“Why?” I can’t help but ask. “Do you have any idea what kind of target is on your back now?”
“If a target is on your back,” Cain replies, “then it’s on our backs too, don’t you know how it works, darling?”
“No, I don’t know how it works,” I snap. I know I’m being a little cranky, but my heart is still pounding, and I can’t quite believe that all of this is happening. How am I supposed to know how this works? I don’t have anyone. I’ve never had anyone. How can I be expected to just accept this all as fact? How can I be expected to do an instant one-eighty?
“You’re our mate,” North growls. He reaches up and gently tucks some hair behind my hair. “That’s what we do.”
They sound like it’s so obvious to them. Like they’re having to remind me of gravity’s existence, some universal law that of course I know about, silly, I just have to think about it for a moment.
“I’m not—” I’m not dragging them down with me, or roping them into my problems, I mean to say, but North interrupts me.
“Why were these men after you?” he asks.
Um. “I have a mob boss after me. Kind of a peril of the trade, you know. Sometimes you rub powerful people the wrong way.”
North nods, then looks at the other two. “Then we’ll help you get him off your back.”
My mouth nearly drops open. “Are—you—”
To say that I’m shocked would be an understatement. I can feel my face flushing with heat.
Part of me wants to say no—I don’t want to drag these guys into it, and technically they’re still strangers to me. How can I trust them? What if they’re just going to set me up? You can’t believe anyone in this world. That’s the one thing I’ve learned since I was forced to make it on my own.
And yet… I feel innately as though Icantrust them. I don’t know how I know, I just… do. And they did just fight off these men for me.
“I can’t turn down the help,” I admit, folding my arms. “All right. You can help me.”
“So magnanimous,” Cain murmurs, sounding amused. He winks at me when I look over at him.
I look down at the men on the floor. To be honest… I’d been with Jason because he had seemed like a sweet, supportive guy. Asafeguy. Someone who couldn’t hurt me—but also someone who couldn’t keep up with me. And I barely had to do anything in that fight just now. Those three were like whirlwinds, taking the men down before I could so much as blink.
“You don’t believe that we’re your mates,” Raven says. He sounds sad, but like he’s trying to hide it.
I feel bad, but I don’t want to lie to him. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry.” North sounds confident. “You’re letting us help you, and that’s all we need. We’ll prove ourselves worthy of being your mates.”
“You guys sure are determined,” I observe.
Cain and North smile at me. “We’re going to prove it to you,” North promises me. “You’ll see.”
Nobody’s ever said anything like that to me before—saying they want to prove themselves worthy of me. In spite of myself, I’m feeling warm inside, feeling special.
“Okay, then,” I tell them.
Let’s give this a shot.
CHAPTER7
First things first, we have to get rid of the bodies.
I’ve never had to deal with this kind of thing before. I rob people, but I’m not a damn murderer. I’m not used to this kind of thing. “Do we, um, dissolve them in the bathtub?”
Once on a TV show I saw someone do that. Or no, wait, they were supposed to cut the bodies up and dissolve them in plastic tubs, but the guy did it in the bathtub and the acid or whatever they used to dissolve the bodies ate through the bottom of the tub too and through the floor and made this huge mess.
North shakes his head. “No. We have a solution sort of on standby for this.”
On standby? “Should I be concerned that you know so easily how to take care of bodies that you have a solution ready to go?”