Page 32 of Redemption

“Do you know how badly we’ve all wanted to do that?” Zee asks. He glares at the gates as he adds, “Stupid fucking gates.”

Luc bursts out laughing. “It’s not the gates' fault. I think it’s pretty fucking neat that the gates go into lockdown when there’s a threat.”

“Plus,” I start as we step back through the gates and onto their property. “You said that it would cause you shit if you were involved. You would have absolutely gotten involved if the gates hadn’t stopped you.”

Saint grumbles something that I can’t hear and then huffs, “Fine, you might have a point.” He starts bouncing, “I can’t wait to fucking tell Raid, he’s going to lose his shit. Let’s go.”

He takes off nearly at a run. As we rush to catch up to him, I ask, “We haven’t just made things more complicated for you, have we?”

Zee shakes his head. “No. He’ll steer clear for a while now. Don’t worry, you just saved us some hassle for a few months, if we’re lucky.”

“Why does he even want this place anyway?” Luc asks. “That’s a pretty extreme reaction to some land and a house. He brought enough men with him that there’s no way that he was coming to simply talk to any of you.”

“No, he wasn’t. We aren’t really sure why he wants this place, but we know what kind of person he is, and that’s enough for us to know not to let him have it,” Saint replies.

“Not only that, but it’s our home, and we love it,” Zee adds.

“Did his family own it before you got it or something?” I ask curiously. “I mean, it seems like there's a bit more to it than simply wanting to get a family home back, but it would at least be a little less far-fetched than him randomly deciding that he wants this place by any means necessary.”

Zee shakes his head. “Nope. This place has been in Zemira’s family for a long time. Like centuries.”

I frown. “Then it makes even less sense why he wants the place.”

“Exactly,” Saint replies in a way that lets me know that they’ve had this conversation a few times. “We’re looking into it, but obviously, we can’t do much since we work like we do, but it’s on the list of shit that we need to do when we’re not working.”

“We have one of those,” I say with a sympathetic smile. “It always seems to get longer, and not shorter, no matter how much stuff we manage to get done on it.”

“Tell me about it,” Saint sighs.

“Do they not try to get on the property when you aren’t here?” Luc asks.

Saint shakes his head. “They can’t. We have friends that watch it when we’re not here to make sure that they stay out. They can’t get through the woods either. There’s a perimeter that protects it all, and high-quality surveillance.”

Luc’s eyebrows rise. “Nice.”

“Let us know if you get any more trouble from them,” I offer. I really don’t like the idea that they have a threat like this and for some reason they aren’t allowed to defend themselves properly. Especially when it’s abundantly clear that Matthew has no problem with getting violent. I add, “We aren’t that far away from you, and I’ll happily take them on again.”

Saint watches me closely, surprise in his eyes. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

My smile is sharp. “We didn’t start off on the right side of the law, you guys know that. Putting it bluntly, I miss the lack of protocols and paperwork on that side.”

“I’ll fucking say,” Luc agrees. Causing Zee and Saint’s eyebrows to rise. He clarifies, “Don’t get me wrong, I love what we do, and when Cash says the wrong side of the law, he means we still helped people, just without the paperwork and other things.”

“We are also aware that we have less red tape and rules than we would if we worked for normal law enforcement, and that if we hadn’t been chosen to work for Mr. R, then we would have most likely ended up on the list of people who you need to bring in,” I point out.

Saint and Zee share a look, and I wonder if maybe we shared too much and that they are going to be wondering why the hell they let us into their home. They, of course, know some of our past, but we have never been quite so blunt before.

“We get it, actually,” Zee says with a smile.

“Like you guys, we didn’t really start off on the right side, and we’re still used to doing things a lot more violently than we’re permitted to do with organization. It’s an adjustment for sure,” Saint explains, his eyebrows creasing as he frowns.

“I had no idea,” Luc says, with his eyebrow raised. “I have to admit though. It explains why we like you guys so much.”

“Like attracts like,” I add with a chuckle.

“No one at the organization knows where we come from, apart from Mr. R,” Zee adds. “They already distrusted us when we started at the organization, and that never changed. It didn’t seem necessary to add our background to it.”

“Yeah. I think I would have probably done the same thing if we had a choice,” I admit. “Alaric’s link to us and the fact that Mr. R and some of the others had been aware of us and what we had been up to for a while meant that we didn’t get that choice.”