Page 135 of Sins of Innocence

WRAITH

The conference room monitors glow with stills from security feeds, all of them featuring Kenneth Shaughnessy either alone, or with someone else, when I walk in.

The rest of my core crew is already here. This is my team. The soldiers I relied on most and trusted as a captain are the same men and woman that will make up my inner circle as a lieutenant.

McLaren's feet are propped on the table her fingers flying across the keyboard on her laptop. Noah is halfway through a breakfast sandwich. Torch leans back in his chair watching something on his phone while Ethan leans against the far wall observing the room.

Making a damn production of looking at his watch, Dagda drawls, "Look at the lieutenant arriving exactly on time. Promotion's gone to his head already. I remember when Wraith was always the first one in the room."

"It's easy to be early when you live on site." I make a beeline for the coffee station.

"How's that going, you living in that little apartment with all those X chromosomes?" Tomas asks.

It's a hell of a lot more challenging than I expected it to be. Not because the girls are noisy, or Maureen is nosy, but because my balls are so blue they've got their own spot on the color wheel.

As fucking busy as I am, I crave my new wife, all of the damn time. But sex in a house with three girls and mother-in-law is as common as combat action officially acknowledged by the government.

"Has its moments." I pop the pod of dark roast in the maker.

Dagda gives a low, rusty chuckle. "Don't tell me fatherhood is harder than knocking those banjaxed gobshites into shape you inherited from Kenneth."

"Fuck off." Fatherhood isn't the issue.

Privacy is.

And I don't need the reminder what a bunch of dipshits I've got working for me now.

Noah points at me with half a sandwich. "That sounded very managerial."

Torch nods solemnly. "Disturbing development."

Like a bunch of chuckleheads, they all laugh at the lame ass joke.

Normal.

As normal as mob soldiers discussing internal betrayal at 6:30 in the morning gets anyway.

McLaren finally looks up from her laptop and glares at Torch. "Where's my coffee?"

He nods toward a to-go cup to the right of her crossed ankles on the table. "Iced brown sugar latte with oat milk just like her highness demanded."

"Why didn't I get coffee?" Dagda demands.

Noah squints at the cup. "What's oat milk?"

"Grounds for execution," Torch mutters.

McLaren flips him off as she grabs the cup. "Oat milk has a lower environmental impact than almond or dairy milk."

Everyone stares at her.

She shrugs. "What? I have to compensate in some way for my larger than normal consumption of electricity."

"You're a menace." Noah tosses the crumpled wrapper of his breakfast sandwich into the trash before clamping down on his ever-present cinnamon toothpick.

"Correct."

I take my mug of black coffee and sit at the head of the table. "Report."