“What makes you say that?”
“There probably aren’t too many people trying to kill short-order cooks.”
“Good point. And Kieran? I’ve been worrying about him.”
“He’s a tank, that guy. Three shots to the torso and he lived! Declan put him on leave for a while, but he’s back on the job.” She turns her head and smiles at me. “He’s almost as tough as you.”
“Yeah, we mouse deer with the tiny fang-like tusks are super badass.” When she makes a confused face, I say, “Forget it. Inside joke.”
Then I’m depressed. Abruptly, completely depressed, and longing for Mal with such a fierce ache, I can hardly draw a breath.
I whisper, “He let me go. He let me go.”
“It sounds like he was trying to protect you.”
“I know he was, but what an asshole!”
“You don’t think he’s an asshole.”
“Yes, I really do!”
She quirks her lips and looks at me sideways. “Remember how in Twilight when Edward left Bella to protect her even though it killed him to do it, and you thought that was the most romantic thing you’d ever heard?”
“No!”
“Shut up. Yes, you do.”
“I hated that movie!”
“Yeah, but you loved all the books. And you loooved Edward, Mr. Broody Telepathic Vampire who would sacrifice anything for his dumb-as-rocks human girlfriend, including his own life.”
I think of Mal’s self-sacrificing tendencies and his love of bitey sex, and have to admit she might have a point. “So you’re saying I’m the dumb-as-rocks human girlfriend in this scenario.”
“No, I’m saying you don’t really think Mal’s an asshole. You think he’s the bees knees.”
“Who says that? What are you, eighty?”
Breezing past that, she muses, “You know what’s funny? Nobody ever mentions that Edward was like a hundred years old and Bella was only seventeen. Talk about perving on a baby.”
I grimace at the image of my dear Edward Cullen as a child molester. “Thanks for ruining my favorite book series for me.”
“Ha! I knew you loved Twilight!”
I grumble, “Whatever. And he didn’t leave Bella until New Moon.”
We lie there in companionable silence for a long time, until I sit up and scrub my hands over my face. “God, this is a fucked-up situation.”
Sloane props herself up on her elbows and gazes at me thoughtfully. “We might be looking at this the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, between you, me, and Nat, we have the three most powerful men in the US and Russia totally pussy whipped.”
I say drily, “Always the incurable romantic.”
“I mean, think what we could accomplish!”
I see the mad glint in her eye and know she’s planning something. Like overthrowing all the governments of the world and becoming Supreme Ruler of Earth.
I can already see her throne, a massive structure made of all the spirits of men’s souls that she’s crushed.
“First things first. I need to get back to Russia.”
“There might be a little hiccup with that.”
Sloane and I turn at the sound of Declan’s voice. He stands in the doorway, gazing down at us with his hand on the doorknob and an inscrutable expression on his face.
I say, “Such as?”
“Malek has put the word out. Anyone who assists you in attempting to return to him dies.”
Shocked, I shout, “What?”
“Apparently, he knows you well.”
I leap to my feet and stare at him, vibrating with anger. “Apparently, he doesn’t! Because I’ll swim there if I have to!”
He says gently, “Maybe it’s for the best, lass. You’d never be safe with him now, not with what he’s doing.”
“You mean the way Sloane isn’t safe with you, but she’s still here? You mean the way Nat’s not safe with Kage, but they’re still together?”
He gazes at me for a beat with a million unspoken words spiraling behind his eyes. “Not exactly.”
When he doesn’t continue, I say, “I’ll throat punch you, gangster.”
“Honey, just tell us what’s going on,” says Sloane, standing.
He looks back and forth between us, then looks heavenward and sighs.
“Stop praying and spit it out!”
“There’s this group called the Thirteen,” he starts, but gets interrupted by Sloane, who says, “Group? Like a band?”