Page 107 of Crashed

“And since we don’t know who thewrong peopleare, we assumeeverybodyis the wrong people. Right?”

“Yes, sir!”

He held their gazes another long, pregnant moment, then nodded. “Go to your rooms, please. I need to talk to Bella.”

They bolted and Rye turned, pinned a look on the twins. “Which one of you was foolish enough to say a fuckingnamein a house full ofkids?”

Mari jerked up her hand and pointed at her twin, eyes wide.

Ellison gaped at the woman next to her.

Mari held up her hands. “I’m not going down for this. Besides,Iknow better!”

Isabel stared at her sisters as if she didn’t even recognize them. After a few seconds, she started to laugh. “Good for you, Mari! Good for you!”

Ellison, still looking disgusted, threw her hands up.

“If you would have had them sent elsewhere, none of this would have happened!”

“As of yet, we haven’t determined what the safest course of action would be for those kids,” Rye said, crossing his arms over his chest and giving Ellison a baleful look. “But we do know that our target already knows your sister has at leasta childhere, that he knowssheis here, and we knowshe’sknown around here as well. It stands to reason he may well already know about those kids. Sending them off to someplace where they might not be protected isn’t going to be a smart move, now is it?”

Ellison opened her mouth, then snapped it closed with an audible click.

“I think I want to go back to my condo,” she announced.

Rye smiled. “Too late, sweetheart. You’re here and you’re staying here where we can watch you.”

“Don’t call me sweetheart,” she said in a pithy voice before storming past him, down the hall to the two spare bedrooms on the first floor Isabel always kept made up for her sisters—they weren’t ever used by any of the foster kids so the rooms were ready should the twins ever drop in, which never happened. But Ellison had no trouble finding her room. She went in, slammed the door, and a minute later, music started blasting.

Mari came and sat by Isabel, taking her hand.

“She’s in a cheery mood,” Isabel said glumly.

“The guy she’s been seeing dumped her.” Mari rested her head on Isabel’s shoulder. “I told her it would happen. He’s not somebody you can trust with small secrets, much less big ones, but she didn’t listen to me.”

Taking her baby sister’s hand, Isabel twined their fingers. “Is that why she insisted on coming? Or is she here to keep an eye on you?”

“I’mfine,” Mari said with a huff. “I’m not nineteen and breakable anymore. I told her if she wanted to stay in Boston with a team of bodyguards, I’d be okay here. But she insisted on coming to watch out for me.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to be alone.”

Mari rubbed her cheek against Isabelle’s shoulder again, then softly murmured, “Maybe.”

Rye caught her eye and Isabel focused on him.

“What did you need?”

He braced his back against the door and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops.

“Well, some of it, I already mentioned ... that information about your foster kids. I’ve been talking with Miles and he’s of a mind that they’d probably be safest maybe just crashing in a hotel for a few days to ride this out, putting a couple of teams on them to watch over them.”

Isabel groaned. “Brooklyn in a hotel? She’d drive everybody else crazy.”

“She’s the itty-bitty one, right?”

“Not the baby, no.”

“Nah, that mouthy little blonde—a little wild cat.” Rye grinned and the expression changed his entire face.

---