Page 6 of Craving Vengeance

“Do we have time to sleep?” Rhys asked as he stumbled inside. Valentyn held a hand to his shoulder before pulling him intohis chest. Dmitri handed me Paval as he scouted the place, a hand on his hip just in case someone was lurking in the corners. Several minutes of silence met us before Dmitri waved us. Valentyn placed a kiss on our fourth’s temple nodding.

“Of course, sweetheart.”

I wasn’t surprised when we walked to the backrooms and Rhys unconsciously crawled into the bed with Paval. Paval curled into Rhys’ chest, letting out a little sigh and my heart melted a little that our son took to Rhys as well as he did. They were a comfort to each other and fuck if I was getting in the middle of that. Staring at the adorable scene put a smile on my face until I remembered our conversation on the plane.

Staring a few more minutes, I closed the door and then turned to face Dmitri and Valentyn. They both looked worn and I knew I’d crash just as soon as the adrenaline from flying a fucking plane across the Atlantic wore off.

“You know that Liam texted him?” The other two shook their heads and I ran a heavy hand down my face. “I have a bad feeling about him. Well, Rhys did and I believe him.” Losing his entire support system in less than a week couldn’t be easy, especially when the rest of the world was also working against him.

Valentyn sighed, “I’ll look into it. Sleep and we’ll figure out what’s next.”

“You really think we’re going to sleep?” Dmitri chuckled as he dragged me against his chest and pressed his lips to my forehead. I melted against him, not realizing how much I needed their touch. Valentyn just shook his head as he headed toward the main living space, both of us following on his heels.

Our first step would be finding out how to meet with whoever was truly running the show at Hawk International. Unfortunately, figuring out how to do that without using Rhys or his program as a bargaining chip was going to be difficult.

Chapter five

LIAM

Irritated, I let the weariness of this past job take over as my body melted into the cushions. Joey was resting beside me, his worried expression making me uncomfortable. The last week had been just shy of stressful, Rhys not answering my goddamn texts and Ada pestering me for Tia’s whereabouts. I had tried pinging both Mom and Dad’s phones at one point and came up empty. Even Maia hadn’t been able to find anything on that front.

Which was no less than frustrating but trying to keep a straight face around my husband was so much worse.

His constant questions about my family and the lack of Thursday night dinner raised several alarms. Wrangling him into a relaxing movie night helped calm his nerves but it was doingnothingfor me. I shifted on the cushions again, jolting Joey’s shoulder and causing him to spill wine on the carpet.Fuck.

“I’m fine,” I muttered as if that would solve anything.

Joey gently laid his glass on the coffee table before grabbing the remote and pausing the movie. Then he turned to me, those beautiful brown eyes searching mine for answers I didn’t want to give him. “You’re not fine. You’ve been antsy all week. We haven’t spoken with your parents and Rhys hasn’t reached out once. Is he okay? Liam,talk to me.”

I tried to move and sit up, Joey not having it as he threw a leg over my lap to keep me there. His hands fell to my chest, heat building between us as I reached up to pull him into a kiss. He stopped me, shaking his head.

“No, you’re not getting out of this again. You’re suffering. What’s going on? Is it Rhys?”

There.Again.My little brother. Why the fuck was he so special when he had just ruinedeverythingwe had built? “No, he’s fine.”

“Really? He hasn’t called.”

“New boyfriend,” I pushed out, setting my hands on Joey’s hips and grinding him down onto my lap. We hadn’t talked much over the past week despite the few times I dragged him into a quick, hard fuck. I knew I wasn’t going to get out of talking this time. “He’s fine. I think.”

Joey sighed, his hands migrating to my hair, stroking through the strands before pressing a kiss to my forehead. “And your parents? We’ve never missed a dinner.”

“On vacation.” The lies were going to start breaking down soon if I didn’t figure something out but Joey was so pure that he wanted to believe them. He wanted to believe that we were okay, that nothing had changed, and that I wasn’t working for the devil incarnate behind his back.

I went to throw out another lie when a knock sounded on the door. Joey twisted toward the noise, frowning. We weren’t expecting anything, not even a fucking package. When the knockcame again, I extracted myself from Joey’s embrace and headed for the door, peeking through the peephole to ensure it wouldn’t be someone I’d regret opening to.

Maia?

The sweet older woman was standing there as I ripped the door open, a bright smile on her face as she held her hand out. She shook it a few times and then I remembered our deal. I retrieved a sharing size of Skittles and handed it over. Maia was older than I was but she still radiated that youthful beauty. Long tresses of brown hair hung around her shoulders, overshadowing the drab green dress hugging her frail form. At first glance, no one would know that she preferred to stay inside, glued to a computer.

Slowly, I pushed her outside and closed the door behind me so that Joey couldn’t listen in. “What the fuck are you doing at my house, Maia?”

A giggle slipped from her lips as she ripped open the package. “That program. Do you know what you have?”

I shook my head. “But you’re going to tell me.”

Maia crunched on a few Skittles, popping each one in at a time before furiously chewing and then moaning with excitement. Her eyes fluttered closed before she spoke again. “It’s a weapon. No idea what it’s for but that thing can predict almost anything.”

Oh, the fucking possibilities. “Can you get it to work?”

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