Page 74 of Holy Sinner

“Fucking one name sharing idiots,” I agree. “I don’t want them near Kit. That shit they’re doing with Alana is fine but not Kit.”

Rafe grunts in solidarity. Good, I’m glad we’re on the same page. We have to be with the way things are right now. “I don’t give a shit what Holly is saying. I’m not having Kit staying with those rent-a-cops.”

Kit slides onto a seat at the counter with a piece of pizza in hand. “They’re ex-special ops, I don’t think it’s fair to call them rent-a-cops.”

“I said what I said,” I tell her and set the kettle to boil water for her tea. “I don’t trust them, not with what Alexia told me about Holly.”

“Thought we agreed it wasn’t Holly,” Rafe says.

“That was before she decided to bring in a man named Jax.”

“Fair enough,” Rafe returns.

“We don’t think what is Holly?” Kit asks. She’s confused. The look on her face is adorable. I smile and lean across the counter to stroke her hair.

“Alexia thinks it’s Holly that took Jane. She’s convinced she’s got a hand in everything that’s going on now, but she’s wrong,” Rafe tells her. “Grant is just pissed because of the meatheads she hired to keep you safe.”

‘That’s our job,” I say because I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of saying that I’m pissed even if it is the truth and we all know it.

“Holly couldn’t…I mean, she wouldn’t do that, would she?”

“No way. She needs this movie to work as badly as we do. Besides, how would Holly be taking photos of us with no one knowing? The paparazzi feeding the photos to the papers would love nothing more than to be the one to expose something like that.” He slides a plate of cake in front of her and hands her a fork. “Eat up and don’t worry about this shit. We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

Kit looks like she wants to keep asking questions but she finishes her pizza and picks up the fork. Lofi plays in the living room, the calming strains of it filter into the kitchen and it’s almost easy to slip into the domesticity of the moment. We had moments like this in Seattle. Too few for my liking but enough that I know how good this part of being with Kit and Rafe can be.

I’m starting to steep her tea when Kit puts her fork down and breaks the calm. “Alana is coming with us, right?”

“Yeah, if that’s what you want. The place is big enough for her.”

“Okay, good, I just…I don’t like being far away from her while this is going on, even if she’s happy about what she’s calling her ‘bodyguard era.’” She picks up her phone and I know she’s texting Alana. Her friend left half an hour before with Jax and Scott in tow. They’d been reassigned to keeping Alana safe for the evening in the cabin next to us. The cabin was assigned to only Jax and Scott but they are putting Alana up for the night under Holly’s direction.

“She’s fine,” Rafe soothes as he rounds the counter to wrap an arm around her. “We wouldn’t have let her go if we didn’t think they were okay.”

“But you were just calling them rent-a-cops. That doesn’t sound good. Alana is like my sister. She has to be safe.” Kit is drumming her fingers on the counter and wiggling her foot. She does both when she’s anxious or nervous.

I bring Kit her tea and put my hand on hers to still her fingers. “Not fans of them in our territory. We keep you safe and nothing is ever going to change that. We don’t need a couple of washed up military bros creeping around our space.”

Kit threads her fingers through mine and I feel her relax. “I still can’t believe Holly got bodyguards.”

Of course Kit doesn’t understand why Holly got the okay for bodyguards that look like the poster boys for a superhero movie. They’re fit, I’ll give them that. Not that Rafe and I couldn’t take them apart if we wanted to. Rafe looks at me and raises an eyebrow. I know what he’s thinking.

We need to tell her there’s more than one.

We haven’t yet because there hasn’t been time alone. I rub my knuckles over hers and nod at him. Now is as fine a time as any to tell her. But before I can, Kit’s phone pings with a text.

“Who’s that? Alana?” Rafe asks.

“Yes it is.” Kit laughs and then holds her phone up to show us a gif of a woman drooling with heart eyes. There’s a photo and text with it of Jax and Scott shirtless in the living room. One of them is doing push-ups and the other is looking out the window.

“Is this what your life is like? It is, isn't it?”

“I think it’s safe to say Alana is doing just fine,” she says and starts to text her friend back.

Rafe leans over her shoulder to get a better look at the phone and scoffs but I don’t know miss the way he walks off into the living room and starts doing a set of push-ups too. Fucking idiot.

Kit looks up from her phone at us. “I know that it’s not ideal having Jax and Scott around but it could be helpful, right? We don’t really know who we’re up against and five against one are great odds.”

“Two, maybe three…could be four, I guess but that feels like overkill,” I tell her, even though this isn’t how I wanted to do it. It’s only going to make her worry but there’s no way around it. The only way forward is through it.

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