Page 28 of Her Last Hope
“I used to hate being an only child, now I’m tickled pink,” she said, her hand still covering the hickey.
“More like a dark red,” Nick said.
She punched him in the shoulder.
“Ouch, geez, hon.” He rubbed his arm. “Are you trying to brand me?”
“Yes.” That was not the answer she expected to come out of her mouth.
“Sorry about my butthead brothers.” Nick smiled, curling his fingers around her wrist. “But I can’t say I’m sorry about anything else.”
The brothers laughed.
She shook her head. “I imagine there are no secrets in your family.”
“Nope.” Nick rested his hand on her leg, his fingersentwined with hers. The weirdest part of the entire conversation was that it didn’t feel weird. Nor did holding his hand while his brothers exchanged funny glances.
She glanced across the parking lot and stared at the dark sedans. “Why are they still sitting in their cars?”
“I suspect trying get us tossed off, officially,” Dylan said, resting his arm against the window.
“So much for wanting our help,” Leandra said.
“They wanted our intel,” Nick said. His touch was like a feather floating in the air.
“They want my team to stand down,” Dylan said. “But that isn’t going to happen. We’re so much better at this than those idiots are, and if the Aegis Network can get officially hired, then we just become a part of that, and we can show the FBI how it’s done.”
“Is everything a pissing contest with men?” Leandra shook her head.
“Pretty much.” Nick tapped her thigh, then pointed across the parking lot as six men, all in dark suits and all wearing wires in their ears, stepped from their vehicles.
“Why do I feel like I just went fromThe Twilight ZonetoMen in Black?” she asked under her breath.
Dylan opened the car door, but Nick grabbed her arm. “We’ll be out in a sec,” he said.
She let out a long breath. “We need to get out there. The clock is ticking.”
He nodded. “I wanted to apologize properly for the way I behaved, along with my brothers. It’s just thatour mom has had it in her head that we all need to get married and have babies. For years we’ve enjoyed harassing and tossing each other under the bus with our mom to deflect her constantly telling us we need good women in our lives.”
She cocked her head. “And you boys tell your mother everything?”
“No, but my mom has got a blind date set up for Dylan tomorrow night, and he’s using this op to get out of it and that hickey to deflect attention from him to me.”
“You do realize you’re all grown men, right?”
He laughed, squeezing her hand. “You’ll understand when you meet my mother.”
Before she could say another word, he was out the door. She pushed hers open and followed him across the parking garage where Dylan had pulled out a map and was pointing at it while the other men stood around him and nodded.
She’d deal with the idea of meeting his mother another time.
“Leandra?” a shorter man said as he stepped from the crowd, his hand stretched forward. “I’m Agent Fielding and while we’re not thrilled by how you came about your intel, we appreciate it.”
“Just doing my job.”
“Now let us do ours.” Fielding’s voice rang out with an authoritative and aggressive tone.
Leandra arched a brow as she planted her hands on her hips, noticing that all the Sarich brothers hadstopped talking and focused their attention on her. “All right, but if you think I’m sitting this one out, you’ve got another thing coming.”
