She’s utterly gorgeous, with her hair a messy halo and her cheeks flushed. “I just need the bathroom.” With a smirk on my lips, I help her get to the door. All the while Reed’s in the background, taking off the sheets and laying down the comforter so we can sleep on that tonight.
Leaving her in the bathroom, I make my way back.
The moment we’re alone, Reed questions, “So, you’re not going to kill me then?”
“Is that what you thought?”
“For a moment … I questioned it.”
“Figured you’d try to get laid one more time before I ended you then?” I joke but he doesn’t laugh.
“I mean it. I love her but I love you too. I just … I don’t want to lose either of you. I barely made it this last year.”
It takes every bit of the man I am to admit to him the truth I had to accept last night, “I don’t think I can keep her on my own. Not when I know she loves you like you love her.”
“You could. She loves you more.”
“Who would I be without you, though? I need you and if you’re going to be here, you’re going to be around her.” I lick my lower lip, cutting him off when he takes pity on me, rather than simply accepting it.
“It’s always been the three of us. I want to keep it that way and if it means, I share her … then that’s what it means.”
I’d rather share her than lose her. Right now she might choose me, but when I fuck up again, and I know I will, I don’t want her to question it. I want her to have my best friend right there, so she can confide in him and love on him until she’s not angry at me anymore.
“I might lose her if it’s only me, but together we can have her forever.”
“You’re talking like this is more than just a one-time thing,” he states although it’s more a question.
“It’s whatever we want it to be. I want to take care of my uncle and get the hell out of here, maybe disappear to the West Coast?” Ever since Kat said the club was dead, it’s slowly sunk in. Maybe I just needed to hear her say it, or maybe I needed the fear of losing her to settle deep into my bones. “All I know is that I lost you and her once, I’ll do whatever we need to do, but I want to deal with my uncle before we head out.”
Reed only stares back at me, nodding before telling me, “I’ll see what I can find out.”
Reed
It’s late at night when I get the message from my guy at The Ruin. He knows somebody on the West Coast—a guy named Derrick who used to be tight with someone named Seth, the right-hand man of one of the Cross brothers. We were given the blessing to leave, to take refuge there with new IDs, new passports, a new life.
It’s a gift in exchange for the information about Cillian’s uncle Eamon. The Ruin verified it and said they’d take care of him, and it would be the end of the Cavanaugh Crest.
They didn’t say we couldn’t kill him first, though.
“Promise me you two won’t do anything stupid.” Kat’s words ricochet in my head as the engine revs beneath me. She’s made me make that promise a thousand times. I ride behind Cillian in the dark of the night on the way to the Cavanaugh Crest, gripping the handlebar as the vibrations travel up, warning me that keeping that promise is going to take a fucking miracle.
We don’t find Cill’s uncle at the club. That would be an amateur move. I used my contact at The Ruin to set up a meeting at a place outside the city limits. There’s a large reservoir there, and once something comes in, it doesn’t come back out.
Still risky as hell to do this. We have no guarantees that someone else won’t show up.
Hell, I’m relying on my contact from The Ruin to get Eamon here. I half expect Finn to be with him or serving as his lookout, although I was assured he’d come alone.
We park down the hill from the reservoir, side by side on our bikes and kill the lights. Fear and doubt creep in as we wait. “We could keep riding,” I suggest to Cill. “We could pick up Kat and get the hell out of town.”
I don’t want her mixed up in this. It broke her heart when Cill went to prison. It doesn’t need to happen twice. We can figure things out on the road.
Just us, getting the hell away. Ever since he suggested it, I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s the only thing that feels right anymore.
“If he killed my father … you know he did. I know he did. I’m not leaving here till he admits it.” With a nod, I follow him down to the meet. It’s a hill between two old warehouses, the moonlight and security lights are all that help us see.
There’s a good chance Cill’s uncle doesn’t show, either. There’s a chance all of this is another setup.
We wait about five minutes and a light appears at the bottom of the hill. An old man, a touch overweight in dark jeans and a black hoodie, checking a cell phone. It’s Cill’s uncle.
