“Nothing,” I murmur. “Justin and Goose have whatever they have, and there’s nothing to do, which really pisses me off.”
She gives me a soft smile, and that kind of irks me, too, because she doesn’t know what it’s like. She fell in love, and poof, they’re together, the rest of the world be damned. I imagine if I tried that, Justin would lose his shit, and Goose might lose his life.
“I hate this. I just want everything to go back to normal and everyone to be happy.”
She doesn’t mean it, I say to myself on repeat.She doesn’t mean it.
She wants everyone to be happy. That I do believe. But she can’t mean that she wants me to be lonely, to be both jobless and lonely. To be searching for love only to be manipulated and almost killed.
She can’t mean any of that.
Right?
Posey is happy in her life. She’s got a man and a baby. She is in new-relationship bliss. She’s also got a man who is a lawyer. Who makes plenty of money. Just because he doesn’t have his own office anymore outside of the house doesn’t mean he has fewer clients and makes less money. He probably makes more because he doesn’t have as much overhead.
I’m trying not to be bitter, but she’s making it difficult.
“I’d like to be happy, Posey, but I’m finding it a bit difficult at the moment.”
My words don’t come out snarky, but I can feel the resentment bubbling just beneath the surface. I don’t want to upset her, but at the same time, I need her to know that I’m doing the best I can in this situation I’ve been dealt.
“That came off rude,” Posey murmurs. “I’m sorry.”
I place my palm against my forehead. Inhaling through my nose, I let the air out of my mouth slowly before shifting my attention to meet hers. She is watching me, her body tense, her eyes focused.
She wants me to accept her apology, and I will, but that doesn’t mean I will agree. She wants things to go back to the way they were for her. She wants Justin to be happy, and that’s great, but that wasn’t a good time for me.
In fact, I didn’t realize how unhappy I was. Meeting and falling in love with Goose was something I wasn’t ready for. I didn’t think that finding my heart would change anything about my life, but it has. It’s changed every single part of my being almost as much as Goffredo’s attack, just differently.
“It’s okay,” I finally murmur. “It’s okay because you want your home to be settled and happy. It’s not right now, and that’s because of me.”
Posey shakes her head a couple of times as unshed tears fill her eyes. “No,” she whispers. “That’s not what it is. And none of this is your fault, not a single moment. It’s not your fault at all.”
It very much is my fault. I know it is. If I hadn’t tried to date Goffredo in an effort to fall out of lust with Goose, then fallen in love with Goose, none of this would have happened. So this is ultimately my fault.
All my fault.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
GOOSE
“You want to dowhat?”Bullet asks on a hiss.
My lips twitch into a smirk. “I want Goffredo to get arrested, sent to prison. I want Hogg to take care of his ass there. It takes it off me, takes it off the club. Nobody will know we called in the hit, but at the same time, we called in the goddamn hit.”
“You don’t think Lorenzo will suspect?” Bullet asks.
I shrug a shoulder. I know this is a half-baked plan at best, but this is what I want. It’s the only way I can see that we can get Goffredo taken care of without being blamed for it. And we won’t be at war.
The Front Mob Family will be happy, and we'll keep our contract with them until we can get our security company fully up and running. This job pays our bills, and I don’t want to piss off Lorenzo by killing his kid.
“He might suspect it, but he’ll never be able to prove it, and Lorenzo is smart enough to know not to ask questions he doesn’t want the answers to.”
“How do we get him not only arrested but convicted?”
“There are a few ways. Either he gets caught at work, or Cidney makes a complete statement to the cops. Piggy said all Cidney officially reported was that there was a man, but she didn’t see his face.”
“And she can change that?” Bullet asks, raising a brow.
