She’d been shocked and a little horrified when she realized that everyone didn’t constantly run through scenarios, create plans and backup plans, as a way to deal with life. In college, she’d been a decent student—planning how to get good grades was fairly straightforward—but she’d excelled at extracurriculars.
Nowadays, she planned events, symposiums, and music festivals. She didn’t panic if the power supply failed or a computer went down or a band cancelled because she had at least one plan that accounted for that.
She crept to the corner of the pretty white farmhouse and peeked around the corner. She’d need more information about what was causing the yelling before she could decide which of the backup plans she needed to activate.
Roman, who normally looked calm, cool, and reserved in a way that she was sure meant he probably had some seriously weird sex kinks—okay, that might have been wishful thinking—was racing toward her. Oscar Hayden—easy to identify since she knew Langston and the men really were identical—was right behind him, holding a bulky-looking gun in his hand.
Scarlet froze, and her brain short-circuited, because this...this she didn’t have a plan for.
No one had said it explicitly, but it was clear that Tate had been selected as the third person for this mission because Oscar might react badly to not receiving a letter. Tate was here to make sure Roman didn’t have a black eye in the wedding pictures.
She, of course, had accounted for the possibility that Tate might not be able to block a punch in time. She had a box with stage makeup tinted for Roman’s skin tone in her event boxes back in Boston.
But she didn’t have a plan for how to handle it if Oscar literally shot the messenger...messengers?
Where was Tate?
Roman spotted her and waved one hand, his legs pumping as he ran. “Start the car!”
Selene Tanaka—Scarlet knew almost everything about the woman, including her measurements and shoe size—was racing after Oscar.
“Do not tase my favorite cousin!” Selene shouted.
Tase, not shoot. Better.
Still, there wasn’t a plan for Tasers, either.
Scarlet backpedaled for the car and yanked the driver’s door open. A second later, Roman rounded the corner and was sprinting for the passenger side.
“Tate?” she yelled.
“They got him. Oscar is nuts,” Roman panted.
“Hey! Don’t talk about him like that.” Selene was fast, and she had gained on Oscar, so the two of them came around the corner of the house at the same time.
“Who the fuck are you?” Oscar demanded, looking at Scarlet. “Wait, I don’t give a fuck.” He raised the Taser, pointing it at Roman, who yelped and leapt through the air toward the passenger door.
“Wait,” Selene snapped. “Hold on, Oscar. A third person…”
His hand lowered. “Oh.”
Selene looked at her, and Scarlet resisted the urge to yelp in fear.
“Do you have a letter for Oscar?” Selene demanded.
“No,” she stammered, and then Plan D, which accounted for her being seen but not getting caught breaking into the parents’ house snapped into place. “I was just supposed to pick them up at the airport and bring them here since I know Charleston.” The lie came easy because she had planned for this. The phrase was at the ready, filed mentally under What to say if they see me.
“Damn it,” Selene breathed. She turned to Oscar. “I can’t believe the Grand Master would do this to us.”
“I can. She’s a stone-cold bitch.”
Scarlet was pretty sure that the Grand Master herself would agree with that. She probably had that nickname embroidered on her underwear.
Selene licked her lips. “We run?”
Oscar nodded. “We run.”
Selene sighed. “Okay. Tase her.”
“Whoa, whoa!” Scarlet shook her head. “Don’t tase me.”
“Roman’s the bigger threat,” Oscar grumped. “I only grabbed two cartridges for this thing, and I already used one on Tate.”
“First of all,” Selene said. “Assuming that my cousin, who is an accountant, is a bigger threat is misogynistic of you. I expected better, Oscar.”
Oscar softened, turning to her. “Baby, I didn’t mean it like that—”
“Second of all, he’s my favorite cousin. No. Tasing.”
“Get in,” Roman hissed from inside the car.
Scarlet looked down to see that Roman had opened the passenger door and climbed in. He reached across the console for her, hooking his hand in the pocket of her jeans and tugging. “Get in, get in.”
In the split second she looked away, Oscar raised the stun gun.
She felt a small pinch in her arm and then pain zapped her.
Scarlet dropped, landing hard on her butt, lights popping in her vision.
“Ow, ow, ow,” she breathed, her nerve endings shrieking. She lost a little bit of time as she focused on trying not to feel like her entire body was taken over by a case of pins and needles.
Then she was thrown over a man’s shoulders in a fireman carry. He hauled her away from the car, away from their only means of escape, and Scarlet vowed that from now on, all plans would always include a variation titled:
What to do if someone goes postal and tases you?
Roman faced off with Oscar, aware that there probably wasn’t a whole lot he could do to protect his companions. Luca kept glancing over at the bed, where Scarlet and Tate were laying. Roman knew they were both awake—neither had passed out—but from the occasional groans, he knew they also weren’t feeling all that great, which meant an escape attempt was out of the question.
He might have tried it since Oscar had used both cartridges. But his—as he now knew her to be—insane cousin, Selene, had brought Oscar a few more.
So Roman put his body between that of his partners and their attackers, and stayed silent as Selene and Luca quickly yanked anything that might be considered a weapon out of the master bedroom suite that was about to be a jail and tossed it into the hall.
From Langston’s information, Roman knew that this rather dusty-smelling house was Walt’s, the third triplet who was currently out of the country working for Doctors Without Borders.
Walt’s house had
