Page 48 of Toxic

She was holding Dani’s daughter and smiled up at me. “I don’t mind staying.”

My heart thumped hard against my rib cage. Fuck. Seeing her holding a baby and getting along with my family? If I wasn’t already falling for her, I would have started then.

I moved around the room, speaking to my brothers, making plans for the next couple of days of work when I noticedsomething. The kids were missing. And so was Isla. I tried to catch Butcher’s attention, but he was busy talking to a wide-eyed Gwen.

Judging by the motions he was making I was pretty sure he was telling her how to disembowel somebody. I started toward the stairs and noticed the door at the back of the hallway was open, so I changed directions.

They were in the gym. The kids idolized Isla at this point and she was really finding a groove with them. She didn’t seem to realize how personable she actually was. The women loved her. The kids loved her. Hell, she’d managed to mostly tame Butcher, so we loved her too. Not that he’d ever be fully tamed.

I frowned as I watched her tie Taylor and Sean’s hands together. They both had knives in their free hands.

“Okay. This is how I was taught to settle arguments. There will be a three-minute time limit. You stay tied together and whoever has the least amount of cuts on their body at the end, wins the argument.”

My jaw dropped and I studied the blades. They weren’t the fake knives Lock had bought after he’d caught us practicing with real knives. These were as real as the blades we’d used on each other.

“Isla,” I barked. Everyone froze. “You can’t let them use real knives,” I told her.

She frowned. “How are we supposed to know how many strikes there were?”

“Where the hell were you taught this?” I asked. “You know what? Don’t answer that, I have an idea.” Grabbing the knives from the two kids, I scowled at her. “No knives while I’m gone.”

“But they were arguing…” she said as if this were some justification for a knife fight.

I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to actually let them use the blades on each other. I paused. Somewhat sure. Not really thatsure at all. I moved faster. I opened Lock’s office and grabbed two permanent markers. Bringing them back, I handed them over. “Whoever gives the most marks wins,” I explained.

“Oh great idea!” Isla said. She looked down at her watch. “Go!”

I leaned toward her. “What’s the argument over?”

She shrugged. “Not sure. Found them about ready to brawl and figured I’d better intervene. I’ll remember the marker trick for next time. Can’t have the mom brigade getting all squeamish on me.”

Eyeing her, I asked, “You weren’t actually going to let them cut each other, right?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “I’m not a monster. I was going to switch them out with the fakes before actually starting the fight. Jenny and Gwen would kill me if I let them cut each other. I just wanted them to feel the anticipation first.” By her tone I still wasn’t sure that the issue was kids cutting each other versus getting bitched at by the moms.

I chuckled. “You’re diabolical.” I watched as Taylor tugged Sean in close and raked her marker across exposed skin. Feeling better about leaving them alone with Isla, I walked back out to join the others.

“Do you know the gender yet?” Eva asked Jenny as I approached.

“Oh man,” Smoke groaned. Everyone looked over at him. “I’m just saying, it’d better be a boy.”

“Why?” Priest growled at him.

“Because your girls are little hellions,” Idaho said with a chuckle. “We’re hoping a boy will be more calm.”

“More calm?” I said with a laugh. “He’d be a feral little raccoon.”

“Badger,” Butcher corrected.

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s better.”

“Can we please stop speaking about my baby like he, or she, is going to be an animal,” Jenny said, scowling at us.

“Sure,” I said, eyes wide and innocent.

“You’re so bad,” Billie whispered to me. “You just like to rile them all up.”

“Come on,” I told her, grabbing her by the waist and hauling her along with me. Her grandfather hastily hid the drink he was holding as we walked by. I wasn’t about to rat anyone out for drinking so I kept her attention on me until we were out the door. “I want to show you something.” I led her outside the clubhouse and over to my bike. “This is Nora.”

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