Page 72 of Sharing Silence

I stretch. “She’s in the bathroom.”

“PH balance?”

“Yep.”

He nods. “Xavier’s on his way down. We all need a meeting.”

A sliver of panic works its way into my blood. “About last night?”

“No, that’s still fine. It’s about Seattle,” he says, just as Xavier wanders down the stairs in his hoody and sweats. He runs his fingers through his hair, eyes half-closed.

“I popped a stitch fucking your wife,” he grumbles.

“What a difficult life you lead,” Zayden teases.

A door opens and closes, and we watch Silence leaving the downstairs bathroom. She’s back in Zayden’s T-shirt, her cheeks still a little flushed.

We all stare at her, and she pauses in place. “What?”

“Nothing,” we say.

“You’re all very intimidating in the day. You’re intense times three,” she says, wandering up to Zayden and pushing herself onto her tiptoes to kiss him. “Morning.”

“Morning, baby. Do you need coffee, or was coming enough to wake you up?”

She purses her lips to hide her smile, and Xavier seems to come to life. “Who came? You came? And no one woke me the fuck up? Traitors.”

“Kitchen, coffee, meeting,” Zayden says. “In that order.”

We do as we’re told, and once Xavier and I are sitting at the table and Zayden is leaning against the kitchen island, he fills us in.

“You sure you still want to know everything, Q?” he asks, and she nods as she walks to the table, placing her coffee down. Xavier tugs her onto his lap, and she blushes crimson. She’s used to us being tactile, but Xavier has spent years keeping her at a distance, so it’s endearing to see her a little off her game with him.

“Yep, go ahead,” she says. From somewhere underneath the table, Xavier lifts the dildo from last night and pokes Silence in the cheek with it. She cackles and smacks it away. “Stop that.”

“We’re in deep shit,” Zayden begins, and our smiles vanish. Xavier tactfully places the dildo out of sight, wrapping an arm around Silence’s waist to balance her on his lap.

“How deep?” I ask, sitting up.

“War deep,” Zayden says. “Envy called me to Seattle because one of our recruits was killed⁠—”

“Oh my God,” Silence says. “That’s awful.”

Xavier shakes his head. “It’s fine. Happens a lot.”

“It’s not fine. It was a person,” she says.

“And now they’re a dead person.”

She tuts, and Zayden continues. “It was Gio Morelli. He somehow managed to become a recruit, confessed to another recruit who he was, and was killed.”

Fuck. I’m out of my chair and going for my laptop before anyone can ask another question. Returning to the kitchen table, I pull up missing persons reports and any email from the East Coast using Gio’s name. As the system scans through online correspondence, I open the last message I got on my phone and tap dial, before putting it on speaker.

“That was fast,” Charlie says.

“Charlie, you’re on speaker with X, Z and Silence.”

He whistles. “The whole crew. Nice to kind of meet you, Silence. You bringing your wife into this mess, Z?”