, she sought an explanation. “Where are we going?” she asked, but he didn’t answer, he just got faster as he shoved branches and pushed leaves aside. Zara struggled to keep up, and it was so dark that she could barely see her own feet, increasing her chances of falling over something. Uncertainty and overexertion made her breathing grow to a pant, but he didn’t let her go. “Brodie, you’re scaring me, where are we—”

The trees thinned and they broke into a clearing she recognized. Brodie stopped and pulled her forward to reveal the scene. Tall, burning torches had been driven into the ground around the family headstones, lighting up the whole clearing with a warm, yet mystical, orange glow that faded into the mists that hung on the ground. But they weren’t the only things of note. Tuck was there, too, beside Zave, who had Thad on his other side. The whole gang was here.

Brodie lowered to whisper in her ear. “I still think Saint was a prick.” The Kindred moved aside, and she sobbed when she saw a new headstone next to Art’s. Both hands flew to her mouth and Brodie put his arm around her. “This is why we need you. You think like Art. We just have to nurture that.”

Turning to gaze up at him, she twisted into his arms and stroked her hands up to his face. “I love you.”

“Remember that next time you think about ditching me,” he said, taking her chin between his thumb and curled index finger. “The guys have beers over there, and maybe a bottle or two of dry white wine. Want to get drunk?”

Curving her lips, she didn’t know if she wanted to laugh, cry, or jump him. “What about business?”

“It will all be there in the morning,” he said, dipping to kiss her. “Art and Saint didn’t get any send off. Funerals have never been a Kindred thing.” Because until recently, the deaths they’d dealt with were ones caused by them. A body would be left where it lay or disappeared, but there was no ceremony attached to that, only evidence removal.

Grieving for Grant was a symbolic way to grieve for her past. Her naivety was gone, along with her CI career, and she needed closure. Being out here, surrounded by Brodie’s lost family was a great initiation into her future with the Kindred.

Zara wasn’t sorry Grant was gone, the man he’d become was cold and cruel. But she did grieve the loss of his innocence. After losing his mentor, Frank Mitchell, something in Grant had changed and if she’d been paying closer attention, she might have noticed it. Brodie had a support network to help him deal with loss while Grant had no one. At the end, it was clear that there was no going back for Grant, he was too far into his deluded psychosis to see the consequences of his actions. All he wanted to do was win and by doing this, the Kindred were proving that he hadn’t won.

They’d spent long enough observing the party from afar, and Brodie slid his hand up her spine to twine his fingers in her hair and take the back of her neck. “Come on.”

Guiding her over to the others, she was met by smiles from Thad and a hug from Tuck. Zave nodded at her, which was an improvement over ignoring her. Business had drowned out most of their chances to kick back and enjoy each other’s company because when they were together, they all had to be on. Even her time with Brodie had often been cut short or hampered by missions, Game Time, and/or thugs with a plan.

This was a long overdue chance to bond and relax, and she was interested to find out how the Kindred partied when they weren’t using it as a cover for something else. If they could all get into the spirit of the night, this was going to be a joyful learning experience.

And it was. Zave didn’t drink alcohol, but she did hear him laugh for the first time. Thad was a hoot and everyone shared stories of Art and Grant. Yes, the latter was a twisted maniac who wanted his revenge on them. But he had no one to grieve him. There was no body in the ground.

Sutcliffe’s compound had been wiped clean before Rigor and his crew got in there. The Kindred didn’t know where Grant’s body was, probably in a mass grave with Rigor’s fallen men and Sutcliffe’s dead followers. Much blood had been shed and for no purpose.

More than just beer was consumed after Thad retrieved supplies from the house. Brodie was persuaded to demonstrate his skills by building a spit to roast the meat that Thad had been desperate to try in the great outdoors—even though they were only a hundred meters or so from the house.

Saying goodbye involved stories and jokes, mostly Thad’s, and while Grant and Art were celebrated, Brodie’s parents’ graves weren’t discussed as much. Their loss had become relevant in Brodie’s life again, and he was still working through what that meant for him. Toward the end of the night, she caught Brodie staring at his parents’ headstones when Thad was singing a song, which he seemed to do a lot of when he was drunk.

At that point, after praising Thad’s singing skills, Zara had taken Brodie away from the party. Her goal was to get him to open up, he had other ideas and they ended up making love on the rocks above the crashing waves surrounded by the scent of the sea. By the time they got back to the graves, the torches were out and the others were gone.

Music in the manor betrayed that Thad was still up and partying. But Brodie wasn’t interested in continuing festivities and instead took her to bed where they stayed until the sunshine woke her up.

The natural light betrayed Brodie’s absence from their bed. Stretching into a seated position, she considered how to tackle Kahlil’s offer with Brodie when her gaze snagged on something in the corner. Far left of the bed, on the same wall as the entertainment center, in the corner shadow… Zara smiled. That was Brodie’s chair, or Raven’s chair, from her apartment bedroom. Cuckoo wouldn’t have the pleasure of sitting in the chair that meant so much to her relationship with Brodie.

The piece had probably been there last night when they came to bed, but she hadn’t noticed. Exhilarated, she was even more determined to see her love. Given that they had guests, she assumed he was somewhere in the manor with them. So, she got up and ready for the day before she went on the hunt for the others.

They weren’t in the kitchen or in the dining room, not that she expected them to be sitting down to a lavish breakfast. Breakfast was more often missed in this house than eaten. The guys were probably hung over, too, making it even less likely that they were indulging in food.

When she didn’t find her cohorts in the security room, she sat at the keyboard to activate the motion sensors, so she wouldn’t have to wander aimlessly in her quest to locate them. Technology featured more in her life than it had been before. As the system booted her request, one of the screens flickered to a new picture, and she saw her apartment. An initial pang of longing became curious surprise when she noted the unfamiliar interior.

Shifting along to the left keyboard, she typed in the code that brought the picture from the monitor bank and put it on the smaller monitor in front of the keyboard. Zooming in for a closer look, she hunched over the desk. The furniture in the apartment wasn’t hers, none of it. She exhaled a laugh and sat back. Brodie hadn’t just handed over her personal space and possessions. He’d cleared the place out and had it redressed before Mischa set foot over the threshold.

The motion sensor system bleeped to indicate it was live, so she exited the image of the apartment and rolled her chair sideways to access the system she’d started. But before it could display the results, the door behind her opened, and she spun the chair around to see all four men come in. The door closed behind them and they stood in a row.

Being confronted by four such formidable men would have intimidated her a year ago; these days it didn’t make her blink. Tuck, Zave, and Thad went to the table in the corner to sit down.

“Are you ready?” Brodie asked her, though she didn’t know what he was talking about, so she could only look left then right as her love went over to stand behind an empty chair at the table where the other men were seated.

All of them were waiting for her, and their intent scrutiny made her self-conscious. “Ready for what?” she asked. This was like getting a pop quiz in high school that everyone else was prepared for, while she hadn’t known it was coming. “Is this the initiation or the punishment?”

Calm and patient, Brodie was at peace in an eerie way. “You’ve been itching to tell me your plan since I got into that rental car with you,” Brodie said. “Now’s your chance to spill it. Now’s your chance to lead.”

Brodie pulled out the seat he’d been leaning on and sat down to wait, just like the others. Curling her fingers around the arms of the chair, she scanned each face at the table. They were blank, awaiting orders, there was no judgement or annoyance, but there was a silent expectation and she’d have to meet it. There was no place for whining, complaining, or second guessing herself now. She wasn’t performing for her boyfriend and friends, she was presenting to serious, capable colleagues who needed her to step up. 

Pushing up from the chair, she swallowed to moisten her throat then licked her lips. She knew all of these men, and she had worked with them, but being in control, that was a different ball game. Here she was, little Zara Bandini in charge of her own army.

Jumping in meant conducting herself with confidence. Art had been an inclusive leader, but the Kindred wasn’t a democracy. Brodie ran things and had the deciding vote on all actions taken by their squad. He’d probably instructed the others not to argue with her or disrespect her because he knew about her personal struggle. Even if this little performance was just to humor her, they didn’t let it show and gave her their complete focus and trust. Pitching her feeble idea to these experienced men was intimidating because if she made a fool of herself, it would take a long time to win back their respect.

Buying herself some time, she went to the table at the side of the room, poured herself a coffee, and took a calming sip before turning to face them, bolstered enough to fake confidence even if it was wavering a tad.

“Leatt’s a dead end,” she said. “Hanging around at Rigor’s doesn’t get us anything. We need to be focused now, and sitting around there waiting for something to come to us is frustrating and counterproductive. Unless we can predict his next move, there’s a good chance he’ll get the drop on us there. Rigor’s place used to be Sutcliffe’s, Leatt knows that ground better than we do. Here, we’re protected and on our own turf. If anyone tries to come for us, we have the home field advantage.”

“So we’re supposed to forget about Leatt?” Tuck asked.

Like tennis, the spectators looked at the speaker then back at her. “No,” she said, wetting her mouth with the coffee. “We can still keep an eye out and our ears open. But we have an imminent concern.”

“Kahlil Samara,” Zave said. “You fear him?”

Brodie leaned back and pulled something from his pocket. Tossing the item into the middle of the table, she had to cross the room to see what it was: her watch. “We heard it all.”

Everyone was up to speed, so it saved her recounting the meeting. But she was concerned for her love. She gazed at him, hoping for a sign that he was okay after listening to Kahlil bring up his parents in the way he had. Brodie was blank, businesslike, just like the others, and he didn’t relax his mask for a second.