Page 11 of Surprise Baby for the Enemy

“Did you get them all?” I ask Iris.

We pass through the hall and into the living room, as dingy as the bare room Derrick and I were locked in. There are a few more bodies here, but no matter how closely I look at their hooded and masked faces, I can’t tell if one is Silver.

Iris leaves my side only long enough to drag a knife through the dusty curtains, cutting one down to wrap around me. She’ll turn me into a walking burrito if I let her, but I don’t mind. The heat is finally starting to calm my shakes. “We killed everyone we saw,” she says. “I probably should’ve left one alive for questioning but-” She shrugs tightly, and I realize just how angry she really is.

Iris doesn’t act emotionally. Of all my brother’s men, she’s probably the one with the highest body count and the least likely to be caught in the act. But she mowed through this entire house to get to me.

I shiver and rest my head against her shoulder, holding my dingy curtain tight around myself.

Iris doesn’t blink at this unusual show of affection. She wraps an arm around me, and keeping me safe in her grip, leads me out of the house, Derrick and Paul following in our wake.

CHAPTER 6

Derrick

I wokeup an hour ago as Silver’s prisoner. Now I’m Thomas’s prisoner, and despite everything that’s already happened, I don’t know if this is an improvement or not.

Raleigh and I are led to a sleek black car parked right in the front yard of the house we were held in. I take note of the street names and the surrounding houses. I’m not familiar with the neighborhood, but the entire street looks rundown and semi-deserted. Either the other people living here are cowering inside after listening to that shootout, or there aren’t any other people here to cower.

Raleigh goes in the shotgun seat, and Paul Zakharov gets in the back with me. He was Morgan Speare’s enforcer as long as I knew the mafia boss, and I’m less than pleased he survived the destruction of his boss’s empire. What is he doing with the Warwicks now? Regardless of which side he’s on, he can claim a grudge against me, which bodes ill. Not quite as ill as being in Thomas Warwick’s custody after being found in a room with Thomas’s little sister, but ill nonetheless.

“How did you find us?” Raleigh asks Iris as the older woman backs the car up into the street. Raleigh’s voice sounds so small,and from the backseat, I can see she’s still shaking. I feel myself wanting to put my arms around her, to still her- which is absurd.

When I told her to stay behind me, that everything would be okay, we were in a different world. Our roles have been drastically rearranged in a matter of minutes, and now I’m the only one in mortal peril while she is surrounded by protectors.

Still, my fingers twitch.

“Tracked your phone to his house after you didn’t come home last night,” Iris says. “I found your purse, by the way, so I knew something was wrong. There were police crawling all over-”

I lean forward so quickly Paul grabs my shoulder and shoves me back. “Chance and Justice- my dogs- are they okay?”

Iris’s eyes are cold in the rearview mirror. Fuck, I shouldn’t be calling her attention to me. She was the one who found Thomas in my office after he beat the shit out of me- after I’d handcuffed him to a chair to gloat over my impending victory.

“They’re fine,” she says shortly, then focuses back on Raleigh. “Luckily, cops are idiots and we were able to track down where your kidnappers came from far ahead of them.”

That was pointed, and, might I add, vaguely immature for Iris. Losing her boss’s little sister has rattled her, or maybe it’s because she found her in a room with a man who’s her boss’s nemesis.

Dread sinks into my bones. There is no way this is ending well for me.

“Does Thomas know-” Raleigh asks, but Iris shakes her head.

“He and Clara caught their flight first thing this morning. I didn’t realize you were missing until a few hours later.”

“Don’t tell him,” Raleigh blurts, shocking me.

“Raleigh, that’s not an option,” Iris says, firm but soothing. “Even if you weren’t hurt-”

“I’m not hurt!” Raleigh insists.

“-Even if I didn’t find youimprisoned,” Iris persists, “there’shimto consider.”

Him. Me.

Fuck.

The fact that Thomas Warwick is on a plane to Europe is probably the only thing that’s going to save my life.

When we return to the Warwick’s main base, a massive walled estate crouched on a hill overlooking the city, Iris makes the executive decision to have me tossed in a cell instead of outright executed. She’s clearly the one in charge with Thomas gone, and everyone scrambles to do her bidding as if she were the man himself.

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