Page 76 of Wilde and Deadly

Benji, however, had the audacity to looksheepish.“Uh… okay, so, before you, like… freak out… I may have ordered a pizza.”

“Youwhat?”

He winced. “Look, man, I was hungry. Andyousure as hell weren’t offering to cook me a five-star meal. Figured I’d make myself comfortable. Or as comfortable as I can on this couch.”

Elliot stared at him for a full five seconds, then he exhaled through his nose to quell the urge to throttle the guy.

“You dumb motherfucker,” he muttered before stalking toward the door.

He checked the cam. Sure enough, a teenager in a red uniform and a visor stood at the elevator, balancing a pizza box in one hand while scrolling through his phone with the other. No visible weapons. Nothing suspicious.

Still. Elliot wasn’t taking chances. He pointed at Benji. “Don’t fucking move.” Then he jabbed the elevator call button. The doors whispered open, and he stepped inside, keeping the gun down by his leg but visible.

When the doors opened in front of the delivery guy, the kid’s eyes went wide. He held out the pizza box. “Uh… p-pizza for Benji?”

Elliot scanned him and found nothing overtly threatening. Just a regular teenage kid. He grabbed the box and hit the door close button. He fumed the entire ride back up to the apartment.

“Eat your goddamn pizza,” he snapped, tossing the box onto Benji's lap.

Benji grinned. “You know, you should really work on your hospitality.”

Elliot ignored him, settling back into his chair as Benji flipped the box open and inhaled deeply.

“Jesus,” he moaned, lifting a slice like it was a religious experience. “This is what I needed.”

Elliot shook his head and returned to his spot at the table, setting his gun down beside the monitors. His focus zeroed in on the screens, back on the mission—until Benji, mouth full, shoved the pizza box under his nose.

“Want a slice?”

He was about to refuse—he didn’t eat on duty, and he sure as hell didn’t trust anything Benji ordered—but the smell of melted cheese and garlic hit his nose, and his stomach made a low, traitorous sound. Shit, he couldn’t remember the last time he ate something. And now that the thought had taken root, he couldn’t shake it.

“One,” he muttered, snatching a slice.

Benji smirked like he’d won something, but Elliot ignored it. He took a bite and—yeah, okay, it was good. He returned his attention to the screens.

That was when everything went to hell.

“The fuck?” Dom’s voice muttered over the comms.

Excitement rippled through the gala’s guests, and his stomach dropped like he’d just crested a roller coaster. Because there, standing in the middle of the gala, right beside that bastard Frost?—

Was Rue Bristow.

For a heartbeat, everything froze.

His chest locked up. Breath caught, stuck somewhere between a gasp and a curse.

His brain lagged behind, refusing to accept what his eyes were telling him.

Rue.

In the middle of the gala. Standing beside Frost.

The pieces didn’t fit. Couldn’t. Shouldn’t.

Then—

Terror. Fury. A sharp, brutal mix that shot through him like an electric pulse.

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