Three sets of heads turned to me again, but I was too busy focusing on what he’d just said.
His cabin? He’d lied! All right, maybe he hadn’t lied, but the sneaky son of a bitch hadn’t said a word about it being his place. I knew he’d been acting weird while I’d been snooping.
“Your power was gone? Are you sure?” Athena asked cautiously.
Someone suddenly sounded really concerned.
But really, his cabin?
There was some kind of big fucking secret here that no one wanted to talk about out loud. What in the hell could be bigger than the Trinity? Because whatever it was, they were guarding the shit out of it.
“I’m positive. Are you going to help me help her now?” he demanded.
His sister’s eyes widened more and more by the second. “You’ve recovered?” Her question was soft.
Alex grunted. “Not fully.” A muscle in his face twitched. “It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my fucking life.”
The oldest brother grunted, something flashing across his face like he agreed with him.
Yeah, this was some Area 51 level confidential shit right here.
“Why is someone looking for her?” he asked.
“She was in witness protection.”
I was going to start calling him The Defender of Deceit at this point.
“How long were you out?” The handsome one, Odi, threw the question out.
“Five weeks.”
All three faces went stunned and pale.
It was so, so suspicious.
“Can I get someone in Legal now?” Alex asked.
His sister glanced at me, but the jerk and the one who at least seemed to like his younger brother were focused on him.
“I’m going to talk to Alana and Robert about it soon. Selene is going to see what she can do. They might have footage of us, and it needs to be taken care of.”
“It does,” Achilles answered seriously, his face stormy. “Have you spoken to…？”
Ooh, I felt Alex’s aggravation instantly rise. “Also none of your fucking business.”
“Do you really need to be that low class?” Achilles snapped.
“Fuck no,” Alex said without missing a beat. I didn’t think I’d ever been so attracted to him before. I kind of wished I had some popcorn. “Are you done asking questions?” he barreled through.
“Fine, get it sorted,” the older brother said in exasperation.
“Keep me posted,” Athena said before the two of them walked out. They seemed wound up about something.
At the door, they glanced at me, and she whispered something I couldn’t hear.
“Damn, Alex,” Odi said with a sigh the second they were gone. “Let me get someone, because I have no idea what to do.” His eyes drifted in my direction.
For one brief moment, I was pretty sure I saw his eyes glow, but it disappeared so quickly I might have imagined it. Then he walked out too, slapping his little brother’s shoulder on the way.
I waited patiently.
Mostly patiently.
Insulted. Confused. A little annoyed.
Alex was silent.
After a moment, those purple eyes flicked toward me.
I put my chin on my hand and made my mouth go flat. “So, they’re rude,” I whispered. “No offense.”
Both corners of his mouth went up into the slightest smile. “Ruder than I am?”
I snorted and winced. “I don’t know about all that. You usually grunted at me and acknowledged my presence every once in a while. And you figured out my name eventually.”
“I always knew your name. I just didn’t want to use it.”
I shouldn’t laugh, but I did. He was such a fucking shit.
The side of his mouth curled up a little. “Achilles and Athena are the worst about it. The rest of them aren’t so bad,” he explained, sounding almost apologetic.
From the door, I heard the Odi man’s voice say, “I’ve got someone coming in here in a minute, but I have a call in five. See you tomorrow?”
Alex’s curse was swift.
“Yup, see you, baby bro,” the other man replied, already sounding like he was down the hall.
Baby bro, huh? I couldn’t picture him being someone’s little brother, much less baby brother. Or even letting someone call him that in the first place. I was going to have to think about that later on.
I waited all of two seconds before asking, “What’s happening tomorrow?”
That familiar crabby face was back, except this time I was pretty sure I wasn’t imagining the dread mixed in with it. His body stiffened, and his tone was off. “We’re going to my mother’s.”
We?
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
We were going to his mom’s.
Alex had a mother. Why that blew my mind made no sense. He had brothers and sisters. It wasn’t like they’d hatched from eggs.
The Defender, The Centurion, and The Primordial had a mom.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it as we headed to the nearest store that carried the laptop I wanted. I thought about ordering one online, but I didn’t want to wait any longer if I didn’t have to. I’d spent some of the ride to the mall on his phone, distractedly trying to find who carried one. I hadn’t even been able to muster up shock that he owned a cell phone. It looked brand new. His background image was the default one. Who called him? Just his family?
When I wasn’t processing the “mom” situation or staring at the small screen, I wondered what in the hell he meant by “we.”
Did he really expect me to go with him?
The thought alone had me sweating.
Leaning back against the headrest, we drove by a giant parking lot with a carnival set up on it. It had a Ferris wheel, rides, booths… My breathing made a big circle on the window that I wiped with the sleeve of Alex’s jacket. I’d always wanted to go to a carnival or a fair, but my grandma hadn’t liked crowds.
After a while, I peeked at Alex again as I forced my thoughts away from shit in life I’d missed out on. Something was up his butt.
The problem was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what.
“Why are you being weird?” he asked suddenly as he turned into a mall.
I straightened in the seat. “I’m not being weird. I was just wondering if you’re done being grumpy.”
“I’m not grumpy. You’re the one staring, trying to be discreet but sucking at it,” Alex said. “Why? You worried about meeting my mother?”
How could someone be this perceptive? There was no point in me lying. “Yes.”
“Then stop. I don’t like the way it smells when you worry.”
I lifted my arm and took a quick sniff. All I caught was a trace of my deodorant. Seemed fine to me.
“It’s different than your normal smell. It doesn’t stink.”
Hm. “Is it a curse? Having such a good nose?”
He turned the car into just about the farthest spot you could get in the lot, a quarter of a mile away from the actual mall building. “It can be,” he answered. “But I’ve been training my nose to ignore most scents my entire life, so it isn’t overwhelming.”
I turned to him. Maybe a normal person would have asked what kind of training he’d endured, but that wasn’t what pressed down on my nosy soul. “Who has the worst farts you’ve ever smelled?”