6
Mercy
Frank finished tapingthe last bandage in place and gave me a quick nod. “Everything’s healing well. I think you can handle them from here.”
I glanced down at the thin layer of gauze wrapped around my palms and the cut on my arm and then shot him a smile. “I’ll try not to show up bleeding again any time soon.”
The middle-aged guy who handled the Nobles’ basic medical needs let out a chuckle at that. He offered me an energy drink from his kit.
Before I could reach for it, Kaige swiped it from his hand. “I’m going to have that.”
Frank frowned at him. “It’s not advisable to be buzzed on those things all the time.”
A cocky grin stretched Kaige’s mouth. “Define ‘all the time.’”
The older man sighed and left, but Anthea shook her head where she was standing by the stove. “You’re going to ruin your appetite, and then what am I doing all this work for?”
“Aww, Auntie Anthea, you love cooking for us,” Kaige drawled.
She skewered him with the kind of look that could penetrate steel. “I’m not your aunt. You’re lucky I like my actual nephew enough to put up with the rest of you. Why don’t you make yourself useful and get out the plates?”
Kaige headed over to the cupboards without complaint, and I swiveled on my stool to appreciate the excellent view of his sculpted backside. Next to me, Gideon was typically occupied with his tablet. Rowan jumped up at the other end of the island to grab some knives and forks. My stomach grumbled, the mouth-watering smell of the frying bacon reminding me how much I was looking forward to this breakfast.
The five of us had gathered in the kitchen on Anthea’s insistence. She’d shown up first thing this morning, apparently as soon as she’d heard about the whole kidnapping thing, and fussed over me for several minutes before insisting we all needed a good meal. I didn’t know where Wylder had gotten to—Rowan had thought he’d seen him heading to Ezra’s office—but he could join us when he finished whatever business he was taking care of.
Anthea glanced over her shoulder at me. She was wearing one of her typical housewife-style floral dresses, the red waves of her hair pinned back from her face with a couple of silver clips, but the domestic vibe was totally deceiving. It hid a sharp, conniving, and fierce woman I hoped never to be on the wrong side of again. I still wasn’t totally sure how I’d ended up on her good side.
Presumably the fact that I’d saved her from a murder attempt by a crazy gang groupie had something to do with it. The marks from when her car had crashed into the telephone pole still dappled her forehead and arms, but she’d recovered quickly.
“How are you feeling?” she asked me with genuine concern. It was bizarre to think that just a few days ago, she’d absolutely hated my guts and been trying her best to get me kicked out of the mansion. “Are you hurting much anymore?”
I flexed my hands. The small cuts from the window glass stung but didn’t throb like they had yesterday. “Just a bit. They’re getting better.”
“Good. Now eat up. I’m not having you get weak on my watch.” She set a plate of bacon, home fries, and an omelet oozing melted cheese in front of me. My stomach just about jumped up my throat to inhale it faster.
Kaige reached for one of the home fries, but Anthea batted his hand away with her spatula. “No, that’s for only Mercy. Let her eat. She needs to get her energy back after everything that asshole ex of hers put her through. You’ll get your own plate.”
She looked at me fondly, and I found myself smiling back at her. When Anthea wasn’t trying to poison me, she could be surprisingly nice. Wylder had called her his honorary mother, and she could definitely bring out the motherly vibes when she wanted to.
Not that I’d know much about motherliness, considering mine had vanished when I was six years old. The only piece of her I had left was the little silver bracelet she’d given me back then, tucked in my pocket as always like a good luck charm.
I popped a piece of bacon into my mouth and nearly swooned. “It’s perfect,” I told Anthea, swallowing the salty, chewy-yet-crunchy strip. “If you ever want to switch callings, I’m pretty sure you could make a killing running a diner.”
Anthea snorted and turned to start dishing out the other plates. “No, thank you. I’ll stick to poisons and not-really-accidental deaths. We all need our happy place.”
As the guys returned to their seats around the island, Gideon propped his tablet next to his plate and shoveled a forkful of omelet into his mouth, barely seeming to taste it he was so absorbed in the screen. My gaze couldn’t help tracking the tempting flick of his tongue over his lip ring.
It really wasn’t fair that a guy so detached from the world outside of computers was so delicious.
“Let’s talk strategy,” he said. “Like Wylder mentioned before, we need to move in fast. Colt has been working at an astronomical speed to get his grip on the Bend. We have to cut down on his power.”
Rowan waved his fork in the air. “But how? I’m sure he’s got lots of underlings working for him. We can’t just go straight at him.”
Kaige let out an angry rumble. “Too bad. I’d like to punch him into a pulp.”
Gideon rolled his eyes. “I’m sure we’ll get to the part where you use your fists. But first I think we should weaken his defenses and reduce his resources.”
“And how exactly are we going to do that?”