Page 43 of Remade

“Oh, I don’t know,” Gray mused. “Most of the time, Angel and Greg are the parents. Ryan’s the sixth child.”

“Truer fucking words,” Ethan laughed.

“Fuck that,” Ryan scoffed. “They know which daddy’s the disciplinarian.”

I shook my head in amusement and turned back to Bo.

“Can you imagine?”

He chuckled. “Wait till you meet my sister.”

Oh, right! She had five boys!

Jesus Christ.

I was so glad Bo only had Alex. She barely counted anyway. She was cool, like a tiny adult. I actually missed her.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’mma go see how Willow’s doin’.” James grunted as he got off the couch, and I told him the code to unlock my door.

“Yeah, I should check in with my wife too,” Ethan said. “That’s another Quinn enjoying her morning sickness at the moment.”

I smiled. “I may have seen that on your Instagram. Congrats.”

He smiled back and rose to his feet. “Thanks. You’ll have to meet all your cousins soon. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Fuck. My stomach fluttered, and he couldn’t possibly understand what that meant to me.

Family had always been an unobtainable dream to me. In school, I’d go over to a friend’s house for dinner, and I’d be envious at the gathering around the table. Parents, siblings, a grandparent or two sometimes, pets silently begging for scraps…

Now I was running out of fingers to count cousins.

“What’re you doin’?” I heard Darius ask Gray.

I looked over at them, only to see Gray holding up four fingers that became three, two, one… “Counting down till you change the subject to work.”

Bo and Ryan found that funny.

Darius smirked. “Knucklehead, you just changed it for me.”

“Don’t even try—you were changing it anyway,” Gray laughed. “You can take the operator out of Hillcroft, but you can’t take Hillcroft out of the operator.”

Ooh, shots fired.

Darius narrowed his eyes, definitely struck by that insult, but he bravely managed to push forward. “Whatever. The others will be back in a few.” He turned to Bo and gestured at Ryan. “He mentioned you’ve been working a Hahn assignment.”

Bo inclined his head. “That’s right. You and Vince had a few of those back in the day.”

“We sure did.” Darius turned a little grim. “Now, given the praise the media is givin’ the Feds for the bust in Fredericksburg, I can only assume it’s a cover-up and that it went well.”

“As well as it could, I suppose,” Bo replied. “You know how these things go. Someone’s going to fill the vacuum eventually.”

Darius nodded. “That’s what I wanted to get at—but I don’t think you need to worry about Hahn. I’m sure Intel’s already on top of this, but it’s the Iraqi warmonger by Hahn’s side you need to keep an eye on. He’s gone from foot soldier to sharing the top seat in about ten years, and he’s got big plans.”

Bo turned pensive and scratched his jaw. “River did mention Omar’s motives are rooted in ideology.”

That seemed to surprise Darius. “You have River in Intel?”

“For the moment. Shira brought them both in as consultants.”

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