I yank Monty into a hug and she freezes, keeping her arms straight at her sides.
“I think you like me,” I say, pulling back from the embrace.
“You stole myman.Maybe I’ve cut your brakes.”
“No, you haven’t.” I open the door to my car.
Monty huffs. “Maybe I’ve wired explosives to your car!”
I climb in and close the door, starting the engine and putting the window down. “If you ever want to talk, I’m here.”
Monty crosses her arms and scowls. “I’m good, Bambi. Remember—don’t die.”
Chapter 24
Gable
Once Ella’s car is out of view, I wait. I want to sprint over there, but I stop myself. I’ve waited six months; I can wait a little while longer.
Monty sits beside me on the bench. I was out of sight but watched the two women talking, making sure that Monty wouldn’t rescind on her promise, but in my heart, I knew she wouldn’t. I’ve never trusted Monty. She’s sneaky, always putting herself first, but when I finally managed to get in touch with her a few months ago and told her Asher had died, I’d heard the pain in her voice. She hadn’t believed me at first. She’d said it was a trick, a lousy dirty trick, to get revenge on her for what she’d almost done to Ella.
When I’d finally convinced her, she’d hung up the phone. She called me back a week later. I wondered what she’d done in that time. Had she cried? I couldn’t imagine her feeling anything other than anger or complete indifference. Regardless, she called me back to ask me one question.
“What do you need me to do?”
For six months I’ve kept my distance from Ella. Six months I’ve kept her safe. Seventeen attempts on her life, two of which had nearly ended my own, but I kept her alive, even though I’m barely surviving myself. Losing Asher broke me. For weeks I grieved, losing myself at the bottom of a bottle, unable to cry, unable to let out my pain through anything except violence. I couldn’t accept any jobs because people still want my head, the bounty increasing with every month that I remain alive.
Instead, I threw myself into protecting Ella. It was the only thing that kept me focused and stopped me from spiraling too hard, but now staying on the sidelines isn’t enough.
The four brothers, who very pathetically named themselves the Four Horsemen, total fucking losers, had accepted Ella’s bounty. They only took jobs at half a million or more, so the moment it hit that, they came for her.
I called Monty for help because I couldn’t kill them alone. It was strange, working with someone who wasn’t Asher, especially when Monty is used to working solo and doesn’t take orders well, but over the space of five days, we killed each of the Horsemen. Another threat removed.
But more people will crawl out of retirement for a chance at the kind of money these people are offering, so now I can’t stand by.
“How is she?” I ask.
“As annoying as you said.” Monty dusts off her jacket as if she can brush away remnants of Ella Gibson. “Shehuggedme. Did you see that? Ugh.”
“Sounds like her,” I say, resting my arm on the back of the bench. “Did you give her the note?”
“Yes.” She hisses out the word. “It’s in her pocket. She’snot very careful, is she? I could have mugged her, and she wouldn’t have noticed. Ridiculous woman.”
I know this isn’t easy for her. Monty loved Asher more than life. It’s one thing to absorb his death; it’s another to protect the woman Asher had loved. She’d also been discovered by the police in Barnaby Fisher’s apartment, drugged up to the eyeballs by her own needle that I had used on her. Her unconscious state had worked in her favor, though. She claimed she had no idea what I was, and because she’d never left a scrap of evidence behind from any of her kills, her fingerprints, DNA and photograph brought up nothing suspicious. She was let go and even got a hug from a detective who felt sorry for her.
The woman is manipulative wizard.
“Thank you,” I say. “I mean it.”
“Well, you know the deal. If anyone asks, I killed the horsemen alone. With pizzazz. You don’t take a single bit of credit.”
“It’s all yours.”
She exhales, her green gaze straying back to the headstone. “I still thought maybe you were lying.” She plays with a button on her coat. “I thought maybe this was all a way for him to disappear, like he always wanted.”
In some of my drunken stupors, I thought the same thing. Until I broke into the morgue and stared at my brother’s dead body on a cold slab, eyes closed, two holes in his chest.
Monty stands. “Okay, I’m going on vacation. If you need any more help with Lady Vanilla, donotcall me.” She pauses. “Unless you absolutely have to.”
