Page 66 of You Don’t Kiss Your Brother's Best Friends

Carefully I removed the charges from the bag at my hip. Blowing myself up now, this close to accomplishing our mission, simply wouldn’t do. The irony of using the same detonators that Roman Wynter had so selfishly set off all those years ago would be lost on him, I knew. But we’d done it anyway. If not for us, at least for those who’d lost their lives to his inexcusable recklessness.

Marley. Hayes. Yearwood.

My heart raced; as the names drifted through my mind. I’d thought about them so many times. But never, until this moment, did they seem this important.

Adler. Sharpe.

I glanced down at my arm. Were the names there growing warm as I repeated each one in my head? It couldn’t have been, but it sure felt like they were.

Driscoll…

My lip curled back in a snarl. Slowly and deliberately I attached the trigger line to the inside of the zipper, then closed the bag. Something made me open it again, though.

NO.

There, on the surface of the detonator, the feed wire remained unattached. And not just unattached, but broken, exactly as I’d left it.

We can’t set the trigger live.

Bishop’s words echoed resoundingly in my mind. I closed my eyes against them.

It’s too dangerous. Stick to the plan.

For a frightening moment, I lost control. I reached out and touched the feed wire, twisting it gently between my two calloused fingers. Attaching it to the zipper would be so easy, so final. It would solve our biggest, most long-standing problem, definitively, once and for all.

But there was a good chance it could also lead to our undoing.

I took a slow, cleansing breath. If and when shit went sideways, Bishop and I would be alright. We’d gotten out of much tighter places than this, against much worse odds. Yet there was also Kayden to think about. He'd given up so much to help us. He was a brother to Bishop, and a good friend who’dmade sacrifices I’d never forget. Kayden was sharp, fast, quick on his feet. Hemightbe okay.

When it came to Jocelyn though, that wasn’t a risk any of us were willing to take.

I closed my eyes, fighting back images of her lithe, beautiful body, twisting nakedly beneath mine. What we’d done was carnal. Twisted. Incredibly hot. And yet it wasmorethan that, too. There were feelings there now, developing deep beneath the purely sexual surface. I felt attached to this beautiful, resourceful woman. Bonded in ways that I hadn’t felt with any of the short, tumultuous relationships I’d tried to keep while juggling a career as a Marine Specialist.

In a world of shit and shadows, Jocelyn was the one shining star. She’d held it together better than anyone could ever expect, even through the horrific scene at the lake. I wanted to hold her, protect her, and keep her from harm. I wanted to live long enough to destroy those who’d wronged her, and pull her through this threshold of absurdity to brighter, happier times.

And none of that could happen if I didn’t stick to the plan.

I opened my eyes and let the feed wire slip through my fingers, still unattached from the lethal charge of C-4 that would potentially obliterate the room. It would remain there, broken, dangling ominously from the inside of the zipper.

Exactly where Roman Wynter would find it.

~ 39 ~

BISHOP

There were a lot of things that came with having numbers. For one, strength. Diversity of ability. An expansive reach wasn’t possible without a significant presence, and that presence couldn’t happen until you had the people.

But having numbers came with drawbacks, too.

As a mercenary company, Blight was rapidly learning the dangers of expanding too quickly. Its original members were admittedly solid, but in recent years they’d made poor decisions, and they’d cut too many corners. Right now, as it stood, their new talent pool was woefully thin. Men who would’ve been laughed away when the company was first formed were being welcomed into the fold, and some of them had even risen to positions of power and influence that jeopardized the organization as a whole.

Case in point, Victor Knox’s entire crew.

It shouldn’t have been possible for me to infiltrate their quarter of the mansion as easily as I did. Even with everyone at the docks waiting on Roman’s arrival, there should’ve been some type of security detail stopping me from getting me where I was, and more importantly, preventing me from what I was currently doing.

I planted the detonators haphazardly, in a way that wouldn’t be immediately obvious, but also wouldn’t withstandnormal levels of scrutiny. On this end, there were no explosives. If we played our cards right, there wouldn’t need to be. Once Roman Wynter showed up and a discovery was made, all the fireworks would come from within.

The plan was Kayden’s, actually. To his credit it was damn near perfect, if we could pull it off. Finally getting revenge on Blight’s Founding members for what they’d done would be sweet enough. But tearing the organization entirely apart from within? That seemed like a more fitting end to the once-great mercenary company, now rife with corruption and greed and—

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