Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

January 29 th

8:18 P.M.

"I'm stuffed," Lucy said, leaning back in her chair and pressing a hand to her stomach. "That was amazing. I've had your mac and cheese before, and those potato spirals are my favorite, but somehow, they tasted better tonight."

"That's because I helped make them," Tate teased with a wink.

"It's so cute that you want to learn to cook because Scarlett loves cooking," she told him,

While Tate rolled his eyes at being called cute, the smile he shot Scarlett was pure warmth and joy. When Lucy cast a glance at Zander sitting beside her at the table, she saw he was smiling at her the same way.

When he smiled at her like that, it was like a lifetime of feeling she had to constantly be fighting to prove herself all melted away, and she felt a peace inside that was so soft and beautiful she wanted to curl her fingers around it and hold onto it so it never melted away. Thankfully, as long as she had Zander at her side, she didn't have to worry about holding onto that feeling because every time he smiled at her it bloomed in her chest.

"What about you, Zander? Did you inherit that same cooking gene?" she asked, and he immediately made a face and shook his head.

"Cooking and I are not friends," he told her.

"Massive understatement," Scarlett added. "In our family, girls cooked, and men ate. Although, my brother, being the sweet guy that he is and the bestest brother a girl could ever ask for, did try to help me out one time when I was sick. I think we were about nine, and I had a stomach virus. In both our parents' and grandparents' minds, that was nothing that required staying home in bed so I was sent to school. The school sent me home anyway, though, and when I couldn't get out of bed to make dinner, Zander did it for me. Well, he tried, but it was a massive fail. He set the oven on fire and we both got into trouble."

"Aww, it's so sweet that you were looking out for your sister," Lucy said, leaning over to kiss Zander's cheek even as her heart broke for the two neglected children they had been.

"Hate that you got punished for being sick, sweetheart," Tate said, pulling Scarlett's chair closer so he could scoop her up and put her on his lap.

"Me, too, but I'm so glad you had each other," Lucy added.

"It was the scars he got that day that made me recognize him on the plane," Scarlett explained. "We had to do an entire deep clean of the house with our wrists tied together as our punishment. A weird sort of three-legged race kind of thing. I was still sick, but we were set a time limit, and Zander just dragged me around with him. The rope tore off all his skin, and I felt so bad I cried. He told me it didn't matter, we were twins which meant we were joined together for all infinity."

"We always looked out for each other," Zander said, smiling at his twin like he couldn't quite believe she was sitting in his living room. A room he had sat in just a couple of days ago contemplating taking his own life because he didn't think anyone would care if he was gone.

Lucy would forever be grateful he had come to her that night rather than doing something he could never take back. Something that would have impacted people more than he realized.

Because she couldn't not touch him, she reached out and threaded the fingers of her good hand with his. Zander immediately tugged her closer and did the same thing Tate did, picking her up and putting her on his lap.

"Zander might not have gotten the cooking gene, but he has a ton of other skills. He can make the most amazing things with wood. When we were kids, he used to make me little animals in between the projects approved by our grandparents. I still have all of them." Scarlett shot a smile at her brother. "Oh, and he also knows how to sew, apparently that was something that was important in our parents' self-sufficiency, military serving lifestyle."

"You can sew?" she asked Zander.

"I'm pretty rusty, I haven't done it in a long time, but yeah, I know how to sew," Zander said, looking a little sheepish.

"That is so sweet, we'll have to get my sewing machine out at some point and make something together. I haven't sewn in a while either, but I used to enjoy it." It had been one of the things she'd done with her mom when she was a little girl and didn't have any friends.

"I'd love to do that with you, baby girl."

"See, the way to a man's heart might be through his stomach, but the way to a woman's heart is through sharing the things she enjoys with her," Scarlett said, her smile including all of them.

"Lucky for you I'm not too bad a cook," she teased Zander.

"Babe, I don't care if you're the worst cook in the whole entire world, you already have my heart."

"Aww," Lucy sighed in delight and melted against Zander, snuggling into his embrace. "You say the sweetest things."

"Hey, dude, you're making me look bad over here," Tate joked.

"You say the sweetest things, too," Scarlett quickly added, making them all laugh.

Could this night be any better?

Nightmares had quickly made sleep unappealing, even with how exhausted she was. While Lucy knew she couldn't avoid it forever, she could certainly put it off a while longer, so she'd asked Zander if he wanted to hang-out downstairs and watch some TV. That had been fine, lying curled up in his arms was her favorite place to be, and she would have been content to snuggle there for hours.

But this was so much better.

This was family.

It was everything she needed right now.

The future was a scary thing, filled with uncertainty, and oppressive anxiety over the fact that Raul Castillo and the mole at Prey were both still out there, it was all too easy to get sucked down that rabbit hole and get lost amongst the fear and pain.

Amidst all that fear and pain there were still things to be grateful for. A tracker she hadn't even known Prey had planted on her. It was Eagle's decision and one only he and Fox had known about at the time, the only way to make sure the information didn't leak to the mole. It had saved her and Zander's lives, and she wasn't the tiniest bit mad about him for sticking it on her without her permission. Without it, she and the man she was falling in love with would be dead.

She was grateful too for her Prey family who had come after her, rescued her, then stayed with her in the hospital. Rocco and his team, too, who had stuck around when they hadn't had to, and Phantom in particular who had talked some sense into Zander when his fear and guilt urged him to run.

And this right here.

People she loved, good food, laughter, the perfect medicine and everything she needed.

The only thing that would make this better was if Ella and Cassie were here with them.

"How come the others didn't come?" she asked Scarlett.

"A little bit of the guys don't want us all in one place because they think that makes us a bigger target. A little bit of we didn't want to overwhelm you with too many people all at once when you've just been through so much. A little bit of Ella felt like she needed the outlet of going to practice tonight. And a little bit of Cassie couldn't keep herself away from the lab because the plane you two crashed was found, and the wreckage was brought back to Prey. You know what Cassie is like when there's a puzzle she needs to solve, she's worse than you. She's becoming obsessed with identifying the mole, it's practically all she can talk about," Scarlett said with an eye roll because they both did know how their genius friend was when she got obsessed with something.

"Then we definitely need to do this again, only with all of us," Lucy said. "Anything to get Cassie out of the lab or she'll move in there until she gets the answers she needs." As much as they all needed to know who the mole at Prey was, Cassie took obsession to a new level. If they didn't make her leave, she would stay at Prey forever, trying to solve all of the world's problems like she didn't deserve to have a life of her own.

When Scarlett's phone began to ring, she reached over for her bag, which was hanging off the side of the chair she'd been sitting in and pulled out her cell.

At first, Lucy didn't realize anything was wrong. It wasn't until Scarlett gasped and the color drained from her face.

Immediately, Lucy was on edge.

Of course Zander noticed, and his hand began to rub circles on her back while keeping her tucked close.

Lowering the phone from her ear, Scarlett's scared eyes met hers. "There was an explosion at Prey. In the lab," she whispered.

Lucy straightened as fear flooded her system. "Cassie was in the lab."

Scarlett nodded.

"Was it …? Is she …?" Lucy was afraid to voice the rest of her questions aloud as though speaking them might be enough to make them become a reality.

"The explosion was bad, so far they don't know if anyone was killed, but … it doesn't look good," Scarlett informed them.

Which meant there was every chance that Cassie had been killed in the explosion.

Does Cassidy have what it takes to find and dismantle the mole's bombs? Find out in the third book in the action packed and emotionally charged Prey Security: Athena Team series!

Fighting for Cassidy (Prey Security: Athena Team #3)