Damaged (Boys of Winter 2)

My brows instantly shoot up. I know Carver told him that he had two days to come back and deal with whatever bullshit lie Carver had fed him, but a part of me hadn’t expected it. Sam is a self-righteous, self-important bastard, and he doesn’t work on someone else’s schedule. The fact that he stopped what he was doing and got straight back on a plane for Carver speaks volumes.

Grayson discreetly steps closer into my side so that my arm presses up against his stomach and chest and I find myself leaning into his touch. “So, what now?”

“You tell me,” Carver says as I feel King and Cruz’s heavy stare boring into my face. “I told you to have a plan ready, so what’s it going to be?”

Panic soars through me. “I …” I shake my head. “I don’t know. My weekend was a little … busy, so forgive me, but I haven’t exactly had a minute to come up with some groundbreaking plan to take out a whole sex trafficking organization.”

“Well, if you didn’t spend all of your time focusing on getting dick, maybe you would have found a minute to think it through.”

“Woah,” Cruz says, holding up a hand. “Back off her. You know how easily she’ll fire back, and we need her in the right mindset if we’re going to do this.”

“Going to do this?” I ask. “Why does it already sound like the groundbreaking plan has been talked through and agreed on?”

“Because it has,” Grayson says, his hand discreetly finding my lower back and making me wonder if he even realizes that he’s doing it. Though, this is Grayson Beckett, nothing ever gets by him. “I don’t mean to offend you or anything like that, but we figured that you didn’t have any … uhh … experience in the area and we went ahead and figured out how we’re going to play this.”

“And?” I ask, searching each of the guys for any kind of information. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan,” Carver says, “is that we hide you with Cruz’s mom while we go and deal with it. You’re not ready.”

“Bullshit I’m not ready,” I seethe, spitting the words through my teeth and trying to keep my voice down as the anger rolls through me. “You don’t get to tell me what I’m ready for. I’m coming. After the weekend I just had, I deserve to make some heads roll. Besides, I was the fucking victim in all of this. Sam kept me in a cell, dressed me up as one of his sex slaves, and sold me. I’m coming, and there’s not a damn thing you can say about it, so tell me the goddamn plan so I can make the fucker pay.”

The guys quickly glance at one another, secret messages passing between them all, but when Carver’s stare comes back to me, I see his decision before he’s even said a word. “You better be fucking ready because if we’re doing this, then we’ve got to go now.”

I nod. “I’m ready.”

“Okay then,” he says. “Here’s what you need to know.”

CHAPTER 18

Leaning through to the front of the Escalade, I meet Carver’s focused stare. “I thought you told Sam you were meeting at the auction house?” I question, quickly glancing at the property Carver had pointed out as Sam’s private home not two seconds ago.

“I did,” he grunts as I notice all four of the guys’ attention focused heavily on the house. Their eyes scan over every inch of the property, counting the security guards who case the joint, watching the way the cameras swivel and check to see if they leave any blind spots. They even watch the dogs that Sam has trained to walk circles around the border of his property.

“What’s going on?”

Grayson raises his chin and leans to the side, getting a better view of the side entrance of the property. “Sam would have sent the majority of his security team to the auction house in preparation for a meeting tonight. They would have gotten there early to set up security in case Carver was planning a raid. That way, they would have time to catch it and bail before Sam was caught. That’s how he runs his ship, but in doing that, he’s left his home vulnerable,” he explains. “We’re going to hit him here where it hurts and take the whole thing down with it.”

Fuck me. Grayson’s so damn hot when he talks like that.

My brows shoot up as excitement pulses through me. “You guys really have thought this through.”

“Mmhmm,” King rumbles. “We value our lives. We don’t go into reckless, unpredictable situations without a fucking plan. Our names aren’t Winter.”

“Hey,” I snap. “Low fucking blow.”

King just shrugs. “Try and change my mind,” he says. “It’s true and you damn well know it.”