Page 59 of Altered By Fire (Undercover Sinners 1)
That's a sin no man could ever live down, not with Arsen and Hawke on their asses. When that man finally dies, it's going to be bloody as hell.
Playing with one of the piercings in my lip, I look up at Hawke as Arsen slides a plate of French toast in front of me. I think he likes to cook and act domestic because one day, he'll add some arsenic in it and kill us all and we won't even see it coming. He's that flipping crazy that he'd sit back and plan something that slow and awful.
But whatever. My GSW is fucking killing me, I'm hungry, and I'm about to get my ass chewed out for letting Natalia take those keys.
"You're too relaxed," Hawke tells me, his hands on his hips as he glares down at me like I'm a naughty schoolboy. I want to tell him to grow the fuck up, but Colt gives me this don't you dare look. I flip him off and Hawke slams his palm down on the table. "Stop with the high school bullshit," he snaps, "and listen to me. You allowed Natalia to take those keys."
"She was sucking me off," I drawl, taking a sip of my coffee. Colt raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. He's ten times more volatile and cheeky than I am, but yet, he's also a few years younger and still follows every order to a goddamn T. Yes, Colt and I are similar, but I'm more relaxed. I like to take things slower, see how they go. "And it's not like anything happened, so let's let it go and move on. Mass is in like, ten minutes." I check my watch and then sigh, draped in those stupid effing black robes and a goddamn wig to cover my green hair. "If Konstantin really is planning on showing up here with his minions, shouldn't we stay focused on that?" I pause, because there's this thing with Natalia weighing on my mind. Hawke isn't going to like me bringing it up, but there it is. "And if he is showing up, then this whole 'make Natalia fall for us' bullshit doesn't matter, right? I mean, what's the point of all that if we think the big baddie might fall right into our laps?"
"Let's just bring her on the team and she can be like Portia," Colt starts which is the dumbest fucking thing in the world to say. I give him a look across the table that clearly says shut the fuck up, but it's too late.
"She will never be like Portia," Hawke snaps, running his hand over his hair. Arsen stiffens, but just keeps cooking. I prefer it that way anyway, when he doesn't say anything. The bastard's too scary when he talks. "Natalia is a fucking tool to be used and discarded."
"You don't actually want her on the team?" I ask, so confused. Hawke is clearly attracted to this girl—we all are—so why not bring her on? There's nowhere else for her to go, especially after all this. Her family will be dead, the feds will be interested in finding her, and she'll be easy pickings for any of the mob's rivals.
And yet, Hawke doesn't seem to give two shits when I know for a fact that he does.
"No," he snaps, nostrils flaring as he stands up straight and stares down at me like I'm the problem here, like I'm the person experiencing extreme denial. "The last thing we need is some spoiled ass princess riding our coattails. Portia came to us with skills and knowledge, with training and practice. This girl, she's a suicidal nightmare just waiting to happen. And yeah, maybe I let myself get caught up in her. Making her fall in love with us was supposed to make gathering information easy and yet, we've got nothing. She hasn't told us a damn thing. If Konstantin does show up here—and that's a big if—then we're lucky as hell because we don't have any other leads."
"I'd just as soon see her dead as on the team anyway," Arsen says mildly, tossing another plate down on the table. Mace curls his lip up and looks about two seconds from punching the other man out. Colt just stares across the table at me, like I have some say in the matter, like I could actually get Natalia to be part of Hawke Security with the rest of us.
"As soon as we're done here, we'll dump Natalia in some backwoods Midwestern town and leave. Maybe she can find a place for herself there?" Hawke says, picking up a mug of coffee and then pausing at the sound of loud footsteps approaching the kitchen.
When Natalia walks in, she seems cheerful. She's smiling and there's a bounce in her step, but it almost seems … too much. There's a piece of paper in her hand, too, a list. When she sees me staring at it, she smiles.
