Heedless (The Hellbound Brotherhood #4) - Shannon McKenna Page 0,10
around Demi and Eric. Then the photographer had to do all the Trask brothers together with the bride, and that ensemble was also ridiculously photogenic, Mace and Anton being just as tall and good-looking as Eric.
Eric finally put a stop to it, to everyone’s relief, and directed the guy to take his camera into the reception hall and take pictures of the guests as they came in.
Demi gave Nate a big, tearful hug. Her body vibrated with bridal nerves.
“You guys don’t even know what it means to us, helping to keep us safe,” she told him. “So this can finally happen. A dream come true. I’m so happy.”
“It’s cool,” Nate assured her, gently extricating himself. “Hey, looks like your guests are arriving.”
“Yeah, they are, and you need to fix your hair before your grand entrance, Demi.” It was Fiona’s voice, from behind them. “For that matter, so do I. This wind is insane.”
They turned around. Fi was a vision in skin-tight silver gray slit up to the thigh and an elegant shoulder wrap of the same color. The sleek dress highlighted her flawless body and her mane of curly, dark red hair, which whipped wild and free in the wind from the mountains.
Demi turned to Eric, wiping the tears delicately away from her eyes so as to not ruin her makeup. “Are you coming in now?” she asked him.
“Soon,” Eric said. “We just need to talk for a minute, away from any of the listening devices. Nate just mapped the ones that are in Bluff House, so take a look at the chart before you go into the party, both of you.”
Demi’s eyes had the same hard glint as Eric’s. “Okay. Don’t be long.”
“Five minutes should do it. I’ll meet you, and we’ll come in the French doors from the patio together.”
Eric gave her a passionate kiss that lasted so long, the other men started to fidget and look the other way, but finally they tore themselves apart and Demi and Fi took their leave. Demi hauled her white skirts up over her arm as they made their careful way over the velvety turf.
Eric turned to Nate. “No compromised cell phones are out here, right?”
“None,” Nate said. “As discussed. I told Chief Bristol about this plan earlier, before the wedding, and gave him a burner phone, so he’s clued in, too.”
It was a small club of people in the know. Eric, Anton, Mace, Jim Wong, Mitch, Clint, himself, Fiona, Demi, and Chief Bristol. No one else. They were keeping it tight.
“So everyone’s seen the chart I sent?” he asked.
They all nodded assent, but Anton was frowning. “I don’t like it,” he muttered. “It’s dangerous. It would be so easy for one of us to slip up.”
“We have to try,” Mace said. “We can be exactly as focused as he is.”
“He’s nervous now,” Anton said. “Which makes him more dangerous.”
“Damn right,” Eric said. “He sees us planning a wedding and thinks we’re getting arrogant—”
“Yeah, because we are,” Anton pointed out. “Or you are, anyway.”
“He’ll think we’re acting like he’s finished,” Eric went on stubbornly. “Like we’ve won.”
“He is finished,” Mace growled. “I’m going to snap that fuckhead’s neck.”
“Take a number and get in line,” Anton said.
“You had your shot,” Mace told him. “It’s not my fault you fumbled it. And Fiona got to stab him in the balls. It’s my turn to take a swing at him.”
Anton gave his brother a look. “This is not a fucking amusement park ride.”
“Don’t I know it,” Mace said.
A tense silence followed. Both of the older Trask brothers and their respective fiancées had come incredibly close to death at Kimball’s hand. The scars he’d inflicted on their lives went back decades. They were marked by that bastard for life. And the worst could be still to come. From the info they had pieced together, Kimball had been developing some kind of virus thirteen years ago, when he faked his own death. He’d burned GodsAcre and its people to cover his tracks so he could proceed with his plan, using the underground medical lab to develop his viral potion.
The Trask brothers had blown up the cave where the GodsAcre lab was located. The explosion had brought a big chunk of mountain down on top of it.
They hadn’t figured out the details of Kimball’s scheme yet. Their best plan so far was to draw out Kimball, destroy him, and figure out the virus mess later. They could spend the rest of their lives analyzing the damage, trying