Page 113 of End Game

“We have leads,” Rohan corrected. “They’re just frayed.” He sent Ash a cocky smile.

The sight jolted him. Of all his brothers, Rohan never displayed what they all knew. He was a bits and bytes genius. Maybe his recent skirmish with the Collective had given him an extra boost of empowerment. Ash didn’t begrudge his brother a dash of arrogance. He’d earned it.

Rohan’s next words confirmed his suspicions. “I like frayed.”

Hope speared through his chest for the first time since he lost Wade to the wind. Yet he couldn’t just sit here and watch Rohan dig up something actionable.

Kayla’s tear-streaked face rocketed through his mind, and he surged to his feet. “I need to check on Kayla. She won’t be weak with grief for long.”

“Kayla is in good hands,” Zeke said, still thundering at the end of the table. “Six women who love her are pampering and listening and doing all the other things men suck at in these circumstances. We need you here and focused.”

“I am fucking focused!”

“Easy, buddy.” Phin appeared before him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “In this, I have to agree with Mr. Sensitive. Your mind is stuck in a loop of how you could have done things differently, how you could’ve prevented Jillian’s disappearance.” He nodded to the room at large. “We’ve all been there in the past couple years.” His voice lowered for Ash’s ears only. “It’s what happens when the woman you love is hurting.”

Ash raised his burning eyes and met each man’s gaze, ending with his youngest brother’s. Love for these turds filled the aching hollowness he’d been living with since the moment he announced accepting a position with the FBI. Today, for the first time in years, he felt like a Blackwell again. “When did you grow up, you little shit?”

Phin laughed and rumpled his hair like Ash used to do to him two-and-half decades ago. “Time to get to work, loverboy.”

Ash lifted a brow in Rohan’s direction. “Got a connection yet to any of those frayed ends?”

Rohan’s eyes gleamed their triumph. “Does Phin wear pressed T-shirts?”

55

“I’m going to rip their balls off and hang them from my bumper,” Kayla threatened as she paced before the massive fireplace. If she could reach it, she’d draw Lupos from its iron perch and begin the maiming now. If only she had a specific target on which to direct her ire.

Then she remembered who was in the room. “Sorry, Grams.”

“You are in a circle of trust.” The Diné woman smiled. “I’ve wanted to snip a few achó bizis in my time.”

Unaccountably, the backs of Kayla’s eyes burned. All six women were positioned in a semicircle around her, with Lupos at her back.

Lupus. Wolf.

Weren’t most wolf packs guarded, at least in part, by an Alpha or breeding female? Their show of sisterhood drained the fury from her heart. But not her determination.

After her warrior angels had marched her back to the Friary, they’d supplied her with tissues and plied her with wine until her tears had dried up.

No judgment. No false platitudes.

Only patience and understanding and strength. The realization that they would make amazing members of Service whispered through her mind.

”Tell us what you know, child,” Grams said, as if sensing her mental shift.

Kayla laid out every detail to these women, even the smaller bits that she hadn’t yet shared with Ash. She told them about Tommy the activist and her guilt for the way she’d treated Natalie after hearing about her relationship with Kayla’s college nemesis.

“Alexander Brighton,” Liv said. “There’s a name I’d hoped to never hear again.”

Thank heavens Liv was on the same page. She didn’t know what she’d do if Liv started spouting off about how people could change. Kayla knew this. She’d evolved over the years.

But Alexander Brighton would always be a dick in her book.

“A coincidence is a term our emotional side uses to justify our lack of action,” Cilla said, referring to the profane markings on Kayla’s vehicles, both past and present. “Your initial gut reaction to this guy showing up in Natalie’s life has merit.”

“What happened to him after you reported the vandalism?” Maddy asked.

“Nothing. His father, a former senator, made the incident go away.”

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