His tone is no-nonsense. “Can you get her there without alerting her that something’s off? Your face right now says no. Can you pull it together?”
I nod slowly, but don’t say a word.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “If she is a fed, you need to be extremely careful. You don’t want her to get a bad feeling and call for help. I will fucking kill you myself if my family gets caught up in all this bullshit.”
I think of Mia and the kids, of all the Hell that would unleash. No, he’s right, I need to get my shit together. I need to put my feelings in a box and not open them again until we have Virginia secured and cut off from the outside world.
“I’ve got it,” I assure him, meeting his gaze. “I’m fine. I can get her to my house, no problem. We’ve had some messy back and forth relationship shit going on, so… yeah, I can get her there.”
“We need to make sure she’s not wearing a wire,” Adrian tells me. “Do not say anything to her until you’ve checked.”
“I’ve had her naked; she doesn’t wear a wire around me.”
Rex chimes in. “Maybe not around you, but given how many of us were at today’s shindig, I’d say today would be a pretty damn good day to wear a wire.”
That’s true. I had Mateo here, for fuck’s safe.
Raking a hand through my hair, I mutter, “Jesus Christ.”
It’s probably because he has been in a similar place before that Mateo isn’t ripping me a new asshole for being so blind. Instead of telling me how badly I’ve fucked up, this time he squeezes my shoulder and assures me, “We’ll take care of it.”
31
Virginia
I frown as I root around in my purse, looking for my keys. Most of the party mess is cleaned up, but I can’t find Rafe, and I’ll feel bad if I have to leave without saying goodbye to him.
Sin was just helping us clean up, but now I don’t see him anywhere. Laurel is the next best thing, so I walk over toward her. As I approach, I find my keys, so I pull them out and get my key fob ready.
“Hey, have you seen Rafe?”
She frowns, looking around the yard. “Um… I don’t know where he went. He was back here just a minute ago.”
“Yeah, I saw him, but I can’t find him. Well, anyway, I have to run. Can you tell him I said goodbye?”
“Of course. Is everything okay?”
“I hope so. I guess there’s some emergency at the restaurant, and they can’t function without me,” I tell her, rolling my eyes lightly.
Smiling, she says, “Sure, I’ll tell him. Thank you so much for all your help today.”
“Oh, of course. I hope Skylar had a good birthday.”
“She definitely did. Poor baby, she was so beat, she passed out in the bounce castle. Sin just took her inside.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet. Well, I have to run, but thanks again. Tell Rafe I’ll text him later.”
Laurel nods and continues cleaning up, while I turn around and head out the front door. I bump into Rex on his way back inside.
“Whoa, someone’s in a hurry,” he says, flashing me an easy smile. “Where’s the fire?”
“Restaurant emergency,” I tell him.
He nods. “I see.”
I nod back, then awkwardly glance past him. “So, can I get through?”
“Of course.” He takes a step aside, but then grabs my arm and frowns as he glances up the stairs into the house. “Hey, did you see where Ariel went? I was supposed to catch up with her after the party.”