The Squad

I realized when he looked at me and inclined his head gently in Roxana’s direction that he, like me, had been giving her time to settle in once she got here. The easy banter between the two of us was to put her at ease. “Are you Cierra?” Bingo!

Roxana grabbed Arianna’s hand. The way she did it, I knew that she didn’t mean my wife any harm. It was more like she’d found someone she’d been looking for, a long lost friend or something along those lines. Arianna looked at her tenderly since she knew that the guys had gone to bring someone in and why. As part of the squad, she was privy to everything that was going on and will be in the future as well.

“No, I’m not; she’s gone to bed already. You’ll meet her in the morning. Why don’t I take you to your room? We can all talk in the morning.” She didn’t even look at me when she said this; my okay was not needed, I guess. These women!

“My room?” Roxana stepped back and looked around at the rest of us.

“Don’t be afraid, we all have a room here.”

“I’ve got her.” Jason stepped forward and took the bag from Roxana’s shoulder before turning to leave the room.

“Hey!” She rushed after him and tried taking it back, but he just told her to keep up as he headed for the elevator to head to the lower level.

“So, did she get all of them, or are there still some left?” Arianna looked around the room at the rest of us.

“Mouth, down!” Her husband pulled her into his side and rolled his eyes over her head. I wonder what that’s about.

Lyon

“Hey, Pothead, a minute of your time.” I caught him bright and early the next morning when he, Cyrus, and Drake were on their way to the beach for a run. Everyone else is in work mode, but these three are on some kind of holiday. Don’t get me started on Elena and her shit.

I refused to look at him since he’d foregone a shirt and was wearing shorts more suited to a man half his age. But since I wasn’t here to rip him a new one for being an embarrassment, something I’ve had to live with my whole fucking life, I let that shit slide.

“Hey, Colt, what’s up, son?” He did some stretches and a little jogging in place action, and I barely refrained from rolling my eyes.

“Why didn’t you or mom tell me that you’re cousins?” He stopped moving and stared at me, open-mouthed.

“Who told you about that?"

"What if one of my kids came out with a third eye or some shit?”

He had the nerve to laugh like he thought I was being funny. “First of all, your mom and I are distant cousins, perfectly acceptable and legal, I might add. And second, even if we were more closely related, it wouldn’t have affected your offspring to such a degree.” I’m not sure I believe his slick ass.

“Another thing that family crest, the one I have painted on mine and my wife’s back, where did it come from?”

“Whoa, where are you getting all this information from?”

“Not important. Is it true?” He grinned and shrugged like it was no big deal.

“Colton, if I had told you that one of our ancestors was a knighted nobleman, you’d have tried to climb out of your own skin.”

“Do the girls know?”

“No, why would they? It never came up in conversation, plus there were reasons why your mother and I separated from the rest of our family, and we just never saw any reason to dredge up old stuff.”

“What reasons?

“Nothing majorly important, just some old family stuff. Hey, the guys are waiting, catch you later, son.” He jogged away, leaving me to look after him, still wondering what the hell had happened to my life in the last twenty-four hours.

I’ve been playing this shit off well, but after coming back to the island in the early hours of the morning, it’s been bugging me. Not the fact that some ass in my family line saved some king that’s been dead for about six hundred years, give or take, but all this other shit Mancini has going on.

He thinks I don’t know what he did by sending me with the others last night, or that I didn’t notice how they all turned to me to call the plays. I’m pretty sure he’s not dumb enough to think that he can corner me into doing shit I don’t want to, but he’s got some angle going, I’m sure of it.

“Hey, you where you off to?” Kat came waltzing out of one of the patio doors with Cody on her hip looking hot as fuck in some bathing suit thing covered in gauze, at least that’s what it looked like because if that shit was supposed to be a cover-up, it was missing a few layers.