Page 25 of Tempting Fate

“Might wanna pop a chill pill before you get little Cherub caught in the crossfire.” My hand drops to my side. “According to the records, the house was sold privately last year to a family trust set up for an elderly woman… only problem with that is she’s been dead for about ten years. I need you to go over there and scope it out for me, without breakin’ anythin’ or puttin’ a bullet in any heads, while I reverse engineer the records to find the real buyer.”

Stepping out onto the front porch, I glare at the houses across the other side of the parklands like I can work out which one it is if I stare hard enough. Cub’s advice is sensible, but sensible doesn’t settle real well on a man’s shoulders when the woman he loves is missing.

Even so, I force myself to breathe a few times before I respond. “So, you want me to act like a clueless douchebag… what do you want me to do if I sight Lily? Blow her a fucking kiss, then leave her there to fend for herself?”

“Fuck no,” he retorts. “Then you put a bullet in someone and bring her home… but only if you’re positive that you won’t get her hurt in the process.”

If she was here, it’s right about now that Lily would be rolling her eyes at the pair of us, then she’d tell us to whip ’em out and measure ’em to settle it once and for all. Cub, or Luke Hayes as he was known before he prospected for the Shamrocks, has been around the Mayberrys so long that he’s basically an honorary sibling at this point.

Hence his protective streak, especially toward the twins, is almost as strong as mine.

He’s quite literally taken more than one beating for them.

And that’s made him more vocal than he should be at this time, considering his patch is still shiny.

“Ain’t your place to give orders,” I growl at him. “Back off or remind me where I was when you stitched my VP patch onto your cut because I musta missed it.”

He sighs. “Not tellin’ you what to do, Venom… just tryna stop this from goin’ pear-shaped until I can give you as much info as possible. Last thing we need is our VP walkin’ into a setup without his brothers at his back.”

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I screw my eyes shut as I battle past the urge to reach through the phone and choke the stubborn little shit to death. Sure, his advice comes from a good place, yet there’s a reason why he’s sitting behind his laptop, and I’m the one willing to walk into this situation alone.

“Not sure what to tell ya, Cub. No amount of intel will change the fact Alex has her…” When a lump wedges in my throat, I swallow it down then continue. “It was his father and his bunch of dickless automatons raidin’ the clubhouse under the pretence of a bomb threat this afternoon. That’s confirmation enough for me. So, we don’t need any more information—we need the ability to rewind time to stop this from happenin’. Don’t have that… so gettin’ her back as fast as I can is the next best way to help her. Second only to tellin’ her I’ve finally put a bullet in his head… like I shoulda done more than five years ago.”

“Hearin’ ya,” he concedes. “Look, it’s the house with the red roof. It’s directly opposite, right where someone who’s tryin’ to keep tabs on you without arousin’ any suspicion could see straight through your windows with the right equipment. Figure that’s where you’ll find the proof you need that she’s there, or at least has been, if you manage to talk your way inside.”

“Tell Slash to ready our brothers. They needa meet me at yours and Sander’s,” I command as I take the steps toward ground level two at a time. “He’ll know who I mean.”

“Roger that. I’m gonna get eyes in the air now so I can check the yard and surrounds. I’ll keep you in the loop. Just… just, call me back with an update,” he pauses, then inhales noisily. “Good or bad, I wanna know.”

Slowing my stride, I end the call and wedge the burner into my back pocket. Moments later, the unnerving whine of a drone erupts from behind me and swoops across the park. It drops lower once it’s cleared the top of the red-roofed house, then disappears from sight.

Despite the tension coiling within me, I have to tip my hat to him. The little fucker might be no good in a punch-up or a gunfight, but put the right tech in his hands, and he’s a one-man reconnaissance crew. No doubt it helps that the house he shares with Lily’s twin and her middle brother, Fret, is three down from mine and that whatever government system he’s managed to hack allows him to operate a drone from the compound.

This shit is going down on home turf.

That’d normally be an irritation.

Right now, it feels like a deliberate middle finger.

I pull my cut straight to ensure that the butt of my gun isn’t showing, then I do my best to wipe the rage I’m feeling from my expression and plaster what I hope is the look of a mildly worried boyfriend on my face. My steps grind to a halt when I reach the end of our driveway and something shiny catches my eye.

Lily’s lip gloss.

It sits in the gutter.

One tube of M.A.C. Cosmetics tinted lipglass.

Shiny, sticky, tastes like cinnamon and jojoba.

The shade she wears is called Love Child.

I know this because I’ve been sent to the store more than once to purchase a new tube after Nadia’s accidentally taken Lily’s home with her. In a similar fashion, I discovered the hard way that it’s lipglass and not lip gloss. The teen on the makeup counter who rolled her eyes at me made that point very clear. Best friends for a decade, Lily and Nadia share most things, clothes, books, eyeshadow, but they’re territorial over their lip gloss, handbags, and their shoes. With Slash, I’ve refereed more than one shouting match between them over the right to be the only one to wear a pair of over-the-knee boots on a night out.

The tinted lip gloss debate rages even fiercer while quarrels over designer handbags can end in fist fights.

Stooping down, I scoop it up and toss it gently in the air, catching it in my palm. A lightweight, insignificant, easily replaced item. Yet, as I curl my fingers around it, I run a gauntlet of emotions. Gratitude. Ruin. Apprehension. The presence of Lily’s lip gloss confirms she was stolen from our driveway. It also tells me that she’s really gone and ramps up my worry over the state she’s going to be in when I find her.

Because I will find her.

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