Page 16 of Avenging Kelly

We both made our way to a table with facing bench seats and sat to stare out the small windows. The brothers yelled at each other, and though we couldn’t make out the exact words, there were definitely a lot of arm gestures and pointing fingers. It reminded me of fighting with my cousins when I was a little kid. I was guessing there were a lot of loose teeth and broken bones between those two.

“So, uh, are you coming along with us to be our cook? Where are we going, by the way?” I asked, not holding back on the sarcasm.

Before I knew what the fuck was happening, a knife plunged into the mahogany table where we sat, landing just between the middle and ring finger of my right hand where it rested on the tabletop. I was stunned silent for a moment.

I looked at the man, pretty sure there was more to him than I could imagine, but I didn’t flinch. I’d seen men like him before, and the guy I was staring at was a fucking professional… something.

He pried the knife from the table and pressed on the slight disturbance in the wood with the flat of the blade.

“Papà will kill me if he finds out I made that gouge. Sorry, but I have a short fuse when someone questions my abilities. If you’re nice, perhaps I’ll cook for you. If you piss me off, maybe I cut off your testicoli in your sleep and sauté them with a Torrente chianti.”

Oh, the man’s threat was serious, but something about the gleam in his eyes made me instantly like him. “I’d appreciate it if you’d leave my testicoli where they are. I think maybe I’ve offended you, and if so, I apologize,” I offered, seeing his quick smile.

Before he could reply, the brothers’ St. Michael boarded the plane, both looking more than a little pissed off as our flight host Carter closed the hatch door.

As I glanced at the three other men, I didn’t hate the idea of such attractive company. In Sin City, I’d stayed to myself and hadn’t made friends. Meeting these men had me wanting to know more about them, but I had to be careful that none of them were put in any danger.

I smirked at London. “Are we filling a clown car?”

He turned to me, not smiling at all. “I didn’t know about Rafe coming, and I didn’t expect my brother. Sorry.”

I suspected he really wasn’t, so I laughed off London’s pissy attitude. The more the merrier—or the bloodier.

* * *

“Where the hell are we going?” I asked as we approached a Regency tri-toon boat anchored to a private dock at Bell Harbor Marina. We’d been picked up at the executive airport by a large black Suburban where all of our bags had been loaded in the back. Still, nobody had mentioned a fucking word about our destination.

“Hope Island,” Chef Rafe announced as the driver maneuvered our vessel away from the dock and out into Puget Sound.

Chef Rafe took a seat next to me, offering a bottle of water. “It’s ironic that we’re taking you to Hope Island, don’t you think?”

I glanced at him, not exactly sure of his implication. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I felt a spark of anger flicker for a moment, but then the man grinned and looked to the spot where London and Dallas were sitting on the other side, still arguing.

“My brother Mateo and I argue the same way, especially when I think he’s going to do something that could get him killed. I have a feeling you are a very dangerous man, Kelly Brown. Is there a chance that one of us might not leave Hope Island with air in our lungs?”

I had to say, the man had an interesting way to turn a phrase.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t without merit. “You can all stay on the boat and leave me alone. That way you’ll all breathe this rotten egg smelling air on your way back to Seattle. I’m built to be self-sufficient. I don’t need any of you.”

My companion laughed as he took the water bottle from me and opened it, handing it back before he sipped his own as his eyes stayed on me. There was a hand on my shoulder, causing me to turn to where London St. Michael stood, his fiery eyes steady on Rafael.

“The captain needs you to give him the directions to wherever the fuck we’re headed,” London snapped, not moving his hand from my shoulder as if he was protecting me… or maybe it was something more? That one quick thought made my heart skip a beat.

A short time later, the boat slowly glided to a weathered but sturdy-looking dock. The captain’s mate, a short man with a firm body, leaped from the boat to the dock with the spring line in his hand.

The captain cautiously maneuvered the boat closer, and Chef Rafe grabbed the dock lines that the short man tossed to him. They worked together to secure the vessel before the captain’s mate jumped back aboard and worked to place our bags on the dock.

Chef Rafe walked over to Dallas and extended his hand toward the dock. “Welcome to my home… Well, one of them.”

Dallas stood, his face pale as he held onto the awning for support and stepped onto the pontoon. He glanced around for a second before hopping onto the dock.

London leaned forward to speak into my ear. “He’s truly a landlubber. Can’t swim and boats make him sick.”

With that, London patted my shoulder and headed off the boat, me on his heels like a duckling following it’s mother. For a second, I had the sneaking suspicion it wouldn’t be the last time I followed London St. Michael wherever he led.

We grabbed our bags and headed toward a sand path that curved up a dune toward a gray-stained clapboard house. A large deck surrounded it with views of the most gorgeous body of water I’d seen in some time after having been incarcerated in land-locked Kansas.

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