Bram lived in an old factory building. It had been abandoned when Bram bought it with Poe and Remy, and they’d gotten it cheap. Back then, Bram had just been getting started in Blackwell Falls, but over the years he’d become the town’s unofficial king.
I didn’t know everything about what he did. But I knew enough.
I knew enough to know that everyone was scared of him, that townspeople avoided looking at him when he passed, like he was a ghost who might turn them to stone.
I knew enough to know he kept the drugs away from schools but let them flow — through him — everywhere else and that he facilitated the running of guns and other illegal products in a way that kept the town outwardly clean, that kept innocents safe.
It had taken me a long time to realize that Bram saw me as one of those innocents. That the reason he’d installed me at the coffee shop, warned me not to hang out in Southside, was because he was trying to keep me away from Blackwell Falls’ dark side.
Which was one of many reasons it was going to be so painful to tell him what I’d done.
He’d worked and fought to keep me away from the Blackwell Falls’ underbelly, and I’d stepped into it like a warm bath.
I stopped outside the security gate that surrounded the three-story brick building and its parking lot and pressed the button on the intercom.
The gate rolled open a few seconds later and I stepped into the lot where Bram’s matte black Humvee sat next to Poe’s bike and Remy’s orange spider.
My gaze snagged on the bright orange sports car Remy drove and I couldn’t help wondering if Remy and Vigo had some kind of astrological connection. Like were their rising moons in the same house or something (I didn’t know anything about astrology)? Because I could definitely see a kindred energy there, although Remy’s was due to the fact that he could barely walk in a straight line without tripping over something and Vigo was just mildly insane.
Maeve’s car was there too: the old blue Honda that had belonged to her sister before she’d been murdered. Bram had told her they’d buy her a new car when she was ready, but she clearly wasn’t ready.
I understood. She had this thing of June’s — her car — and it probably felt like the only connection she had to her sister.That’s why I’d kept my parents’ papers all these years, and it was probably why Bram had kept them when I’d been too little to know anything about them.
He wanted to be close to our parents too, even if he couldn’t admit it to himself.
Loss was like that, I guess. When something was taken from you — suddenly, violently — it was only natural to try to hang onto whatever you could.
I crossed the parking lot and walked up the ramp of the old loading dock. Once upon a time, trucks had pulled up to the concrete platform to load (or unload, I wasn’t sure which) their goods and workers had come and gone from the warehouse using the ramp that now led to Bram’s green front door.
I stepped in front of it and waited, knowing they could see me with the security camera mounted above the door.
The door buzzed a second later and I let myself in, stepping into a shadowed vestibule at the front of a sprawling warehouse space that stretched into the distance.
I caught sight of the hunks of metal Poe used to sculpt his art and headed for the spiral staircase that led to the living quarters on the second and third floors.
I was halfway up the stairs when I spotted Ray at the top, wagging his tail and panting.
“Hi, Ray!” I hurried the rest of the way and stepped into the living room, then bent to pet Ray who would accept nothing less. His golden fur was soft and clean. “Hi, boy. Did you have fun with Bailey? Are you happy Maeve’s home?”
Maeve laughed, coming into view from the kitchen. “He hasn’t left my side for the last twelve hours.
I straighten and went to give Maeve a hug. “Welcome home. Did you have a good time?”
Maeve squeezed me back. “Thebesttime. It was heaven.”
I pulled back to look at her. Maeve was always pretty, but she was extra pretty now, her skin golden from the sun, black hair pulled off her face in a ponytail.
“You look amazing!”
“So do you.” She narrowed her eyes. “Really! You’re glowing.”
My cheeks turned pink. Was it obvious I’d been having almost daily orgasms since I’d gone to live with the Hawks? Were the orgasms they gave me different than the ones I gave myself?
They definitelyfeltdifferent.
I forced myself to focus. I wasn’t going to have any more mind-blowing orgasms with the Hawks if Bram killed them, and that meant I needed to get this right.
“Thanks! Where’s my brother.”
