Not that I had any right to say a damn thing about her mother. That was a low blow, and since she had never brought her up before, talking about it was pretty damn intrusive.
But she pushed me.
Or I pushed her. Fuck, I couldn’t even sort out in my head what had happened. I was trying to get her to open up, and then when she started laughing about the incident with Austin, I just lost it. The thought of her getting hurt because she didn’t take Austin’s threat seriously really grated on me. It didn’t matter that it had happened years ago. To me, he needed to be taken out.
And she acted like he was just a dumb drunk kid.
I cranked the engine and backed out, refusing to give her another thought. She couldn’t be in my life. It would never work out, and trying to figure out how to make it work would be like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
I met Archer at his place and drove in near silence most of the day. The great thing about Archer was that he didn’t careto talk any more than me. In fact, silence was pretty much his game.
The hours passed with barely a word being spoken, other than to give updates on the whereabouts of our target. We pretty much had a blueprint for where this guy would be at what time. It would be a simple in-and-out job.
When I pulled up outside the motel a few hours later, Archer checked us in while I grabbed the gear. As soon as we were inside, we laid out our plans and went over all possible scenarios.
“Are you sure your head’s in the game?” he asked when I checked my guns.
“One hundred percent.”
“Because I know you’ve been thinking?—”
“I said I’m fine,” I snapped, slamming the magazine back into the gun. “Can we just get this over with?”
When he didn’t say anything for a minute, I turned and faced him. But instead of saying a word, he just stared at me.
“Whatever’s on your mind, forget it. There’s nothing going on.”
Sighing, he rubbed his hand over his face in frustration. A move I had seen many times before when something weighed on his mind. “You’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you’re not all in. You know why we have to do this.”
“Yeah, and we’ll do it. What’s the problem?”
“If we go in there, and you flake out?—”
I surged forward and grabbed him by the shirt, shoving him against the wall. “What the fuck did you just say to me?” I hissed.
“If I don’t say it, who will?” he bit out. “Can you tell me one hundred percent that you don’t have any issues with going inthere and wasting this guy, then turning around and going home to Josie? Because I can’t have you doubting yourself in there.”
“Josie isn’t a problem,” I snapped, jerking my hands away from him. “There’s nothing going on between us.”
“You’re sleeping with her!”
“And that’s all it is,” I argued, turning my back on him.
“You can lie to anyone else,” he snapped, “but you can’t lie to me. I’ve been in this too long with you. I know when your head is in the game.”
Was Josie an issue? Hell yes. She was absolutely on my mind, but I knew I could never have her. I would never be the man she needed, and because of that, it knocked her clearly into the category of untouchable. Which meant anything I did here tonight would have no effect on anything that happened with her.
I shoved my gun into my holster and grabbed my jacket, heading for the door. “We have a job to do. Are you just gonna stand there?”
I strode out into the night and didn’t look back once to see if he followed.
38
JOSIE
