“No,” Claire said, looking slightly green. “You can’t go away. I need you here.”
Grunt leaned over to kiss her forehead. “We won’t be gone long. You’ll be safe. Lake will look after you.”
“No. No, Lake can’t. I need you.”
“I understand, but...”
“No buts.” Claire started to cry. “You have to stay here.”
“For goodness’ sake,” Megan said. “Just tell him already.”
Claire’s bottom lip pouted as she stared at Megan. “I wanted it to be special.” Then she blinked. “How do you know, anyway?” A wide smile lit up her face. “Did the twin bond kick in?”
Megan shook her head and pointed at Dimitri. “He was snooping.”
“Oh.” Claire’s shoulders fell.
“Claire, baby, what’s going on?” Grunt looked about five minutes away from going postal on everybody in the room.
Claire looked up at her husband as she patted his chest. “You need to stay here because we’re going to have a baby.” Her smile was tremulous.
Grunt didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He just stared at Claire. People began to shift nervously.
“Did you hear me, Samuel?” Claire tried again. “We’re going to have a baby.”
In one lightning-fast move, he hooked his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her lips to his. The kiss was not PG rated. Megan was about to fetch a bucket of water when they came up for air.
“I’m having a kid,” Grunt told Joe with a loopy grin. “I can’t go to Romania.” His whole demeanour darkened. “And Rudi better not come here.”
He sat in the armchair, hauled Claire into his lap and held her tight. “Mine,” he growled.
“Yours,” Claire said on a sigh.
“Okay.” Dimitri’s eyes went wide at the sight before him. “So the big guy isn’t going to Romania.” He looked at Matt. “I need to go.”
“What makes you think you can get close enough to Rudi to find out what you need to know?” Joe asked. “You’re just one of the guys Reynard hired. You never even met Rudi.”
Dimitri’s hand tightened on Megan’s as he looked at Joe. “He’ll see me because I’m going to bring him the thing he wants. I’m going to take him the woman.”
Grunt started that scary growling sound again. Dimitri ignored him as he turned to Megan.
“I’m going to take Megan to Romania and tell him she’s Claire.”
“Hell no!” Matt shouted as he shot to his feet.
“Grunt, sort him out,” Claire demanded as she sat up. “He’s not taking my sister to a slave trader.”
“No, he’s not, baby.” Grunt climbed to his feet.
Matt and Grunt stood shoulder to shoulder as they faced off against Dimitri. Megan’s head reeled. She was barely aware that she was still holding Dimitri’s hand—the hand of the man who wanted to sell her off.
“You want to set up an op, don’t you?” Joe said calmly. “Use Megan to get inside, find the information you need then bust out with Megan.”
Dimitri blanched. “You thought I wanted to give her to him?” He shook his head in disgust.
“An operation like that would need coordination.” Lake looked over at Callum.
“We need to eliminate the threat,” Callum said. “This might be the most effective way.”