Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 84544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
The doctor stared at Charlie for a second before turning his glare on Isidore. “If you ever catch Kairo lying to you, smack the shit out of him. He needs to know you won’t put up with it.”
“I’m not too worried about that, but thank you for the advice,” Isidore replied. It was on the tip of his tongue to demand to know the story of Charlie and Will’s dating adventures, but it seemed rude to ask. Maybe if they got to be better friends, he could wheedle the story out of Will later.
“Just to warn you, Kairo can be fucking bossy,” Ed chimed in.
“And don’t ever touch his computer or tech gear,” Charlie added. “He’ll break your fingers.”
“Or complain about the fact that he orders the same damn thing every time we get Chinese,” West muttered as he grabbed the last open chair at the table, putting himself between Charlie and Ed.
“God! Does he still do that? Shrimp lo mein with extra snow peas and extra shrimp, two spring rolls, and a gallon of soy sauce,” Soren recited and finished with a cackle.
“You know what?” Kairo started as he returned with a huge plate full of food. Isidore’s mouth dropped open. It smelled heavenly, but there was no way he was going to be able to eat all of that. Kairo set the plate down and flipped the middle finger of each hand to the men lining the table. “Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. And fuck you,” he said to each person who’d spoken about him. “Why don’t you let Isidore discover all my annoying traits on his own? Don’t ruin the surprise for him.”
The room exploded with laughter while Isidore wrapped an arm around Kairo’s waist, locking him to his side. He stared up at the man who was laughing with his friends. He liked seeing this lighter side of him. While they were held prisoner, he’d joked and told funny stories, but there was always a tension about him, as if he were poised on the edge of attacking. Always ready. Surrounded by his friends, he was relaxed and happy.
Kairo turned his attention to Isidore, his smile softening. “Don’t listen to their stories. They’re all exaggerations. Also, don’t worry about eating all of that. If you can’t, the vultures will be happy to pick at the remains.”
With a final pat on his shoulder, Kairo returned to the kitchen to finish his cleanup while Isidore worked on the massive breakfast before him. Naturally, Kairo’s interesting extended family proceeded to tell one insane story after another about their adventures and Kairo.
And his new lover was correct. The second he proclaimed he couldn’t eat another bite, Ed snagged the plate and dragged it closer, where Soren, Alexei, Ed, and West worked on polishing off the rest.
“As much as I love torturing Kairo, we should probably get down to business,” Charlie began, drawing a pall over the jovial tone of the room. He rested both of his forearms on the table and threaded his fingers together as he stared at Isidore at the opposite end. “The sooner we uncover who is behind this threat on your lives, the sooner we can get you to something that resembles normalcy.”
Except Isidore didn’t want his normal, old life back. He wanted to stay with Kairo and the rest of the team. He wanted to have fun with them and make a positive difference in people’s lives. Sure, he did plenty of charity work, but that was largely making donations and throwing parties to convince other people to make donations. Kairo, Charlie, and the others were doing important things to save people.
But it wasn’t just his life thrown into turmoil. Athena’s life had also been put on hold, and she was on the cusp of starting a brand-new journey. This wasn’t fair to her.
Isidore nodded, fighting to hold Charlie’s direct gaze. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought since Kairo first brought up the idea that someone we knew had likely ordered the kidnapping. On the business side of things, I’ve come up with a list of about fifteen people who could possibly have regular access to my schedule or would have access to people who would know my schedule. These include the CEOs of all my major business ventures and a few of the CFOs as well. All my companies regardless of size run regular audits of the finances, and I oversee all of them.” He paused and flashed a crooked smile. “Numbers happen to be one of the few things I’m good at. There is nothing that has appeared in any of the companies in the last six months that look irregular. If this is about money, it has to do with their personal finances, and I don’t know anything about that. I don’t like to intrude on the personal lives of my employees.”