Page 27 of Eat. Prey. Love.
I blink, grinning brightly as I hold up a finger. “No boards for a couple days, but I have notebooks. Back in a flash.”
They’re chuckling as I sprint to my room and dig out an unused notebook, labeling it ‘Academie’ in Sharpie. Finding a good pen, I ponder what else I’ll need, but decide I can’t get fancy with all the shit going on in our room right now. I head back to the kitchen, sitting next to the Raj and looking upat them.
“I’m ready. Let’s get organized.”
Aubrey comes out of the door to the library annex with Renard at exactly the right moment, arching his brow as he sees us. “Someone forget to summon us?”
I shake my head as I pull my hair back into a topknot. “Not at all. I just brought our girl back from Cori’s and she wanted to sit down before it gets busy. I was going to text you shortly.”
Renard slinks over and hops on the counter, looking disgruntled that he can’t lounge in the chairs because of the work being done. “Good idea,petite. We should write everything we need to do as we think of it so Chess is able to create our workspace when all his things arrive”
“Now that we’re all here…” Felix drawls in amusement. “We should get started.”
“Fitz.” Dolly thumps his back and he finally lets her down. She hops on the counter, sitting opposite Ren as she swings her feet. “So, when I was letting Cori hash out her pain, I thought about how it was lucky that Rufus’ guys are legit.”
“I picked them out,” Fitz crows, then frowns. “Wait.”
My angel nods, tapping her nose. “That’s exactly the conclusion I came to, baby. Youalsopicked Giselle out of your classes, and she wasnewto the program but very skilled.”
“A plant,” Aubrey says with a grimace. “We missed it entirely because of all the chaos at the time.”
Covering my face with my palms, I scrub them over my features before picking up my pen again. I feel terrible that the cheery polar bear got hurt because we missed a step. Fitz will be off-the-chain that he was used, and I don’t blame him. “She was so happy after the first date that we didn’t vet her.”
“That’s a mistake we will not make again, eh,mes amis?” Renard says firmly. “No one new comes into our sphere, or thespheres of our friends, without being vetted down to their colonoscopies.”
Dolly snickers, but sobers quickly. “Agreed. That includes the crew, my friends, Coach Z, Farley and his gang, Luc… anyone who is close enough to us to matter. I don’t want to be responsible for broken hearts anymore.”
“When I find out who sent her or who bribed her parents… orwhatever…” Fitz’s eyes flicker with his tiger and I know he’s imagining doing things that would turn the stomach of most preds. “There won’t be enough of them left to identify.”
Felix gives him a nod. “And you will have your revenge, brother, but for now, we keep a low profile. You know we didn’t find shit about us in our cousin’s love shack and that means they expected us to toss it.”
“Nothing? Damnit,” Dolly pouts, kicking her heels against the counter in frustration. “I thought you said he’s an idiot.”
Fitz laughs, putting his hands on her thighs. “He is, Baby Girl. That means someone is running the show that’snotan idiot and they have a tight grip on his leash.”
I frown as I scribble notes about this. “How are we going to catch Asani if he’s not behaving as we expect him to?”
Felix grins, and this time, it’s full of sharp teeth. “I said we didn’t find anything pertaining to us or our girl. But we didn’t find nothing. He’s still pulling shady shit with our father’s accounts and messing around with preds he shouldn’t. That evidence we snapped pictures of for later, but until we know what his game is here, we can’t use it.”
“I hate this crap,” my angel says with a huff. “I know we have to be careful and smart, but I also just want to kill them like Fitz suggested, too.”
Talk about bringing out the animal in each other… it’s adorable.
“So what do we need to do so we’re protected right off the bat, guys? That’s the main concern for us to handle while D gets settled in her classes,” I say, hoping to change the topic to one less charged with emotion.
Renard tilts his head, thinking for a moment, then holds up a finger. “Doorways and security. Theirs sucks and I’d like Fitzgerald to program our chips.”
I write that down, glad he thought of it. It didn’t even occur to me when I swiped us in the door earlier. “Okay, what else?”
“Deep background on that little shit who hurt Coco-cabana. I can’t focus unless I can plan my vengeance for that.”
Dolly smiles brightly, throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing. “Thank you for loving her as much as I do.”
Fitz actually blushes and it gets a laugh out of us all. “Your people are my people, Baby Girl. Forever.”
His twin clears his throat, looking at the clock. “Keep going. It’s getting late and we have an early morning.”
Remembering my earlier thought, I look at my mate. “Fitzy, we need you to make an app or something. We need to be able to get into all the security systems here, obvious and hidden, to know when it’s safe to talk or do shit. Also, we need to know if people are watching or listening in places we wouldn’t expect. Can you handle that while the background is running?”