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Every day, I heard: Moretti can’t do this. Moretti has half a brain. You realize no girlfriend has ever wanted to be with him. That’s why he’s been cheated on a hundred times. I tell Thatcher, “If there’d been a ‘shut up’ button on Tony, I would’ve risked touching him and pressed it a thousand times by now.” “I would’ve decked him,” Thatcher says plainly.
“I can’t believe I’m going on a trip without you.” It’ll be strange. He was my bodyguard for almost a year. With me every day, and now… I drop my gaze. His hand encases my cheek. “Fuck it.” He’s a breath from my lips. “We’re switching places.” “What?” I shake my head, utterly confused. “Me and my brother. I’ll explain everything.”
“Pack me up and ship me out, I’m ready.” I begin to smile, sensing their energy. “You’re both excited about this, aren’t you?” Thatcher enjoys his job, and it’s often a high-octane, high-risk one, and I suppose this will jolt them with more adrenaline. “To spend more time with you,” Thatcher says, looking down at me. “Hell yeah.”
“Your tattoo,” I whisper to Thatcher. “It’s on his ass,” Banks says. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that’s right—my boyfriend has a tattoo on his ass. SFO, namely Paul Donnelly, inked script on Thatcher recently, and I wasn’t present. It happened under the cloak of Omega Brotherhood and I just saw the result.
They didn’t write “hypocrite” on his butt like I thought they would. Like Thatcher said they could. Instead, SFO decided on something that “better fit” Thatcher. And so they tattooed the word, Cinderella.
“You want me to tell her?” Banks asks. I freeze. Thatcher is dead-set on Banks. “She already knows.” “Yeah? She knows that everyone in our family blames each other for his death, but no one thought to point a finger at him?” A chill slips down my spine, and I realize this is about their older brother. “Fuck him,” Banks says with bite. Thatcher’s nose flares. “Don’t.”
“I love him, but Mary Mother of God, I hate him like a thousand pounds in his direction, and my dumb ass has to live with his death on my thigh.” My stomach flips. Roman numerals. A date. The day Skylar died.
He presses a kiss to the top of my head. I’m in love. Don’t be frightened, Jane. I’m trying.
“Your hand,” I mention to my boyfriend. He removes his left hand off the binder, just enough to touch his bent ring finger. Thatcher looks concerned. Banks shakes his head. “Barely anyone notices that.” “Yeah, let’s hope,” Thatcher says strictly. “Or I’m going to kick my twenty-five-year-old self in the ass for re-breaking the same knuckle.”
“I’m the first Cobalt to be in a relationship,” I explain, “and I just can’t predict whether my mom and dad will challenge you or profess immediate fealty. It’s too soon to tell, and in my mind, there’s not enough substantial data.”
Tony has reached Lord Voldemort levels of evil for Maximoff ever since he overheard my bodyguard crack a “joke” about Thatcher and Banks sleeping with me. Something along the lines of, she likes that two-for-one action?
His fiancé and my boyfriend speak under their breaths to one another, seeming very civil, and that is profoundly new. Maximoff squints. “Are we in the same universe?” “This feels unfamiliar.” “If they hug, we took a wrong damn turn somewhere.”
Farrow bites the tip of his black leather glove with casual ease, pulling it off. Maximoff’s Adam’s apple bobs. I stifle a laugh. Farrow has put a spell on him, and it would be the millionth-and-one time.
“Free advertising?” Farrow tucks his gloves in his back pocket. “See, this is a wedding, not a charity party.” “Sorry, man. I totally forgot you’ve thrown a hundred weddings before ours.” His sarcasm is thick. “How were all those divorces?” Farrow rolls his eyes into a widening smile. “You mean the ones that don’t exist, smartass.”
I unleash the twin swap plan. By the end, Farrow is grinning so wide that his smile reaches cheek-to-cheek. “Just say it,” Thatcher cuts in. “You like breaking the rules for her,” Farrow tells him matter-of-factly. Thatcher looks only at me, and my heart swells. No man has ever made me feel like a rare beauty worthy of sacrifice.
Once I look up at my best friend, I pale. His red-hot fixated glare is all too familiar. He’s hyper-focused on three young guys in green Eagles merch. They berate Farrow, who’s as cool as can be. He couldn’t care less, only a hand outstretched to keep them from shoving. But he shoots Moffy a warning look to stay back.
And then they spit on Farrow. “Moffy, no.” He launches forward. I drop my coat and clasp his waist. “MOFFY!” He barely even notices me pulling him, and so I leap onto his back. “Janie?” He stops in place.
my panicked eyes land on Thatcher. He’s already coming towards me. He heard me scream. Moffy sees me struggling. “Let her go!” he shouts at Tony. I flail my feet, and my heel makes contact with my bodyguard’s crotch. Tony grunts, “Fuck.” He sets me down and doubles over.
“Jane!” Thatcher cuts off my path and shields me. “Jane!” I lose sight of Moffy. “I can’t leave him!” I put my hands on his chest to push him backwards. But my strength doesn’t outmatch his, so I use all my weight and jump on my boyfriend. He catches me in a front piggyback. My legs instinctively wrap around his waist—his hands cup the backs of my thighs. Hoisting me higher on his tall build. Oh. My. God?
“So you can tie up your rich bitch!” He chucks an object at us, but Farrow intercepts first and catches what looks like restraint cuffs, meant to tie a submissive to a bed. I boil. “I do not like BDSM!”
“Earlier, I heard that Eliot and Tom left New York and have been heading to Philly.” “It could be a coincidence,” I note. Farrow rests a boot on a stool rung. “Or your brothers are up to some shit.”
“I’m afraid my siblings are being coy in order to give you a hard time.” Admitting this is difficult because I would love to just roll out a beautiful, luxurious red carpet for Thatcher. But this is not the Cobalt way.
It’s very possible Thatcher’s introduction into my family will be grueling, taxing, and of the most theatrical, over-the-top caliber—and I need to save him from this, don’t I?
She catches a look that Banks and Akara give each other. “What? You don’t think I’ll invite Will? That I’m chicken shit scared?” Akara grimaces. “No. That’s not it, Sul.” Banks tilts his beer to his mouth. “Why would you even want to invite the Rooster?” “The Rooster?” Sulli and I say in unison.
Sulli gawks. “What the fuck is that? The Rooster?” Akara has trouble restraining a smile. “It’s for comms.” “It’s for comms?” Sulli stands and slugs his shoulder. “He’s not a cock!” Banks laughs. Sulli lands a fist in his arm too,
Banks tips his head. “We’re just callin’ it like we see it, mermaid.” She huffs. “Yeah? And his cock is probably ten fucking times bigger than both of yours.” Akara and Banks try not to laugh, and then Banks says, “No way in hell.”
“Is that it?” Sulli asks Akara and Banks. “You’re both just jealous.” Banks raises his shoulder in a shrug. Akara’s muscles are flexed. “No.”
“And isn’t Xander going to be a groomsman, so does that mean you don’t want him there?” He points at Maximoff. “Or does Xander just not want to be around you?” More shots fired. That direct hit hurts. Moffy is stewing. Smoke is coming out of his ears.
“Been waiting for someone to put away Tony the Toolbox.” “If only permanently,” I sigh. “Murder with the Cobalt fam,” Donnelly says through a mouthful of cheesecake. “Those who slay together, stay together.” I eye him. “I meant metaphorical murder.” I pause, curious. “Did you?” He puts a hand to his chest, grinning and not saying one way or the other,
First come the bodyguards. I count five. And then five famous faces bring up the rear. Charlie, Beckett, Eliot, Tom, and Ben. Every single one of my brothers. They’re all here, and they’re far too fixated on Thatcher like he’s tonight’s five-course meal.
“Jane—” “I haven’t properly prepared you for the avalanche you’re about to endure,” I whisper rapidly. “It’s my duty to strap you with as much ammo as humanly possible.”
“You smile now but they can smell blood in the water, and the second you cut open a weakness, they will poke and prod until you’re bleeding out.”
“We’re not competing for jack shit, you and me.” “We’re not,” I agree. “This is just something we do together.” “Getting naked and jumping fences?” “Oui.”
“You think it’s us?” He means the dead quiet. Eliot grins. “If it’s not, I’d be offended.” He unbuttons his expensive pea coat. If the God of War and hedonistic Dionysus birthed a child, they’d spit out my nineteen-year-old brother.
He locks eyes with Donnelly, his former bodyguard. I mutter under my breath, “It’s like a break-up.” More than just me notices their silent, uncomfortable exchange. With an equally morose expression, Donnelly stuffs his cheesecake in a plastic bag and waves goodbye to Farrow and Oscar before he leaves the bar altogether. Beckett is a heartbreaker, I’ve come to realize.
“Why does this have to be a war?” “It’s only a war if you make it one.” “Then what is this, Charlie?” He sighs out an annoyed breath. “You know what this is, Jane.” A test of loyalty. Interlopers beware. The Cobalt brothers will not let you through.
“He’s proven enough. He sacrificed his job for me.” I’m trying desperately to open up the window for my boyfriend. Charlie is slamming it shut. “Hundreds of men would follow suit if it meant they could date you. He’s not special.”
“We don’t need to do this, Charlie.” “Yes we do.” He leans forward. “Just remember we love you.” Heat builds in my body, and I whisper back, “I hate you right now.” He smiles. “It’ll diminish in time.” He rises. Eliot is the one to clamp a hand on Thatcher’s back. “Follow us, boyfriend-in-law.”
“You were fucking our sister during the fake-dating ploy.” I don’t blink. “Charlie.” Jane’s face is beet-red.
“I was respecting your sister.” I will always respect Jane. Eliot hoists himself on top of the booth frame. He uncorks a bottle of wine between his legs. It pops. “Did you hear that, brothers? Thatcher, here, was respectfully fucking our sister.” Starting off just great.
“Why so edgy? We’re all just talking. For now.” He winks at me. I’m not scared. But I also can’t tell if he’s bluffing.
Comms sound in my ear. “Take the wine from Charlie,” Oscar instructs. “He’ll appreciate it.” Copy that. I listen to Charlie’s bodyguard and extend my hand towards the Merlot. Charlie scrutinizes me for a long oxygen-caging second. He wipes the corner of his mouth with a finger, his intrusive eyes crawling down me. And then he passes me the wine. “You have to drink it,” Oscar says.
“Look, I love Jane—” “That’s funny,” Charlie cuts me off. “Considering a week ago, none of us thought you were even attracted to her.”
she said, “Your type doesn’t usually fall for my type in popular culture.” It struck me hard. Painfully. I sent a narrowed look over my shoulder. “Why wouldn’t my type be into you?”
but I recognize that classically, I’m not the world’s definition of beauty.” “You’re mine,” I said with power and force.
“And maybe it hurts them to assume this. But we’re all smart enough to know that the emotion inside a fact doesn’t make the fact any less true.” I tried to process that, and I held her gaze in a vice. “It doesn’t make it any less fucked up.”
“Why were you all so sure that your sister’s feelings were one-sided?” Jane whips her head to me, smiling. I’m not easy to push over, honey. “I just didn’t think you’d be into her,” Beckett admits, and to Jane, he says, “I owe you an apology, sis. I’m sorry.” Ben drops his feet beneath the table. “Me too.” “It’s okay,” Jane says with a warm smile. “Thank you.” Charlie pulls at his messy hair, his annoyance visible and on me. “You gave us no indication of liking our sister. I’m not apologizing for that.” I nod. “You don’t have to.”
I reach forward and collect the statue. I turn it over in my palm. I breathe in through my nose. What the fuck. I’m holding a trophy shaped like a snake. The plaque reads Master of Deception with the year engraved below.
Tom leans back with a grin. “You even fooled our mom and dad.” Weight situates on my strict shoulders. I blame myself for how my relationship with Jane started out on a bed of dishonesty. Us lying to her parents and siblings.
“You could teach a master class on How to Deceive a Genius.” My brows cinch in confusion. He’s impressed? Tom lifts a finger. “I’d enroll.” They both are. I glance at Jane for confirmation. She leans in and whispers, “They’re devious little devils.” Right.
