Page 63 of Kilo's Edge

“Thank you,” I told him, “but honestly, I’m going to spend the night with Kilo. And Mama has work. Carmen has a sleepover planned, and I don’t know how we’d explain to four young girls who you are and why you’re there.” Kilo had texted, saying they were on the way. It wasn’t going to take much time before they got here.

It wasn’t hard to see that Dustin was torn. He didn’t want to leave us. Again, my heart warmed at that. He was a caring man. If only he was twenty years older, I’d shove Mama his way. Though it was likely to take a lot of convincing to make Mama date again. She’d mentioned it, but I knew Dad had been her person. She’d loved him with everything she had. Not knowing what had happened to Dad had hit her hard. She wasn’t sure what to think about the man she’d married and loved. That broke my heart.

“If you’re sure,” he said, hesitating.

“We are. It’s nothing...right?” I asked. He knew there was something off. And I knew that somehow the mole the club thought was planted inside the FBI had played this off as some routine maintenance. No wonder Kruzman kept finding us. This just proved there were people who would happily take money in exchange for just about anything, even someone’s life, and that everyone else was busy and had so many things on their plate they’d believe the first lie told to them.

Dustin wasn’t like that. It was easy to see he didn’t want to leave, but he was trying to figure out how the two of them would follow all three of us when we split up in three different directions. Of course, if we didn’t have the club protecting us, I’d be begging for him to stay here with us for the night. My lack of concern was lulling him into a false sense of security. He shrugged. “Yeah, okay. You want us to hang out until Kilo gets back from work?”

“No, we’ve taken up your whole day already,” I told him, patting his shoulder. “Kilo will be home soon.” At least that wasn’t a lie. I shot Jeremy a smile. “Thank you for staying with us.”

Jeremy's eyes narrowed on me. I had a feeling he was seeing through my overly bright attitude, but he finally nodded. “No problem.”

“Call if anything is out of place,” Dustin told me as I walked them to the front door.

“I will. Promise.” Another lie. I had to bite back the sigh. I didn’t like lying to these men. They’d helped us so many times over the last four years. I considered them friends. But their obligations were at odds with the Saint’s Outlaws intentions. And my loyalty had to be with the men who were doing whatever it took to keep us safe. Dustin and Jeremy could only do what the law allowed. Besides, I wasn’t doing anything that would place them into harm’s way, so I shoved the guilt down.

I waved as they got into their SUV and drove away. Shutting the door, I locked it and Mama, Carmen, and I sat on the couch to wait for Kilo and the others. It didn’t take long before the sound of a motorcycle revving outside and doors closing echoed through our quiet house. I got up and hurried to the window, peeking through the curtains. “They’re here.”

Mama and Carmen let out twin sighs of relief. I opened the door and stepped straight into Kilo’s arms.

“Mercy,” he growled. “You’re not supposed to be opening doors.”

“I saw it was you,” I told him, my words muffled as I buried my face against him.

“You’re not supposed to be looking out windows,” he countered.

“I heard you coming.”

His chuckle vibrated inside my head. “Come on in everyone. Lucia, Carmen, these are the guys.”

I held on and moved with him, clinging like a spider monkey as he introduced the guys to my family.

“Where are the Marshals?” he asked, wrapping his arms around me and holding me close like I needed.

I’d shot him a quick text that they were gone, but that was all. “He got a call from some supervisor. Said the alert was a routine thing that the FBI sanctioned.”

“Bullshit.”

“I know, but I played it off like I believed it so they’d leave.”

“Good girl,” he told me with a grin.

It did things to my insides when he said stuff like that. Made me melt. Made me ache. He brought out too many emotions to examine.

Reluctantly, I let him go, but he yanked me back against him again. Likehewasn’t ready to break contact either. I could hear the others speaking in low voices with Mama and Carmen, but I just basked in his embrace. I could only pray that everything would go well tonight. If this was the last time I was able to lose myself in Kilo’s arms, I wasn’t sure what I’d do. It didn’t matter that we’d only known each other for a short time, he was mine. And I was his. I considered myself so lucky that we’d found one another.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked, pulling back and looking down at me.

Huffing out a breath, I nodded. “We’re ready.”

“You have your gun?”

I took his hand and slid it down until his fingers brushed over the butt of my weapon.

He grinned. “Now I know where that shirt went. You hoarding my clothes, Mercy?”

I bit my lip and shrugged, giving him a guilty smile. “I needed something a bit bigger to hide the gun.”

---