Page 57 of Beyond the Rules
“You know what?” Her voice vibrated with anger. “Forget this shit. I’m not going in that pool no matter what. I’m sorry if I’m bringing your house’s readiness index down. Or if I embarrass you with my swimming disability. You can take consolation in knowing I don’t live here. I’m just temporarily imprisoned in this place.Byyou.”
A muscle flickered in Zar’s jaw. He didn’t take defiance well. Nina on the other hand, didn’t appreciate being nominated as a weak link. She was proud and self-reliant and it was obvious that the fact that she couldn’t swim bothered the hell out of her. The tension in the room spiked. This was going downhillandfast.
“Nina?” I ventured tentatively. “I don’t’ think Zar meant toimplythat—”
“Are you now Zar’s officialtranslator?”
“No,but—”
The warning in her glare shut me up. Aiden moved toward her, but she stopped him with a look that could singe on contact. One thing I knew for sure. Whatever was going on between Nina and Zar? It had nothing to do withswimming.
“I’m sick and tired of your attitude.” Nina squared her shoulders and glared at Zar. “I’m sick of you ignoring me, scolding me, and treating me as if I were the invisible woman. This is your show to run as you see fit, but you don’t run me. And I don’t have to take shit from a cranky jackasslikeyou.”
She whirled on her heel and left the kitchen, taking the stairs in twos. The last sound we heard from her was her door, slamming. The three of us flinchedasone.
Zar exhaled a frustrated breath. “Thatwentwell.”
“Noshit.”
The pain in my back flared, recoiling up and down my spine like the bullets that had ripped through my body. My lazy leg went numb to my toe. Fuck this. I gritted my teeth and, after shoving my arms in my crutches, stabbed them hard on the floor on my way to the liquor cabinet. I was always the first to caution the others against medicating with alcohol, but sometimes, a guy needed a stiff drink to get through a royally fucked-upday.
I grabbed three tumblers, tucked a bottle of fine scotch under my arm and, juggling all of that, plus my damn crutches, made it back to the kitchen island. Not easy, when my body wanted to quit on me. Zar fumed, Aidan scowled, and the pain chiseled at my spine, stabs of sharp agony. I parked a glass in front of each of us and poured in silence. The bottle clattered against the granite as I setitdown.
“Gentlemen.” I raised my glass in the air. “To screw-ups andclusterfucks.”
“And to the idiots who commit them.” Aiden lifted his tumbler intheair.
“That’d be me.” Zar clinked his glass against ours. “God save us from the wrath of a righteouswoman.”
We drank, some of us more deeply than others. Nothing like a drink to burn up fury, pain, and sorrow. Or to develop an ulcer. What the hell. My stomach was in tatters anyway. The scotch went down my gullet smooth and scalding, settling in my gut like a smolderingfirebrand.
“I guess I was kind of an ass,” Zarmuttered.
“Kind of?” I snorted and shook my head. “Since Nina arrived, you’ve made Darth Vader look like a fucking ray ofsunshine.”
“Yeah, I know.” Zar swirled the liquid in hisglass.
I glanced over at Aiden. He stared at his scotch, back to his old self, quiet, too quiet for mytaste.
“That woman…” Zar groaned between clenched teeth. “She has a way of pushing my buttons. She drives me bat-shitcrazy.”
“Really?” I said, repressing an urge to throttle him. “We hadn’tnoticed.”
Zar’s knuckles tightened around his tumbler. “I’ve tried tostayaway.”
“And that’shelping…how?”
“You know what I mean,” Zar snapped. “You know she won’t go for it…forme.”
“You’re probably right.” I stared at this idiot in the guise of a man. “But have you talked to her about it? Have youaskedher?”
“No,” Zar muttered, staring into hisglass.
Aiden downed his scotch in one swallow, set the tumbler on the counter and jerked his head, gesturing for another. I obliged and poured myself some more as well. Oh, what the hell. I poured Zar adouble.
“Why are we at DEFCOM 1?” Aiden glowered at Zar, but he directed his questiontome.
“We got another threat fromDimayev.”