“Second of all, he’s my favorite cousin. No. Tasing.”
“Get in,” Roman hissed from inside the car.
Scarlet looked down to see that Roman had opened the passenger door and climbed in. He reached across the console for her, hooking his hand in the pocket of her jeans and tugging. “Get in, get in.”
In the split second she looked away, Oscar raised the stun gun.
She felt a small pinch in her arm and then pain zapped her.
Scarlet dropped, landing hard on her butt, lights popping in her vision.
“Ow, ow, ow,” she breathed, her nerve endings shrieking. She lost a little bit of time as she focused on trying not to feel like her entire body was taken over by a case of pins and needles.
Then she was thrown over a man’s shoulders in a fireman carry. He hauled her away from the car, away from their only means of escape, and Scarlet vowed that from now on, all plans would always include a variation titled:
What to do if someone goes postal and tases you?
Roman faced off with Oscar, aware that there probably wasn’t a whole lot he could do to protect his companions. Luca kept glancing over at the bed, where Scarlet and Tate were laying. Roman knew they were both awake—neither had passed out—but from the occasional groans, he knew they also weren’t feeling all that great, which meant an escape attempt was out of the question.
He might have tried it since Oscar had used both cartridges. But his—as he now knew her to be—insane cousin, Selene, had brought Oscar a few more.
So Roman put his body between that of his partners and their attackers, and stayed silent as Selene and Luca quickly yanked anything that might be considered a weapon out of the master bedroom suite that was about to be a jail and tossed it into the hall.
From Langston’s information, Roman knew that this rather dusty-smelling house was Walt’s, the third triplet who was currently out of the country working for Doctors Without Borders.
Walt’s house had the feeling of a place that wasn’t lived in, and the sparse furnishings made it easy for Oscar to turn it into their temporary prison.
Selene was looking at Roman, and instead of worry or horror at what her lover had done, she looked calm. Almost calculating. “Tell my parents, my sister, that I’ll find a way to contact them once we’re safe.”
These were the same parents and sister who would be at her surprise New Year’s Eve wedding. What a huge clusterfuck of a misunderstanding. All he had to do was tell her everything: Oscar is going to be your third, but he doesn’t get a letter. The Grand Master is expecting him to follow you two, and the days of thinking he won’t be with you are punishment for him acting like a dipshit. I have spent the past two weeks meeting with a team of people dedicated to making your surprise wedding beautiful.
All he had to do was open his mouth and talk.
But he couldn’t.
The Grand Master had specifically forbidden them from telling Selene, Luca, or Oscar what was really going on. Tate, who’d only been a member a couple of years, was stuck on the “punishment” aspect of this setup. But Roman was a legacy, and he could read between the lines, hear what was unsaid in both the Grand Master’s words and in the way her counselor Franco smiled at her during those meetings.
The Grand Master’s position was one Roman wouldn’t have wished on an enemy, but this...planning a surprise wedding for people she already knew were in love?
This was a happy thing.
A fun thing.
He was pretty sure that the Grand Master’s job rarely ever involved happy, fun things, and Franco’s idea for a surprise wedding on New Year’s Eve provided just that. When Roman looked at it in that light, Oscar’s punishment became more of a prank.
The problem was they hadn’t accounted for the soon-to-be newlyweds going straight for the nuclear option.
He looked at Selene again, and really, really wished he could just tell her what was going on.
“You’re running,” Roman said slowly. “That’s a mistake.”
“I fell in love,” she replied softly. “And I’ll do anything to be with the people I love.”
Behind him, Scarlet sat up. Even disheveled after receiving one hell of a jolt, she was lovely. The first time Roman had seen her, he’d been taken aback by her elegance, her classic beauty. She’d pinned her shoulder-length dark auburn hair up in a high ponytail this morning before they set out on this adventure, but now, more than half of it had escaped on one side, giving her an eighties, Cyndi Lauper look. Her mascara was smudged under her eyes, but that only served to accentuate her expressive bright green eyes. She had a smudge of dirt along her right cheek from where she’d rolled on the ground, crying out in pain.
Roman didn’t consider himself a vengeful man, but there was a day of reckoning coming for him and Oscar, despite the fact they were about to become cousins-in-law.
A quick glance told him Tate was still down, his eyes closed, but there was a faint line between his brows that indicated he wasn’t asleep, that he was listening to everything being said. Roman half expected Tate to spring up at any moment and attack. He suspected that—like him—the former Marine would be anxious for a little payback for that damn stun gun.
“Come with us to Boston,” Scarlet said. “Make your case to the Grand Master.”
She was very careful with her words, not to disobey the gag order.
“Fuck that!” Oscar called from the en suite bathroom.
“It’s too late,” Selene said softly. “If we have letters, that means a third person, a stranger, has a letter too.”
Oscar emerged carrying the towel bar, which he’d apparently removed from its brackets. He nudged Luca toward the door. “Okay, let’s go.”
“What are you going to do with us?” Scarlet asked.
“You’ll figure it out,” Oscar said.
“We’ll make sure you can get out but not before we have a good head start,” Selene countered.
“Don’t do this, cousin,” Roman urged.
Selene looked at him, and the calm expression cracked, a little bit of sadness making her features tight. But that didn’t stop her from stepping out of the way as Oscar pushed Luca into the hall.
Just before the door closed, Roman called out, “Think about what Scarlet said. Think very hard.”
Chapter Three
Tate sat up the moment the door closed. He put his finger to his lips, listening for the sound of voices. Instead, he heard footsteps and a door closing. They were alone in the house.
He glanced at Scarlet and Roman. Both looked stunned, and Scarlet still seemed a little green around the gills. Being tased was no fun.
“You okay?” he asked her.
“I think so. You?”
“Not my first time,” he assured her.
Scarlet looked to Roman. “There’s a dirty joke in there, but I’m a little freaked out so I can’t figure out exactly where it is.”
Roman tipped his head, seeming to consider it. “That’s what she said?”
Tate snorted out a laugh and got up off the bed. Scarlet giggled—it had a slightly hysterical edge to it—and stayed where she was.
Roman held out his hands, like a parent with their hands on either side of a wobbly toddler, when Tate stumbled a bit. “You should lie back down.”