“Yes, she is.” Layla sighs. “I hate him.”
“Layla!” I laugh. “When I talked to her a few weeks ago, she was happy, she was like, he’s so great.”
“He’ssofucking great that I never see my baby girl. She’s always off withhimon another whirlwind adventure to somewhere amazing. I swear, he gets gigs in the coolest places. Right now, he’s performing in some exclusive club in the Swiss Alps that you can only get to by some sort of private cable car? I don’t know. I thought I was cool, but then Bryn started dating Zero.”
I cackle. “Zero? His name is Zero? My talk with her was superfast.”
“No, his name is something long and complicated and European. Luis Alfonso…MacGregor…shit, what’s next? Konstantine…Zeronsky. I think that’s it. His family is this big crazy Spanish-Irish-Ukrainian…thing. There’s a million of them and they all speak a dozen languages all at once, but the point is his last name is Zeronsky, and he’s just always gone by Zero. That’s his stage name, too, Zero.”
I laugh. “I can’t wait to meet them all.”
“Well, if you invite one of them, you invite them all, so just be warned, if you’re planning on keeping this wedding of yours small and intimate. I invited Zero’s parents to the Keys so we could meet them and fifteen people showed up, I shit you not. It was a blast.”
“Wait, hold on—they’re at the parents meeting each other stage already?” I ask. “When I talked to Bryn she didn’t act like it wasthatserious.”
A hesitant sigh. “You were all stressed out about the upcoming launch, sweetie. She didn’t want to bother you with her boring love life.”
I groan. “That makes me a shitty best friend, Auntie Lay-Lay.” I like this—the boring, normal family gossip; I can almost pretend I’m not on the way to kill a despotic kingpin.
“No, she understands,” Layla says. “You were launching billions of dollars’ worth of rocket and supplies to a first-of-its-kind orbital construction station. Her being serious enough with her boyfriend that Nick and I met Zero’s parents was not worth taking your focus away for.”
“I guess. But once this whole shitshow is over, she and I need some time together.”
“You’ll have to nail her down, and good luck with that. Those two take globetrotting power couple to a whole new level.”
I laugh. “Well, if anyone can do it, I can. And I don’t have to nail her down, I can just figure out where she’s going to be and show up. Perks of being who I am, you know.”
Dad taps my knee, then his wrist.
“I think I have to go, Auntie.”
“Yeah, these encrypted sat phones aren’t really intended for family catch-up gossip.” Her voice goes gruff, mimicking Uncle Harry. “Encrypted conversations should be short and to the point, woman. None of your running at the mouth.”
“I swear, if you say one word about how he then threatened to fill your mouth, I’m going to be really pissed off.”
She cackles. “You said it, not me. Hey, your mom wants to say goodbye.”
“Hi, sweetie, I just wanted to tell you I love you, and be careful, okay? When in doubt, let the men do the dirty work. It’s what they do and what they’re good at.”
“Wouldyousit around let the men do the dirty work of taking out your man’s mortal enemy?”
“Hell no. I’d be first in line to shoot him.”
“Exactly.”
A sigh. “Just be careful.”
“I will.”
“Give me back to my husband.”
“Bye, Mom. Love you.”
Dad takes the phone from me and spends another minute or two talking to Mom.
An intercom crackles overhead, and Uncle Harry’s voice echoes over the roar of the engines. “Making our approach for landing. Wake up and sit tight.”
Dad ends the call and the phone vanishes into a rucksack clipped to webbing on the wall nearby. Apollo rouses, blinking awake, stretching. Duke is immediately and fully awake as if he’d never been asleep, and the other men around us are the same—accustomed to sleeping when they can and coming alert instantly.
