Shiver (Unbreakable Bonds 1)

“Ooh, lemme see,” Ian drawled, snagging the phone. He frowned at the screen for a long time, then elbowed Snow hard enough to make the doctor grunt. “You need glasses. She may be flat-chested, but that’s a woman.”

“It’s not!” Snow grabbed the phone and enlarged the photo. “Wait. Maybe it is.”

“Roundest ass I’ve ever seen on a guy if it isn’t.” Ian popped something into his mouth.

“I like round asses.” Rowe blinked again. His red hair was sticking up on one side of his head like he’d been smashed up against a wall. Or a floor.

Laughing, Lucas tilted his head back against his chair and closed his eyes, letting their low bickering soothe the worry eating up his insides. He wanted Andrei back. Here. Safe. He hated the idea of the man somewhere out there fighting just so he could learn who was trying to kill Lucas. Tonight’s excursion to the horrible jazz bar had done only one thing. It had proved to whoever was pulling the strings that Andrei was on the up and up for them. It hadn’t done anything else and frustration made Lucas want to break things.

Instead, he was here, watching the most important people in his life get loaded.

“Ian, are there more of those crab puffs in the kitchen?” Rowe staggered to his feet and lurched in that direction. “Those things are better than sex.”

Ian started to answer but Snow plopped his hand over the chef’s mouth. Ian’s whole body was shaking as he plucked an apparent crab puff off the pan on his lap and held it over his head to Snow’s mouth. The doctor ate it and nudged Ian for more.

Lucas frowned. “I didn’t know those were crab puffs.” He stood and dove across the coffee table, hitting the cookie sheet and sending the hors d’oeuvres flying in all directions.

“No,” Rowe yelled as he ran back into the room and face-planted behind the couch.

Lucas calmly dug one of the puffs out from between Ian’s legs and bit into it. They all waited as silence fell from behind the couch.

“I think he knocked himself unconscious,” Snow murmured. He shrugged, nudged Ian and opened his mouth.

Lucas sat back and grinned at Ian and Snow. Later, all his fear and worry would return and keep him from sleeping just as it had every other damned night since Andrei had left. But for now, he’d enjoy them. And maybe see if Rowe had really knocked himself out.Chapter 19Andrei was trying not to pace, but he wasn’t having much luck. It had taken him three days to find a suitable place to meet. It was only through luck that he’d stumbled across the single-story brick elementary school that had been closed down more than two years ago in Visalia, a backwater town deep in rural Kentucky. The windows were boarded up and all the landscaping was now overgrown. The cracks in the blacktop that comprised the main driveway as well as the playground were filled with weeds and crabgrass, as if nature was slowly reclaiming the area now that the children had moved on. He’d checked out the place a day prior to the meeting to find that a few people had apparently sneaked in to vandalize. There were places where kids had spray painted and others where someone had likely ripped out copper wiring and pipes, but the police had quickly closed it all up again. The electricity was even still connected. A small oversight by the city.

An uneasy feeling had inched through Andrei on his first inspection. The school had been too similar to his own elementary and middle school in his small hometown in southeastern Kentucky. While not as bad as high school, those years in his life hadn’t been overly happy either. But he shook off the old ghosts and focused on the dire situation pressing down on his present day.

He’d driven for an hour to make sure he hadn’t been followed here. With all the checking and sneaking, he’d be lucky to get to speak to Rowe for more than five minutes. And of course, Lucas probably wouldn’t even show. It had been stupid to hope when he’d requested the first face-to-face meeting since going undercover more than two weeks ago. He’d just wanted to be further along by now.

Operating in the dark wore on his nerves. Just a quick text here and there. He liked to think if there was a major development someone would contact him. For two weeks, there had been only silence. He checked the news, waiting to hear about more attacks at nightclubs, fires, car accidents and those that happened didn’t look like they could be tied to Lucas. Rowe, Snow, and Lucas would undoubtedly cover up anything, but they would tell him, right? But he’d heard nothing. Just endless, nerve-shredding silence.