7
Pickup Lines
Back at the ranch, Gia stops the spinner but doesn’t move to get out. Manu gives her a look. The sharp line of her jaw is tense, a cord of muscle taut under her midnight skin. “We getting our stories straight first?” he asks when she doesn’t seem ready to say anything.
Gia gives him a long, slow look. “Let me say my piece about Sendera Dathúil. I’m the one’s got a problem with them. You just stay out of it.”
“If they’re so bad, why haven’t I heard about them?”
Gia’s quiet a minute. “You have,” she says. It’s a long time before she speaks again, but Manu waits.
“You know that ambassador’s kid that got kidn*pped last spring?” she asks. “That was them.”
Manu raises an eyebrow. Of course he’d heard about that — everyone had. The kidnappers had taken the ransom, but still
