Page 27 of My Crazy Killers
“Seriously?” Sly asks as he comes to a stop in front of him. I peek out from Dex’s side, and Sly narrows his eyes on me. “And you… you tricked me.”
“You wouldn’t let me leave the bedroom. I felt like a prisoner!” I exclaim, trying to be funny, but the entire room seems to grow tense.
Dex spins to face me as he asks, “You really felt that way?” He sounds terribly upset.
“No,” I say, quickly shaking my head as I turn him so I can see all the guys. “I was joking. But I wasn’t kidding about needing to get out of that room. I can’t take it anymore. And Jagger gets to walk around, so I should, too.”
“Can I look at your back?” Elias asks as he stands. I nod and turn away. I fold my arms over my front as I can’t wear abra yet, and he lifts my shirt, inspecting my wounds. “They look good, same as this morning. Clearly, moving around hasn’t harmed them.” He glances at Sly as he adds, “We have to take care of her mental health, too.”
“Fine,” he turns to me, wagging his finger as he instructs, “But no shenanigans until the scabs are gone, understand?”
“Yes, sir!” I say, saluting him.
He narrows his eyes, watching me for a second, before I see a spark of amusement there. Then he moves to take a seat on the couch beside Jagger.
“Well, now that you’ve escaped, what do you want to do?” Pete asks, leaning against the chair as Elias retakes his seat.
“Shouldn’t we be planning how to get that list from Ivan?”
“We’re already working on it,” Elias informs me. “I managed to hack into his landline, and I’m recording all calls. I wrote a program that will transcribe it and flag anything of interest.”
“How will that help?” I ask in confusion.
“Well, this is a two-part plan. We need to get that list, but we also need to take out Ivan, and I don’t think we can get to him in his home.”
“So we’re listening for talk of him leaving. If we have advance notice, we can set up an ambush,” Sly adds.
“So we just… wait?”
He nods. “I check the program throughout the day to see if there’s anything interesting. Jagger is listening to the calls himself, too, in case the Russian-to-English translation misses something important.”
“I can help,” I say, my ears perking up at the idea of translating.
“You could listen with me,”Jagger signs to me, and I nod excitedly.
“We need to figure out some better food today. I havenot been enjoying most of the stuff we’ve ordered,” Pete says, placing a hand on his belly. “I’d love something familiar."
An idea suddenly occurs to me, and I smile with excitement. I’ve been dying for a chance to cook for them. “Why don’t I cook dinner for everyone?” I ask excitedly.
“You don’t need to do that. You’ve been stuck in bed for over a week, and held captive before that,” Dex reminds me.
“I know, but I want to. Let me do this for you?” I ask, clasping my hands together under my chin.
“Is she seriously begging to cook for us right now?” Pete asks, looking at me like I’ve grown a third head.
Slyalmostgrins. “If you let Elias know what ingredients you need, he will order the groceries for you.”
I beam at them, feeling excited to finally contribute something to our team. Moving into the kitchen, I start looking through the cupboards to see what we have on hand, trying to think of something they will like. I know they all like beef; they’ve eaten enough burgers to prove that.
They’d probably like my beef wellington, and I know steak is Jagger’s favorite meal. I could makepotatoes au gratinbecause Pete loves cheese, and roasted carrots because that’s Sly’s favorite vegetable. And I’ll make chocolate lava cakes for dessert since Elias and Dex love chocolate.
It doesn’t take me long to write up a list of groceries and hand it off to Elias, then I sit down at Jagger’s side as he pulls the laptop into his lap.
‘How are you?’he types into the open document.
“I’m fine, how are you feeling? Is your backitching, too?”
He nods before typing again.‘How do you feel, in here?’He stops typing to press a finger to the middle of my forehead.
