Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 133213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 666(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 666(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
Though they hadn’t been called fights. Matches. Kumite. It was one of the three main parts of karate, along with kata and kihon. It was sparring with and learning from another student.
She’d enjoyed her time in karate. She’d started her training with Kenzie and Kala, though they’d quickly blown past her.
“How much do you remember?” Kenzie was dressed in shorts and a tank top, showing off toned arms. Her cousins were incredibly fit. Deadly.
“Enough to know I should pay attention to my flight instinct,” she admitted. It might be for the best all the way around.
Kenzie grinned. “She’s not going to hurt you. Now if Uncle Adam was here…”
She’d seen Adam and Jake carry Tristan out, and for a second she’d felt a worry. Then she’d let it go. Surely he’d been through worse than being kidnapped by his family. Not that he would ever talk to her about it.
Her cousins knew far more about the man she’d loved than she would ever be allowed to know.
“I think Adam is about to discover how stubborn his kid is.” She couldn’t imagine whatever Adam and Jake were planning would go well. Tristan would get pissed and get his pride on and then he would find a way out, and he would have blocked off someone else who could have helped him.
He seemed determined to be alone, and she was tired of fighting him. She couldn’t help but think about all the times she’d pleaded for him to come home, to talk to her, to be with them. She’d told him how lonely Aidan was without him.
Except Aidan hadn’t been alone at all.
“I don’t know,” Kenzie said, sitting on the bench.
The Hideout had a room deep inside the club the regulars all called the fight club room. It was one of the larger spaces, with a padded floor and bleacher seats on either side. Cooper had obtained the seats from a local high school in the middle of renovations. Her uncle had looked at them and sworn they would rot away from all the adolescent angst, but it had been mold that had caused problems. Lucky for them Gabriel Lodge was incredibly interested in carpentry and had replaced the bad rows promptly.
“I think he might be coming around.” Her cheeriest cousin was also overly optimistic.
Carys stretched one arm over her chest, opening up her shoulders. “Last night he promised he would answer any questions I had.”
Kenzie’s eye sparked with enthusiasm. “See.”
“And he also told me he’s going to replace me on the op with someone from the Agency.”
Her nose wrinkled. “With who? It can’t be Kara. We’re going in as the bodyguard. Also, we have to dye our hair and go by something else because there’s the slightest chance the doctor will remember us from Australia. We didn’t have direct contact with him, but he could have seen us at the conference. And contacts. I hate the colored contacts.”
“Uhm, isn’t it going to cause trouble if he remembers you?”
Kenzie waved the worry off. “He won’t because of the hair color and the eyes. Also, we know how to dress to minimize the girls, if you know what I mean.”
“It’s the three biggies for women operatives.” Tasha sat down beside Kenzie, handing her a water bottle. “Hair, eyes, and boobs. It’s what most men see and remember, though I worry Huisman pays more attention to detail than the normal man.”
“Is this coming from Ben Parker?” Kenzie asked as though the question meant not a thing to her.
Which meant it was important. “Okay, who is Ben Parker?”
“Is he the Canadian dude who was here a few weeks ago?” Daisy sat on the bench closest to them, Devi Taggart at her side.
Devi looked preoccupied with her phone but she answered. “I think his name was Ben Parker. He was totally into Kenz. You remember it was the night Kala was so pissed because she couldn’t play, and Uncle Ian was here in the conference room and then he walked through the dungeon with a blindfold on like he would die if he saw something.”
Daisy grinned. “Cooper put a couple of spanking benches in his way, and Auntie Charlotte let him fall over one. It was funny.”
“Yes, I remember the night, but I didn’t catch his name,” Carys said.
“He was only into me because of my boobs,” Kenzie said with a frown. “Or maybe everyone is right and he’s been playing me all along. All I know is I can’t forgive him for the shit he pulled with Lou.”
“What happened to Lou?” She seemed to have missed a lot in the last few weeks. She’d had no idea her cousin had a crush on some foreign operative. A rival, it seemed.
Things were happening so fast. Tasha had come home from Australia with a fiancé. Lou and TJ had finally gotten their shit together. Kenz had a crush. Daisy had a boyfriend.