“Let’s just get this the hell over with,” Gypsy suggested as Rule appeared ready to deny Ashley the opportunity to discuss whatever it was with her, once again. “I’m hungry and I’m pissed off and I really just want to kick Breaker’s ass with a little privacy, if none of you care.”
“And here I wanted to sell tickets,” Lawe murmured.
“Well, doesn’t it just suck to be you?” Who was more surprised, she wondered, when she turned on the amused Breed fiercely.
Definitely, his fiancée, or mate?—she was amused, but surprised. Lawe Justice was more than just surprised, though. His gaze narrowed, became more blue, more mocking than ever before and just slightly warmer perhaps as he glanced at his brother.
“Let’s just get this the hell over with,” Gypsy snapped before turning and leading the way back to the bedroom. “Come on, Ashley, whatever you have to spill, just go ahead and spill so I can figure out what just happened to my damned life.”
It had gone to hell in a handbasket, that was exactly what was happening to it, and it was all Rule Breaker’s fault.
Every damned second of it.
“Gypsy, I’m sorry.” Ashley closed the bedroom door, facing her with a glimmer of sympathy in her eyes as Gypsy threw herself into the chair next to the bed, slouched against the back and watched her friend with something less than patience.
“Just say it, Ash,” she sighed, knowing she wasn’t going to like it. As she understood it, any time Cassie Sinclair was involved with anyone’s life, things just happened anyway. But it seemed to her that that applied to any Breed, not just that particular one.
“The day you were here for the meeting with Jonas, along with your parents.” Ashley didn’t shift nervously or appear in any way uncertain. She stood straight, spoke quietly.
“Yes. I remember.” Gypsy nodded, her fingers tightening where they rested against the arms of the chair. “What about it?”
“Do you remember how nervous your mother was about releasing her purse?”
Gypsy straightened in her chair, leaning forward as a premonition began to tingle at the back of her spine.
“She was nervous about meeting with Jonas,” Gypsy said, remembering even at the time how odd her mother’s behavior had been. “This was more than a week ago, Ashley; what does it have to do with anything?”
“We found an audio transmitter hiding in the stitched lining of her purse, Gypsy, and her scent wasn’t one of nerves, it was one of deceit.”
Gypsy felt herself freeze inside.
There went that scent thing again, she thought distantly. Breeds were always smelling things. She wondered if they ever grew tired of having everyone’s emotions fill the air with such scents.
“You have to be wrong.” She couldn’t even look at the other woman as she whispered the words. Staring at the wall across the room, she remembered that meeting. How nervous her mother was, almost frightened as her purse was taken.
Even Gypsy had noticed her odd behavior and had been confused by it.
But this?
Her mother had tried to slip an audio device into the meeting with Jonas Wyatt? Why? Why would her mother or anyone else be interested in a simple business meeting? That didn’t make sense.
“That is not all, Gypsy,” Ashley told her. “Since that day, I, Emma and Sharone have been investigating the reason why your mother would do this. We learned that she was not unaware of the device, as we had hoped. Rather, she had agreed to have it hidden in her purse, and she and whoever she has aligned with plan to have another hidden even more discreetly at the next meeting.”