Hard Brake (Wilkins Brothers Book 2)

Chapter 39

GRUFF

I turned off the truck and looked over my shoulder to the backseat, “I don’t know about this, maybe we should reconsider this entire thing.” Both kids yelled at me and then Camila straight up punched my arm. “Ouch!” That actually hurt, unlike most of the times when she shoves me or playfully swats at me.

“You will not play with their emotions, Griffin!” My attention quickly turns to her, I can’t tell you how weird it was to hear her say my given first name. I’m not sure she’s said it since the day we met. “Don’t look at me like that, you think I don’t know that your mom gives you the full name when you’re being a big jerk too?”

“Wow, you’re kind of in a bad mood, maybe we should go home and call this whole thing off.”

The complaining begins again until Anna’s voice perks up above everybody else’s, “We can GO home, Gruff, we already ARE home!” She pointed at the one-story ranch house sitting in front of us and grinned.

“You’re right, baby girl, we are already home. I was just messing with you all anyway, I know this was a long time coming.” I quickly lean over and kiss Camila’s cheek and then the four of us file out of the truck. Anna grabs my hand and I walk up the driveway with her. Her little thumb is thumping against my hand, a sure sign of nerves combined with excitement. Camila and Nico join us in the front of the truck, the two of them also holding hands.

“So do we get to just go in?” Camila asks, with a hesitant laugh.

“Yep, we own this place.” We’ve actually owned it for two weeks already, but we decided to do some bigger updates right away. For the sake of ease, we hired painters to paint the entire interior and exterior, and then all new carpets were laid in all the bedrooms and the main living area. We have plans within the year to remodel the entire kitchen and space off of the kitchen so we held off on those rooms for now. That is something my brothers and I can do.

“Remember that this is still a bit of a work zone, so don’t run off when we get in there,” Camila reminded the kids while I was unlocking the door with our brand new keys. I reminded myself once again that after I signed off on all the work tomorrow, I needed to change these locks altogether. Maverick sent me the link to the security system he uses, so I need to get that installed as well.

The risk to Camila’s life may be gone, but I don’t think either of us will ever let our guards down totally. We keep in touch with the FBI Agent that was assigned to the case. Almost all of the guys that were arrested have cut plea deals in exchange for a variety of information. The FBI has been able to shut down two major drug rings, one for human trafficking, and a gun-smuggling route. Camila doesn’t like to talk about it and she sure as hell won’t take credit for anything, but I insist that if she didn’t take the chance and run when she did, that all those steps wouldn’t have happened. Even if she doesn’t think so, she’s the bravest woman I know.

“Can I go see my room? I need to make sure they got the color right.” Anna was probably the most difficult client this crew has ever had, but she finally decided on the perfect shade of purple for her room. I sure as hell hope she likes it because we’re not having them re-paint. 

“I’ll take you, baby. The boys can go check everything else out.” Camila squeezes my forearm as she walks by and the two of them head down the hallway to the bedrooms leaving Nico and me in the front living room. 

“Do you want to go see your bedroom?”

“Later,” he shrugs, “Can we go out back?”

“Whatever you want. Watch yourself through the patio, that is where they were storing the flooring stuff.” We make our way through the house and outside. There is a full screened-in patio that we will need to get re-screened, but it’ll work for now. The backyard is huge, probably the major selling point of the house for me. Besides the main garage, there are two other sheds built-in. One is enough for all my tools so I can have projects at home and the other is big enough to hold any fun toys that we want to get.