Why couldn’t I have her?What was it the family’s business?So I’d killed a man over her.I could tick off at least ten family members who had killed a man because of a woman.Yeah, maybe I’d been too young to feel what I did for Cressida, but four years later, and I still felt it.All of it.Just as strong as I had back then.
Opening the front door, I stalked inside, ready to face whatever bullshit was waiting on me.I had barely gotten inside the foyer when Bane stepped through the open entrance of the parlor on the left to face me.His arms were crossed over his chest, and the scowl on his face just pissed me off.I wasn’t dealing with him.He wasn’t the boss.If Linc had a problem with me, then send him.
I met his scowl with one of my own but kept walking passed him.
“Kash!”Oz’s sharp tone stopped me.
I didn’t want to fight with my brother, but if he was siding with his best friend over me, I would.
“What?”I asked, spinning back around to glare at them both.
“Why were you in Arkansas?”Bane demanded.
He knew where I had been, but not why.The son of a bitch had a tracker on me.I’d left the phone they knew I had here and taken a burner with me.That meant he had one planted elsewhere.We’d left my truck at Gathe’s and rented an Escalade so the tracker had to be on me somewhere.
“Did you put it in my fucking boot?”I asked.
He didn’t respond.“Why were you in Arkansas?”
I was tired.I wanted to see Cressida.And my temper was short because of both.I took a deep breath and tried to calm down.Yelling at Bane wasn’t going to help matters.
“I had some business to handle.”
“What business?”he snapped.
“Personal.Last I checked, we are allowed a personal life.I don’t have to report to anyone about that.”
“You do when you go to the city your former girlfriend lived for the past four years,” Bane replied.
“Why is that?”I asked, taking a step back toward him.“Huh?Yeah, Cressida lived there.She’s not there now.So, what did I do that makes this your business?Linc doesn’t seem to care.He’s not here.”
“Linc is letting me handle this,” he replied.
“Why?Because it involves your best friend’s younger brother?Or because he thinks it’s a waste of time?There is no reason for all this … this fucking … monitoring.Pirate is dead.I can’t kill him again.What is it you’re worried I’ll do?”
Bane’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket and answered it.“Yeah?”He didn’t take his eyes off me, as if I were going to run.This was all too over-the-top dramatic.“Fuck,” he muttered, and anger thinned his lips.“Yeah, go ahead and clean it up.Thanks,” he said, then ended the call and shoved his phone into his pocket.“This.This is why I was monitoring you.This was why you couldn’t be near her.You act without consequence or reason.”
“What did he do?”Oz asked, stepping up beside him.Concern marring his brow.
“Howi and Avett found a dead man sliced up and hanging up in the abandoned mine they use for their underground.Identified him as Arthur Howt,” Bane said, turning his hard glare at me.“Cressida Beck’s step uncle.”
Oz ran a hand through his hair and sighed.
“He broke her bones, beat her, punished her to control and manipulate her.She was here because she had run from the narcissistic bastard,” I informed them.“He also killed her mother.Something she doesn’t know.She found her mother drowned in a hot tub.Thinks she passed out from mixing antidepressants and alcohol.Yeah, I killed the son of a bitch.”
Some of the anger in Bane’s expression eased, and he glanced at my brother, who was staring at me.He wasn’t angry, but something was wrong.It was … he seemed … pained or sad.It was odd, considering the situation.
“All right.He deserved to die,” Bane replied.“But taking Than and Gathe and sneaking off to do it, then leaving his corpse for the Arkansas branch to clean up wasn’t the correct way to handle it.That’s the problem with your obsession with Cressida.You don’t think clearly.That is shit that will get you killed.Or someone else killed.”
“I want to talk to Linc.Have him talk to Hughes.I want to come home.The threat of my killing Pirate is over.The case was close and sealed.”
“We all want that.And Blaise has agreed to it,” Oz said, still with a tone that didn’t make sense, much like his expression.
“I get to stay?”I asked, hope surging through my chest.
Bane nodded.“Yeah, you do.But …” He paused for a moment.“Cressida is gone.Contact with her is off-limits.She is your crazy trigger, and before you can start getting as deep in with her as you once were, she’s been moved out of your reach.”
The words sank in slowly, but my move to get in Bane’s face was much faster.His shoulders might be wider than mine, but I was an inch taller and not scared of the motherfucker.
