Page 24 of At Their Mercy: Part I

I’d gotten four hours of sleep. The night before, I got maybe five.

Happy Friday to me.

With a grunt, I rolled out of bed and stretched my arms over my head.

I could hear Reese and Shay downstairs. Our boy was in a good mood, and the sound of his laughter made my rude awakening better. I pulled on a pair of sweats and left the bedroom with my phone.

“I’m just saying, it’s a lot of wisdom!” Shay laughed. “Everything can’t be that important.”

“Write this down,” Reese responded. “Everything Daddy says is gold.”

I snorted under my breath, tightening the drawstrings as I made my way down the stairs. I could see Shay’s feet. He was standing by the dining room table.

“Okay, so that’s four things today alone, and it’s not even ten AM,” Shay chuckled. “Always have steaks in the freezer, always carry a multitool when you leave the house, never enter a room and speak before you’ve observed the surroundings, and always get a printed boarding pass.”

Solid list.

I reached the last step, and the pups and Shay noticed my presence at the same time.

“Good morning, Master.” Shay smiled.

Ah, he was trying to wrap our wedding gift for the Carters.

“Mornin’, baby.” I reached down and patted Romeo and Lima. “The last one’s important—printed boarding pass. You wanna avoid using your phone in an airport.”

“Why?” he asked curiously.

“It’s one of the most common places your phone will be hacked,” I replied. “It’s easy for an adversary to intercept your internet traffic in crowded hubs like airports and train stations, and you’ll never notice it.” I peered into the kitchen, where Reese was hauling food out of the fridge. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Shay’s makin’ omelets,” he answered. “I think we got everythin’ now, boy. There’re some olives left that you can use for River’s omelet.”

I knew what that meant. Leftover omelets. Once in a while, Reese raided the fridge to grab everything that was about to expire, and he or Shay mixed it all with eggs. We’d discovered some fixings were better than others. Olives and turkey, always. Cut-up steak? Never again. Too dry.

“Okay, but I’ll need help here later,” Shay said. “Master, come look.”

I followed him over to the dining table. Where the toilet stood.

We were giving the Carters a toilet.

It wasn’t on their registry.

“Look.” Shay grinned and lifted the lid.

I peered inside and chuckled. They’d filled the bowl with sex toys and sprinkles. And the two gift cards we’d added. Perfect.

“How are you gonna wrap the damn thing?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re gonna be able to see it’s a toilet,” he replied frankly. “Daddy said it’ll be funny. I think so too.”

It was certainly a different kind of gift. But we knew the Carters wanted to renovate the bathroom in their cabin, so we’d bought the toilet and a gift card for the sink in the same series.

I pressed a kiss to Shay’s temple. “It’ll be great. I’m just gonna grab a smoke.”

“Okay. I’ll sniff you later.”

I grinned faintly and headed for the patio.

He was doing good with cutting down on his smoking. It made Reese damn happy too. The boy had one here and there, but most of the time, he settled for a couple drags from mine.