A Kade Christmas

His hand moved, spreading out over my stomach.

He whispered, pressing another softer kiss there, “Also, by the way, if you haven’t gotten the memo yet, I’ve never been happier than now.”

I shifted, turning my face so we were an inch away. “Yeah?”

He nodded, so solemn. “Yeah.” He moved in, his mouth finding mine and opening over mine.

We kissed and made out like we were teenagers until Logan moved, almost tossing me on the bed, and started to crawl over me—that’s when we heard the yelling.

30

Mason

“What is the meaning of this?” That was James’ exclamation once he was brought inside.

We’d been ready, having had our meeting, and all of us were standing in the kitchen when I gave Channing the go-ahead to bring in the package. So he did, leading the way with my father being pushed behind him by Congo, one of Channing’s guys.

A surprise happened when we saw that behind Congo was Channing’s younger sister.

Over the years, we’d seen Channing’s sister on and off.

I’d always felt some similarities with her and Samantha, but Bren was a different sort of animal. She was like a beautiful female wolf in human form. There’d been a feral feeling to her. Approach with caution. I felt it the first time I met her, and it was still there, though I knew through Channing that she was happy, married, and had a couple of children. I knew her husband, too, another member in her childhood ‘crew’ that was still tight to this day. Our group was close, but their group had a different sort of tight like they were half of each other. According to Channing, it never lessened. Where one moved, all moved.

I was guessing from seeing the slight reservation on Channing’s face, in the way he tracked his sister’s movements, that he still didn’t know how his sister would react to being around us. She’d always had this mysterious but stay-the-fuck-away-from-me-or-I’ll-slice-you vibe when she was around us.

I took one look, and yep, still there.

“Bren!” Heather squealed, heading over. She had her arms out, ready to pull her sister-in-law to her chest, but Bren held up a baton. Heather skidded to a stop.

“I have weapons on me. Hug gentle.”

Heather was fighting a grin but nodded and stepped in, slowly wrapping her arms around the younger woman.

The guy behind Bren snorted and started laughing. “Only you, Bren. No one puts the smackdown on Heather. The woman’s a legend.”

Heather laughed, reaching out and flicking the guy’s shoulder. “Hi, Zellman.”

He sobered, fondness softening his face. “For the record, you never have to give me a gentle hug. Ever. And definitely not from you.”

Channing took a step forward so he could see and glared. “Mine.” He stepped up, looped a hand around the back of Heather’s pants, and began pulling her backward. He repeated over her head, “Mine.”

Zellman rolled his eyes. “So overbearing. It’s not a good alpha look.”

Bren closed her eyes, slightly shaking her head. But there was a faint grin on her face as she glanced to her friend, who threw his arm around her shoulder, moving to stand behind her. She settled back against him.

“Excuse me?” James started forward. “I said what is the meaning of all this?” He took another step, but a hand came down on his shoulder, and he was jerked back into place. He tried glaring at Congo, whose hand was like a cement block on his shoulder, but Congo was impervious. The dude was like a literal human-shaped brick, bald head. And the thing was that he wasn’t even the biggest in Channing’s crew. He had another humongous human named Moose, who was given the name for a reason.

“Stay.” One word from Congo.

James looked ready to kill if he could.

That’s when I stepped forward because it was time to get this going.

Everyone quieted, knowing the real show was about to start.

James sensed the shift in the room and turned, looking and finding me. “Son.”

I opened my mouth, ready to start this thing, when a stampede of feet came from above us.

Down the stairs.

A whole different shift came over the room, a more alert, more viral, more frenzied air, and I knew who’d joined the fight.

I closed my mouth and held over the file from the PI.

Logan breezed past me, grabbed it, and went right to stop in front of our father.

He grinned. “Hey, Dad. Nice to see you again. It’s been a few days.”

I couldn’t hold back a grin because that was my brother. He had processed his shit, and now he was back. He was ready to fuck shit up.

“First off, welcome to the Getting Fucked Over by Tate Club because you, my father, are totally and moronically getting fucked over by her.”

31

Taylor

I followed him after he read through everything, saw what was going on.

The fight came back to him. He needed it. His energy was like an electrical outlet, surging and snapping and ready to strike out, needing to strikeout.