“You’re sure about all of this? You haven’t gotten even one single thing wrong?” Any amount of relief I might have felt that it wasn’t my uncle’s doing is gone.
Storm is off limits. The Leary family as a whole is off limits.
This is why Ellicottville is off limits, isn’t it?My uncle lied to me. Storm has been there all along, hasn’t he?
My throat feels tight. For a year, he’s been nearly next door.
The memories surface.
I went to the funeral with two broken fingers. I left with a bite mark on my neck.
The next morning, I woke up with a lesson in the form of my arm in a sling.
Pain was how my uncle helped me remember things.
But Lynx will back me up though, won’t he? For Lele.
Where my brother is concerned, I’ll start a fucking war.
He will wake up—he has to—but right now, he’s hovering between life and death. If word gets out and I’ve done nothing, my inaction makes all the Flynns look bad. It makes Stone Fell look bad. And that puts us in more danger.
Fox pauses. It’s like he doesn’t want me to know. But he should know better than to withhold information from me. “Look, I’m on my way. We’ll talk about it when I get there.”
“How sure are you?” I am relentless.
Fox still hesitates. “There’s some tangled webs with the Learys I’m not certain you want to cross?—”
“Fox.” I clench my teeth. “Iknowabout the fucking web.” He must mean the truce.
“Do you?” He seems to be taunting me.Testingme.
“IknowStorm.” It’s not the whole truth. But it isn’t quite a lie.
“So you’re aware then of how well he knows Lynx?”
I clench my teeth.
No.
I’m not.
A truce, and Lynx was clear we stayed away. I thought that meant him, too.
“What are you talking about?” I whisper the question.
I think of Eve in this room and I want to hit her for seeing me off my game, but I don’t even fucking look at her.
“It doesn’t matter. There’s peace between them. Your uncle won’t let you break it for this.”
This.As if my brother is nothing.
I snap my eyes open and they find Eve’s dark blue ones. She’s watching me like she’s seen a ghost. I wonder if she heard what Fox said.
But given what she told me, this connection makes Storm’s impending death weigh far less heavy on my conscience.
“Let me?” I ask Fox, voice cold. “When is the last time a manlet medo anything?”
Then I end the call.
