“Hand ’im the phone now,” he ordered.
I half crawled across the floor below the open window to put the cell in Mute’s outstretched hand.
“Three guys,” Mute said immediately, his eyes still on the action outside.
Vaguely, I heard the opening and shutting of doors.
Bea whimpered.
I went over to her and wrapped her up in my arms, keeping my gun ready in my right hand.
“Recognize two of ’em, Lysander Garrison and Ace Munford.”
Shit, Lysander was Cressida’s brother. The guy had been blackmailed into working for the Nightstalkers and spying on The Fallen. His actions had nearly gotten Cress killed and as far as she or I knew, Zeus and King had beaten him close to death then told him never to come back to town on fear of death.
He was back and clearly, he was back with the rival MC.
“Don’t know. They’re all carryin’ far as I can see but that’s it. They look calm. Someone told ’em we were here,” Mute continued.
My stomach clenched and before I could help it, I was sick all over the pillows behind Bea’s shoulder. She stroked my back with a shaking hand.
“Only got my Glock and blade, Foxy and H.R. got theirs and a coupla kitchen knives. ’S not enough,” Mute admitted quietly.
Not quietly enough for a room gone thick with silence.
Bea pressed her face into my breasts and burst into tears. H.R. returned from the kitchen and knelt beside me on the other side of the puke.
“We need to figure out what to do with her,” she said, tipping her chin at my little sister.
I couldn’t think of anything. There was no space inside the house, it was just the rustic three rooms, no basement, only one closet and…
“You can get up on the roof,” I said, prying Bea’s face out of my breasts. My thumbs rubbed at her tears as I held her tight and drilled my eyes into hers. “Harleigh Rose is going to lift you up so you can get into the crawl space in the closet and then you’re going to climb onto the roof. You have to be really fucking careful and don’t make one single noise, okay?”
She shook her head manically, her tears spraying out onto my own cheeks as she did. “I can’t, I can’t.”
“Listen to me,” I ordered her so harshly, she stopped shaking and blinked at me. “You’re a Lafayette and they might not have given us a fuckuva lot but they gave us a cool head, okay? You can do this. I need you to do this because we can’t concentrate if we know you might get hurt.”
“One’s comin’ to the door,” Mute muttered into the phone he still held to his ear.
My heart thudded in my throat and bile churned volcanic hot in my belly. “Bea, please baby, you’ve got to go with H.R. now, okay?”
“I don’t want to leave you,” she whispered brokenly, her huge blue eyes glazed with tears. “You’re the one who’s sick. You should go up there.”
“It’s a small roof, honey,” I tried to explain with a tight smile. “And you’re right, I’m already sick so if only one of us gets through this, I want it to be the one with better odds.”
Bea burst into tears again but I’d done my part and when H.R. took her shoulders to lead her to the closet in the bedroom, Bea went willingly.
As soon as she was out of the room, I got to my feet and walked gingerly over to Mute.
“What do you think they want?” I whispered to him.
Someone knocked forcibly on the door.
I looked up at Mute and tried to suppress the fear I felt like an electric current running through my blood. I saw it mimicked in his own eyes and we shared a moment of pure terror. He broke the moment by pressing an awkward hand in the middle of my chest and saying in the clearest voice I’d ever heard him say, “Something bad is gonna happen. Need you to promise me you’ll get yourself safe.”
“Mute,” I breathed. “We’ll be fine.”
“If not, you gotta promise me,” he ordered.
Another knock came at the door. This one louder, longer.
Mute held out a hand, pinky extended and thumb already hooked to shake mine. He’d seen me do it with Zeus and he wanted me to swear on the same sacred ground I made all my promises on with the love of my life.
My heart burned as I reached out to lock my pinky with his and shake his thumb.
As soon as I let go, he was striding to the door.
“We didn’t order pizza,” Mute yelled through it.
It was a strange time to be funny but it was so utterly Mute to act against the norm that it nearly my made me laugh and then it nearly made me cry.