Declan was one of those barnacles. Remy was pretty sure the ex-Air Force pararescue hadn’t meant to find a bunch of brothers either. Of all Remy’s men, Dec was the most secretive, the one he worried about. There was something…almost unworldly about the man. Like the stories his mom-mom would tell about the old ones still walking the earth. He came from a pretty crazy bunch of people, but Declan sometimes made him wonder if his mom-mom hadn’t been right. “Big Tag sent me a nice note stating the whole group needed to be here at ten and ready for a meeting.”

Riley Blade and Shane Landon strode in, both looking tan and fit from their time in LA. Dec had been on assignment with them, but somehow he’d managed to come back without a tan. Apparently when he hadn’t been watching over superstar Joshua Hunt and getting his ass shot at, he’d stayed in his room, avoiding the beauty of Malibu.

“Nice note? Then it wasn’t Tag, this is a trap, and we’re all about to be brutally murdered,” Riley said.

“What did it actually say?” Shane asked with a sort of detached curiosity.

“It said get the full douche down to the real world because I can’t take clients into that sweat-soaked man cave you call an office. And dress like men.” That was the boss.

Wade strode in, his boots ringing along the hardwood floors. “How exactly do we not dress like men, and I take offense to the group of us being described as a douche. What the hell does he mean by that?”

“It’s like a gaggle of geese,” Shane offered. “Or a pack of wolves.”

“Or a murder of crows,” Declan continued, his eyes dark. “Which is what I think about doing to Tag every time he calls us the full douche. I’m not a douche. Blade’s a douche, but I’m not.”

Riley sent Dec his happy middle finger. “Fuck you and your sad-sack jeans. Did anyone tell you the nineties are over?”

Sometimes they were a bit like bickering siblings, their camaraderie manifesting itself in manly insults and the rare but always fun blowup that resulted in wagering, someone getting his ass kicked, and then beers all around. Big Tag was an asshole, but he understood his employees. When he’d given the bodyguards their own office, he’d installed both a gym and a fridge that he’d filled with beer.

It wasn’t the worst way to live, though sometimes it felt like he’d never actually left the military.