Reaching out, I cup one side of her face while steering with my other hand, my eyes darting between her and the road.
“I wish it were that easy, Angel. But Tahli needs you. And my ma…” I let that hang in the air the moment guilt flashes over her expression.
“Yes. Of course. You’re right.” She shakes her head, clearly annoyed at herself, the movement dislodging my hand, so I re-grip the steering wheel. “But Cam… you can’t do what they want.”
My heart fucking races at the reminder of Ewan’s payback request.
Well, I guess it’s not really a fucking request, is it?
“I don’t have a choice,” I rasp, watching a hare dash across the road up ahead and disappear into the long grass.
“There has to be another way,” she pleads with me like I can change the situation, and my heart fucking sinks.
“There’s not,” I state, wishing we didn’t have to have this fucking conversation.
Somehow, I need to find a way to throw Smitty under the bus to make challenging him acceptable. If I had known about this a few days ago, I could have used the punishment I gave him for what he did to Daniel as the challenge. I could have declared him not fit to lead us. But that’s been dealt with. My knuckles are still fucking scabbed up from it.
“What if you go to Ewan and explain the situation? Surely he’ll understand,” Abbey whisper-yells, clearly getting angry, and I want to yell back. But I don’t.
There’s no point in getting angry with each other when it’s really someone else we are angry at.
“Angel, stop. You saw how Griffin and Devon are. They are two men you don’t want to get on the wrong side of. But Ewan. He’s something else entirely.” I grip the wheel so tight, I feel the scabs on my knuckles splitting. “I don’t want to fucking do what he wants, but Ihave no choice. It’s not just me who will suffer if I don’t. It will be you. Bobbi. Your sister and mine. My ma.” I shake my head. “I’m fucking sorry, Angel. But this is the life of organised crime. If we’re not getting hounded by cops and detectives, then we’re making shady business deals and hoping our best mate doesn’t stab us in the back.”
Her quiet sobs float to me, and one look at her and all I see is the back of her head.
She’s hiding herself from me. Probably disgusted with the man she married. Probably trying to figure a way out.
I wanted to change, to be a man worthy of her love. But maybe pieces of shit like me can’t be rewired like that. Maybe we’re only given fleeting samples of happiness, just enough to keep us chasing it, knowing deep down we’ll never win that lottery. We’ll never know what it feels like to keep it.
Fuck. I know what I have to do, and doing it will probably kill me. It will ruin me worse than taking Smitty’s life ever could. But for my beautiful Angel… My fucking heart and soul… I know the only way to make her and Ewan happy is to obey him… and say goodbye to her.
A million words flicker through my mind as we drive back to the compound, all of them words I should say to my wife, but I don’t speak a single one of them.
I can’t.
I just fucking can’t.
She sobs quietly as I drive, trying to hold in her pain, but every now and then, it escapes in a loud sob, and all I can do is rest my hand on her thigh and give it a gentle squeeze, hoping it’s enough.
The moment we turn off the main road onto the compound driveway, she swipes frantically at her eyes, trying to get the tears tostop, but it’s really no use. Anyone who sees her is going to know she’s been crying from her puffy eyes.
I keep that to myself, though. She mightactuallykill me if I annoy her right now, and I can’t protect her if I’m dead.
The floodlights are illuminating the yard up ahead outside the barn, and I frown as we get closer, seeing two SUVs parked off to the side that I don’t recognise.
Slowing the Landy, we idle forward as I try to figure out what the fuck might be going on.
“Angel, check my phone,” I snap, and she springs into action, taking my phone from the console and opening it. “Any missed calls or messages?”
“No.” She shakes her head before taking out her phone too. “None on mine either. But there also isn’t any service.”
“Something’s not right,” I hiss, pressing my foot to the brake and quickly flicking off the headlights.
“What is it?” Abbey rushes out, fear lacing her tone.
“We’ve been gone a few hours, and in that time, no one’s called. No one’s texted. Now there are two cars I don’t recognise. That wouldn’t normally mean shit, but since I usually get fucking memes off JD every half hour, and no one has warned me about visitors, I’ve got a bad fucking feeling.”
“What do we do?” she whispers like someone might overhear. “Wait. Who is that?”
