Page 43 of Darling Wildfire
“Why is everyone always so surprised by that?” I grumbled in exasperation.
Kaelin giggled. “I just usually only see you holding a gun, not a wooden spoon.”
“Well, let me show you one of my many skills then.” I dug around in the fridge.
“You have more?”
I turned towards her, my arms full of supplies and gave her a cheeky grin.
“Baby, you’ll have to ask Daddy North for permission to see the other ones.”
Kaelin burst out laughing. I winked and vowed to spend the rest of the night pulling more of those from her.
18
THERON
Over the past two days, I didn’t see or hear from Kaelin or Graham.
They were always on the back of my mind but I was buried under a mountain of other things—the big one being putting everything in place to draw Vetticus all the way out of the shadows. He’d started to take my men—I’d just gotten a text that Sakari and Knox were missing now. As much as I hated it, that meant the plan was working.
I was almost to Kaelin’s house when a call from Nyx came through the car.
“He blew up the fucking building!” Nyx shouted as soon as I picked up. “He blew upNorTac, North. Half of the building is gone apparently!”
“Fuck,” I slammed my fist on the steering wheel.
Luckily it was later in the evening so most of the people had gone home from work. The building would have been mostly empty, which was Vetticus’ point—it was a proverbial warning shot across the bow to get me to sit up and listen.
He was done with my games and I was done too.
“What do you want to do?” Nyx asked.
“I’m pulling into Kaelin’s driveway now,” I said.
“Fuck, really? Did she text you?”
I didn’t answer, and Nyx sighed. “This should go over well. See you in a minute then.”
I pulled up to Kaelin’s house a moment later and Nyx met me at the door.
“Atroxis a sinking ship. It’s time to move on Albatron,” I said without preamble. “Call King in Italy—get a tail going.”
Albatron was the shadow man behindAtrox. I’d only come across him once and the experience had put him right up on the top of the hit list with Vetticus. Since then we hadn’t found much on him but I got the gist he was powerful and had his hand in a lot more than justAtrox. He was rumored to often be at the games and I was banking on that being true.
King was the leader of our Italian team who helped lead our European sector ofNorTac. West had located Albatron in Rome and I needed King’s team ready to keep tabs on him.
Kaelin appeared around the corner. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” I said.
“Are you ready to tell me what’s going on? I’m getting texts that there was an explosion at theNorTacbuildings.”
“It’s getting taken care of—”
Her eyes flashed. “Is that your answer for everything?”
“I think you should come stay at Alpha One for a while,” I said.
