I’m still smiling as Caleb cuts through the duct tape on the blanket. I knew she remembered me. I can’t believe she had the nerve to play with me while I held a gun on her. What kind of girl has a heart attack, leaves the hospital to bury a body, and then lies to the guy who’s about to shoot her?
I rub my stubble as I watch her from beneath my brow. She’s looking a little worse for wear, sitting on a rock, bracing her elbows on her knees. There’s dirt on her face, and her hair is tangled. She’s taking shallow breaths like she can’t breathe well, but she’s here. She made it. The fight this girl has is unbelievable, if not respectable.
A final tear rips through the night, pulling my attention back, and Caleb flings back the blanket. I’m expecting to find the pale face of a sleazy piece of shit who thinks he can put his hands on a girl when she doesn’t want it—and that I do.
I just don’t expect that face to also be a cop.
Or to recognize it.
I squeeze my eyes shut and curse under my breath.
“What?” Kira snickers, though it sounds more like a wheeze. “I thought you’d seen dead bodies before.”
My chest rumbles in agitation as I narrow my gaze at her, my hand finding my gun on instinct. I stop there, though, unsure if Ishould pull it out. This isn’t just any dead body, and I don’t know how the fuck Caleb managed to get us in the middle of this. Sure, a dead cop is bad on its own, but Marshal-fucking-Wayne?
“Leave something out, little brother?” I grind my teeth, not taking my eyes off Kira.
“Oh. Uh, yeah,” Caleb babbles. “So, he’s a police officer. But… he’s not like… a good one. I think he was probably doing, um, illegal stuff.”
I growl again. Marshal Wayne was definitely doing illegal stuff—forus.I shake my head and start to pace the small clearing. This just got a whole lot messier. If I kill Kira and Nix now, then we can go to James and tell him what happened. Caleb’s going to take the brunt of our father’s wrath, but going any farther now would be much worse.
“Look,” Kira stands. “I wouldn’t expect you to want to be involved in this.Idon’t want to be involved in this. But this isn’t your problem. So, if you want to take your brother and go, you should. We can handle it from here.”
I laugh despite myself. “You can’t handle shit.”
I’m not convinced she can make it back down the hill without keeling over, and that’s if I even let her back down. It would be cleaner if she and her sister stayed up here forever, their bones scattered by the wolves. There might have been a modicum of hope that James never found out about this, but that ship sailed the second they killed Marshal Wayne.
“Fuck you,” Kira seethes.
I clench my jaw. Here I am, contemplating killing her, and yet she doesn’t have an ounce of self-preservation. Albeit, she doesn’t know that I’m a second away from pulling out my gun, but I don’t think even that would change her tone.
“Are you always this hostile?” I hiss.
“Are you always such a dick?”
“Yes,” Caleb answers her.
It’s meant to be funny, I know this. He’s just trying to lighten the mood. He’s always trying to lighten the mood. But he doesn’t understand the severity of the situation, and I can’t help myself.
“You!” I spin on him, pointing a finger. “You’ve bitten off more than you can chew.”
His brows come together at my ire. “But… cops have never been a problem before. Dad always says—”
“Dad?” I scoff. “Dad’s the one you should worry about when this blows up in our faces.”
“Why would it blow up?” he asks, truly confused.
He looks from me to the body and back to me. He doesn’t have a clue who the cop is, but I wouldn’t expect him to. Because he’s not ready for this. He’s still a child, fortunately not yet privy to the intricacies of the family business. But even if he did, what’s really unnerving is that he doesn’t see why a dead cop in and of itself would be a problem.
At least I had our mother growing up, someone to balance the corrupt power of our father. All Caleb’s ever had is James, twisting the rights and wrongs into a braid so tight that he can’t distinguish what’s what. He thinks a dead cop is nothing because that’s what James has taught him. And while typically it wouldn’t be—if it wasn’t Marshal Wayne—this level of nonchalance isn’t normal. I was given knowledge of the repercussions of this life, and I apply them with everything I do.
Caleb thinks this is nothing.
And that’s going to get him killed.
“Because he’s a cop, you idiot,” I bark, defaulting to the badge being the problem here. I can’t say shit in front of his little friends. The less they know, the better.
IfI let them live.
