Free Deadly Dealings (Hardy Brothers Security Book 13) by Lily Harper Hart Page B

for a way to explain how this happened to Grady.
    “He usually works an earlier shift so this is really lucky that we ran into you,” Ally said. “Out of curiosity, what should I wear tonight?”
    Sophie realized the evening had spiraled out of control before she even got a firm hold on what Ally was doing. In typical fashion, though, Ally was ahead of the game. She’d had this planned from the beginning, and Sophie had to applaud her effort. Ally had managed to worm a chick date out of a drug dealer in less than twenty minutes. That had to be some sort of record.
    Sophie took advantage of the mud mask that was distracting Winona for a few minutes and turned on Ally. “You realize how mad Jake is going to be, right?”
    “I realize that Mandy almost died and I want to make someone pay,” Ally countered. “If this bitch had something to do with it, I’m taking her down.”
    “You are terrifying when you want to be.”
    “And don’t you forget it.”

Nine
    “This is the dumbest thing ever,” Grady complained, leaning back in the booth and fixing his eyes on the bar where Ally and Sophie chatted away with Winona.
    After leaving the spa, Sophie was reluctant to tell the men what occurred. After hemming and hawing for twenty minutes, Ally blurted out her machinations. Jake was beside himself as he ranted and raved for an hour, threatening to call James to force him to put the kibosh on Ally’s plan. Grady stepped in and stopped him, reminding the furious man that James had his own set of problems and needed to spend time alone with Mandy without something this big hanging over his head.
    After what felt like forever, and a few harsh words exchanged between siblings, Finn, Grady, and Jake agreed to go to the bar to watch Sophie and Ally. It wasn’t an ideal plan, but it was the best they could come up with.
    The men entered the bar first and slipped the hostess a hefty tip to give them a prime spot to watch the bar. Ally and Sophie met Winona there a half hour later. Now, an hour into their spying detail, the men were starting to get antsy.
    “I can’t believe Ally did this,” Jake said, shaking his head as he watched the woman he loved entertain Winona with some dramatic retelling of a story. “I just … I want to kill her.”
    “That’s because you love her,” Finn teased.
    “I love your sister more than anything, but … .”
    “She’s work,” Grady finished. “They’re all work.”
    “Emma is work in a different way,” Finn said. “She’s hormonal right now, and she’s always insecure, but she’s not work like this. I will be forever grateful that doing something like this would never enter her mind.”
    “You’re lucky with Emma in that respect,” Jake agreed.
    “You have more to deal with in a lot of other respects,” Grady said, referring to Emma’s history of sexual abuse without directly speaking about it. “How is Emma dealing with the pregnancy?”
    “It’s better now that the morning sickness is gone,” Finn said. “She’s happy in the new apartment, too. She likes being above the security office. She feels safe there. I think it’s going to be good once the baby comes.”
    “You’ll be able to be close, too,” Grady said. “I’m sure James will give you a couple weeks off so you two can get settled.”
    “We’ve already talked about it,” Finn said. “He offered a month off.”
    “Our brother is generous when he wants to be.”
    “He has a good heart,” Jake agreed. “I just hope things are going better with Mandy. They seem to be … having a rough time of it.”
    “James was much better this morning when Mandy kept her breakfast down,” Grady said. “It was like he was holding all this tension in and the second she managed to eat something he got a little better.”
    “He’s still on edge about what almost happened,” Jake said. “Now that she’s feeling better his anger is going to get the better of him.”
    “When Mandy tries to go back to work