Page 52 of Found Through Fire

“Fine to what, exactly?” Tell asks. I guess I have to explain myself.

“Fine. I will have both of them stay while Dad is gone. But I will only agree on three conditions,” I say, holding up my hand and naming my conditions off on my fingers. I look between Grey and Knox making eye contact with them so they know I’m deadly serious. “First. You will only be here at night. You are free—no,highly encouraged—to leave me alone during the day. Second. You will keep shitty attitudes and comments to a minimum in my house. This is my peaceful place, and I will skin alive whoever tries to change that. Lastly, you will stay out of my personal business while you are here.” I stop speaking, but don’t break eye contact with them. I need them to acknowledge my rules out loud in front of everyone at the table.

“Deal,” “Fine,” they both say at the same time.

“Okay. Now that we have a plan, everyone finish eating. I don’t want to have to put away leftovers,” I say in a cheery voice, even though the urge to stomp away from the table and lock myself in my room is strong. I should be used to it by now, but dealing with all the alpha energy in this room makes me want a nap.

When everyone at the table starts loading their plates with second helpings, Knox asks about the job that I just finished, and I welcome the change in topic. I go into detail about the entire trip with Grey grunting every now and then. Not sure if he agreed or disagreed with what I said, but I just ended up ignoring him altogether.

About halfway through, I think my brothers are less upset, because they start asking questions and butting into the story when they think I miss a detail.

After everyone is done eating the rest of the food, they all grab some of the empty plates and help me bring them to the kitchen.

“Flame. Grey. Can I get a word for a minute?” I hear my dad say, and everyone in the kitchen turns around to look at him in silence. Knox and Grey nod and follow my dad out to the living room, leaving the rest of us in the kitchen looking at each other.

“Since they are busy and I cooked, the five of you can clean up,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. I place my palms on top of the counter that I was leaning against and pull myself up so I can sit on it. John, Jackson, and my idiots look at me to see if I’m serious.

After a moment, I cross my legs, rest my hands on top of my knees, and raise an eyebrow, challenging them to argue. Seeing that I’m not joking, they mumble, turn around, and start to get to work on cleaning my kitchen. They should be happy; they are a lot better off than Grey and Knox right now, having to endure what I am sure is a serious conversation with my overprotective father.

I huff out a laugh just thinking about it. I love my dad, and he is the best man in the world, in my opinion. But I also know how terrifying he can be to people that are not his family. I mean, the man can keep a bunch of soldiers in line. Who knows what he will say to the men that are planning on staying with his only daughter while he is away? Sucks to be them.

CHAPTER 21

FLAME

Grey and I follow Michael into the living room. I take a seat on the giant, L-shaped, black leather sofa, moving one of the twenty throw blankets that are placed around the living room. I can tell my girl loves them; they are all different prints and textures like she collects them or some shit. The more time I spend in her space, the more and more I learn about her.

After the conversation at dinner, I can tell how protective she is of this cozy space that she has created for herself. This huge, welcoming house is the place that I can see us coming home to at the end of a long day in the fucked-up world that we both live in. It’s not my home yet, but I will be working on it for the next two weeks.

That is, if Smoke doesn’t kill me on the way back to the clubhouse tonight.

It’s time to have the conversation with him, and I’m not sure how he will feel about it. He just met his new sister, but I can tell that he cares about her and is already fuckin’ protective, which I get. Willow is the most genuinely kind and forgiving person that I have ever met. It shows in the way that she forgave Smoke the day after their shitty first meeting, and in the fact that she didn’tkick Grey out of her house for being a dick to her. Instead, she cooked him fuckin’ dinner. I can tell that in the future, I will have to step in when her forgiving nature gets in the way. I don’t mind being a dick so she doesn’t have to be.

She is a contradiction of a sassy, badass contract killer and a naive, sweet, tiny woman who doesn’t need to be physically protected, but to have her feelings protected. This is going to be a lot of work for me, but I will give her everything that I have to keep every part of her safe. She and Smoke will get that when I prove myself, but first, I have to make it out alive from this conversation with her dad.

Michael is already a badass protector with an army of killers behind him, but he is even more deadly now after someone threatened his daughter. He is also staring daggers at Grey, and he works for him. I take that as a sign that we are both on level ground going into this conversation.

Grey also takes a seat, but as far away from me as he could on the giant couch. When I first “met” him, I was more focused on how he was treating Willow and sizing him up to beat the shit out of him for how he spoke to my girl. All I could recall about him was the stupid blonde hair with the military haircut, that he looked like he lived in a fuckin’ gym, and to my displeasure, two full sleeves of tattoos that were fuckin’ impressive. If I didn’t hate him on the spot, I would have asked him who did them.

Dicks don’t deserve badass work like that. They deserve shitty line work and misspelled, uneven tattoos that look like they were done in someone’s garage. I also recalled that he had that whole rugged, buff, manly thing going on.

It pissed me off that my girl was going on a trip with someone that looked like a fuckin’ Abercrombie model had a baby with the Hulk and the Rock. I’m sure my little Fox noticed how hot he is. Fuck, even I do! It was a relief when I saw she was actively ignoring his presence. He was not the one getting the sweetsmiles and blushes that she was trying to hide. He didn’t have her checking him out when she thought he was distracted; that was all me. It gives me hope that even though she is completely out of my league, she hasn’t realized that yet, so I still have a chance.

I look back at Michael when Grey and I are done staring each other down. He’s glaring at us with a furrowed brow. He runs his fingers through his short hair, pulling it a little, and closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath before opening them again and giving us pointed looks like it’s our fault. I’m starting to think he is a little frustrated with this situation, even if he was acting fine with it at the dinner table.

“I’m going to ask this question once, and I will know if you are bullshitting me. Is there something going on with you two and my daughter?” he asks us in a serious tone. I see what he did there in reminding us that she ishisdaughter.

“No,” “Not yet,” Grey and I say at the same time, and Michael and Grey look at me like they want to set me on fire.

“What do you mean ‘yet’?” Michael asks me in a deadly calm voice.

“I mean that I am going to claim her as my ‘Ol Lady,” I say in a confident voice. The room is quiet for a minute, filling with more and more tension. Then, out of nowhere, Michael lets out a chuckle, which turns into flat-out laughing. At some point, the asshole is laughing so hard, I see a tear trying to come out of his left eye, which he wipes away as he calms down.

“I hope the boys and I can be there when you tell her that you are claiming her.” Taking a deep breath to collect himself, he stops laughing at me, then turns to Grey.

“Nothing happened when you were away?” he asks Grey again. I don’t point out that he said he was only asking once; I still need my future father-in-law to like me.

“Of course nothing happened. She’s a child,” Grey replies in an offended tone.