Page 71 of Assassin's Game
How she knew just from looking at me, I wasn’t sure, but neither was I going to deny it. “Would you keep your voice down?”
Her amusement sobered. “You know you can’t hide this sort of thing from the guys any more than you could me.”
“Of course I do.” It hadn’t taken long traveling together to realize just how little privacy we actually had. We’d all handled it like adults, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t been squirming internally. Here, with Eli… “I don’t intend to hide it. I just don’t want them giving him a hard time.”
Leah exited the kitchen wing of the house with a tray of snacks and drinks. “Giving who a hard time?”
I refrained from scrubbing my hands down my face—barely. Instead I watched Maris hurry toward her to grab the tray. “Let me take that.”
Leah shook her head, a laugh escaping. “You are as bad as Remi, Maris.” One hand dropped to her stomach, which I now noted had the slightest curve to it, though I doubted I would have noticed had I not already known she was pregnant. “I’m a nurse; I’m on my feet and carrying things all day. There’s no need to baby me.”
But Maris was having none of it. “Not for us, you aren’t. Gimme.” Securing the tray in her hands, she turned, motioning toward what I knew was the downstairs living area with a tip of her head. “The guys are in here, Mikaela.”
Leah, hands now free, turned to me. “It’s nice to officially meet you. And thanks.”
The thanks surprised me. “For what?”
“She’s blind to her own virtues,” Maris called over her shoulder as she disappeared through the doorway.
Leah chuckled, a throaty sound that I had little doubt brought Remi to his knees. “Aren’t most women? It’s a definite shortcoming most of us share. But thank you for having Remi’s back. And Levi’s, and Eli’s.” She hesitated, then, “Remi says you’re very good at what you do. He is too, but you probably know by now, he agreed to step back from working actively with his brothers.”
I was surprised Remi had given her details about our team. It must’ve shown on my face, because one side of Leah’s mouth quirked up. “We don’t have secrets from each other, not anymore.” A haunted look came and went on her face. “Too many years and too many secrets nearly destroyed my family.”
With a soldier for a parent, secrets had always been a given for me, but there was no military here, no government to rule what Remi Agozi said to his lover. I didn’t know her well, but Leah seemed tough enough to handle it. A law enforcement family, if I remembered correctly, though her brother had died recently.
And now she had a new family. My gaze dropped again to that hand on her slight baby mound. I thought I could guess exactly why Remi was no longer in the field.
“The only time he goes out is if it’s absolutely necessary, so I knew this time…” Leah drew a shaky breath. “Anyway, knowing he has a team like yours alongside him means a lot.”
“Nothing is a guarantee, Leah.” I needed to be sure she knew that. Every time we went on an op, we accepted that we might not come back.
“I know that,” she assured me, and I almost believed she did. “I just needed you to know your presence isn’t unappreciated”—she glanced toward the elevator, and a bit of mischief appeared—“no matter what the resident hard-ass says.”
“And you agreed to marry into that hard-ass’s family,” I pointed out, following as Leah moved toward the opposite side of the foyer. “What were you thinking?”
Leah threw me a side glance. “That Remi’s worth it. But it was a close call. I’ll tell you all about it someday.”
I lingered thoughtfully over thatsomedayas we entered the living room—or should I say dorm room? The massive space consisted of several conversation areas, couches and chairs and tables grouped together, perfect for a cocktail party. I didn’t think the brothers had many of those, not here where someone might compromise their security, but the possibility was obvious. The whole space was bathed in midafternoon light from the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the entire front of the house. But that wasn’t what drew my eye.
The central area of the room had been cleared, and my guys were setting up camp. Pallets, linens, their personal supplies lined up along one wall. One couch had been stripped of extraneous pillows and made into a bed. “For Sullivan,” Rhys said, rolling his eyes as he walked toward me. “Apparently being a CEO makes you soft.”
“I like real beds,” Sullivan called from across the room. “So sue me.”
At least it looked like the “soft” CEO was pitching in with the work. We had agreed to forgo the handcuffs as long as he continued to be cooperative, although he would remain with two of my men at all times just in case.
“I couldn’t afford the legal fees,” Rhys called back.
“Who could with his team of lawyers?” Titus said.
“Damn straight.” Sullivan smiled smugly as he snuggled into the nest he’d built on the sofa.
Leah chuckled next to me. “It’s like having duplicate Agozis, all of them giving each other shit.”
I could definitely see that. “Wait till you get all six of them in a room together,” I warned her. “Although it’s not so much shooting the shit as it is comparing dicks—figuratively, not literally, thank God.”
“I bet.” She pointed to the tray Maris had settled on a clear table across the room, then raised her voice. “Y’all help yourselves. Anything else you need will be in the kitchen. I’ll let you know when dinner is about ready.”
The men murmured thanks, even Sullivan, and descended on the food like a horde of locusts after a famine. Leah snorted at the sight. “Thank goodness I set back some snacks for us in the kitchen.” She turned to me. “Interested?”
