She bopped his nose with her finger. He scowled but didn’t make a move to stop her.
“You do with me. Now, about feeding me.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
She cupped his face with both hands and gave him a bright smile.
“It’s what I do.”
He didn’t get a chance to respond. She kissed him, making him accept her affection. And he did, tangling his hand in her hair and angling her head to deepen their kiss.
Watching Scarlett handle Drake was rather amusing. He clearly wasn’t sure what to do with her when she was like this. I had a feeling he also liked the way she pushed him. In fact, he needed it. She was the only one who could wrap him around her finger without him realising she was doing it.
I turned when I heard a noise from the stairs finding West and Francis walking downstairs together, talking in low voices. Scarlett slipped out of Drake’s lap and came over to me, taking a seat in mine instead.
“Are you expecting me to feed you?” I asked, turning to her as the other two went into the kitchen.
“No, but we can eat whilst we look through this shit.”
I wrapped my arm around her waist before sipping at my tea. Then I dragged over a stack of papers and started looking through them. West and Francis joined us a few minutes later. The five of us were silent as we ate and looked through everything we’d brought back from Mason’s.
“Holy fuck,” Francis breathed out, making me look up.
“What?”
He flipped around a photo he was holding to show me. It was taken in a hospital room and showed a patient lying in a bed with Garrett Jones standing over her. Next to him was Stuart. There was a window in the background, and it was dark outside. It took me a minute to register that the person in the bed was Scarlett.
“Is this what I think it is?”
“I’m pretty sure that gives us undeniable proof he was involved.”
“What I want to know is how far down the rabbit hole did he go with Stuart.”
I handed it to Scarlett, who looked incensed.
“What the fuck? Why did he take a picture of this?”
“Maybe Mason wanted some collateral.”
Scarlett gave it to Drake. He eyed it with no small amount of suspicion.
“We’ve never been able to hit Stuart head-on because of his relationship with Garrett,” he said after a moment. “This isn’t enough, though. We need more. If Mason had this, he could have a lot more shit on his father. Find it.”
“And then what?” West asked. “I mean, I wasn’t judging when you asked to keep Mason’s head. Hell, I’d want a trophy too, but what are we going to do with it?”
Francis snorted.
“I think we should have kept his balls if you wanted a trophy because you lot certainly emasculated him.”
West barked with laughter and gave Francis a wink. We’d told Drake and Francis about the whole fucking her before she’d killed him business.
“I merely showed him what he couldn’t have. Voyeur boy over there made it into a spit roast. I’m surprised Mason didn’t come in his fucking pants at the sight of it. He was too busy cursing us behind his gag rather than enjoying the show.”
Scarlett blushed and buried her face in my neck. I stroked her hair. She enjoyed being watched by us, but I was pretty sure the Mason thing was a one-time deal to punish him for everything he’d done to her.
Drake gave us all a look before he stared down at the photograph again. Then he rubbed his chin and sat back, placing the photo on the table.
“What are we going to do with it?” He cracked his knuckles. “Tie a nice little bow around his face, package it up and have it hand-delivered to Stuart.”
“That’s going to force him into coming after us, and antagonise the fuck out of Garrett,” I said.
Drake smiled, his indigo eyes glinting.
“That’s the whole point. Stuart threatened Scarlett. We’re going to show him we’re not to be messed with. Are you in?”
The rest of us looked at each other as Scarlett turned her face from my neck to stare at Drake.
“As long as I get to torture the fuck when we finally nail him, I’m in,” West said with a shrug.
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
“I’m ready,” Francis said.
“Me too,” I put in.
All of us looked at Scarlett. She had to be on board with it too. We did it all together or not at all. Those were the rules. And she was one of us. They applied to her too.
She leant forward, placing her palm down on the table.