Page 63 of Bulletproof Love

“That’s bullshit, of course you will. You’re fucking brilliant.”

“If I’m so brilliant, then why can’t you respect my decision?”

In a fucked up way, I’m enjoying this. Makes the dream couple seem as normal as the rest of us. I swallow another mouthful of beer, leaning back on the couch while they volley back and forth. I can see Falin’s expression morph, like a dormant volcano ready to burst. She can’tnotrush to Blake’s aid. It’s impossible for her.

“She didn’t deserve your help. Not after how she treated you. Look who her father is!”

“What I do is my business! If you don’t like it then?—”

“For the love of baby Jesus in the manger! Will you two stop for two fucking seconds?” Falin yells. They both go quiet. She takes a deep breath—which I know she’ll need to hand deliver their asses to them. Man, I wish I had a bowl of popcorn. But I’ll settle for finishing off my beer. “Damon, Blake is an adult and you’re not her keeper. If she wanted to help that raging she-devil then none of us can stop her. Blake, of course your smart ass will get into med school. Don’t you dare put yourself down! And for fuck’s sake, just tell us what happened!”

Falin’s chest heaves in the hottest way as she stops talking. I break the silence with a well-placed slow clap. It earns me three sets of glaring eyes, but if there was ever a time for a slow clap, it was right then.

“Where’s my knife?” Blake mutters, her glare turning into the cutest scowl.

“In the bedroom. Want me to get it?” Damon answers. He’s back to having big love eyes for her, his hand on her thigh.

I hold up my hands in surrender. “No need to get stabby, just loosening the tension.”

Falin sighs, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “I’m waiting. Before you guys left with her she casually mentioned digging up a body. You can’t leave us hanging here.”

Blake finally relents. “I pulled a bunch of cash for her and told her to never come back to New York. To start over somewhere new. I hate her, of course I do. But some part of Brennan loved her. I know he did. And from what little she told me, she hasn’t had it easy the past few months.”

“And the whole, ‘I have information that’ll lead to Bailey’ thing?” I ask. “She wouldn’t tell me specifics, not until we delivered on our promise to get her to the airport safely.”

Damon wipes a drip of beer with the back of his hand, a slow smile spreading across his face. “We should have led with this. I was just too pissed. So apparently Orlova had a boyfriend at the house. One of her cousin’s guys.”

“She has a type,” Falin mutters. Blake shoots daggers at her. “Sorry.”

“Anyway, this guy, she wouldn’t tell us his name, was helping her. Making a plan to get away from her cousin, run off together. He stole a flash drive, something to blackmail Orlov with. She didn’t know exactly what’s on there, but she thinks it has information on all the victims. That guy Yuri figured out what was going on and killed him. Buried him across the street on that hill. She swears he was buried with that flash drive.”

We sit quietly, absorbing this information. Falin’s the first one to speak. “So, you’re saying we have to dig up a body, in the freezing cold, with no exact location, to maybe, possibly, get a flash drive that may or may not exist?”

Damon shrugs. “Yup, that sums it up.”

Falin swallows a sip of beer, and grins. “Sign me the fuck up.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX

FALIN

The next day,we spend the afternoon prepping. Who knew tracking down shovels in Manhattan would be such an ordeal? With Leon still stuck with his father, it’ll be the four of us trekking back to the Bronx on a mission to find a dead guy.

“The looks I got lugging these shovels from the store,” Jasper says. “Like everyone assumed I was about to bury someone.”

I smirk while finishing with my boots. “I mean, they’re not wrong.”

“I’m unburying a body. There’s a difference.” When I stand from the couch, his eyes rake over me. “You sure you’ll be warm enough in that?”

Thatbeing my black buckle skirt, tights, and leg warmers. “I’ll be fine, Dad.”

Shit. The word slipped out before I could catch it.

“Dad?” He raises a brow, closing the space between us. “Or… Daddy?”

I hate when he uses his sexy voice. It always turns me on and I swear he knows it.

“Definitely Dad.” I rise on my tiptoes until I’m barely an inch from his lips, trailing my finger from his temple to his jaw. “Daddy needs to be earned.” He pulls me against him with his free hand, and I fight back a gasp.

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