“Go ahead, Cass,” Maeve said.
“Bram isn’t allowed to coerce me to leave early.” Bram and I were glaring at each other across the room. “I don’t want to be harassed for the next three months. I get to decide on my own.”
Maeve nodded. “That seems fair. Bram?”
Bram’s eye started twitching again. “Fine.”
“And you don’t get to punish Hawk, Jagger, and Vigo later,” I said. “This was my decision. It’s still my decision.”
“Fuckingfine,” Bram said.
“Anything else?” Maeve asked.
“Who did you want dead?” Bram asked. “In the Hunt. And why didn’t you come to me?”
I felt the Hawks’ eyes on my face, knew they were wondering how I would answer.
But I’d meant what I’d said: I wasn’t going to bring anything to Bram until I knew who had paid Travis Dorsey to run our parents off the road.
I wasn’t putting him through it until Iknew.
“I didn’t,” I said. “I just wanted to play.”
I would figure this out myself.ThenI’d bring it to Bram.
38
JAGGER
I lookedthe rearview mirror and inspected my nose. It had been three days since the confrontation with the Butchers and I was still blowing blood.
Fucking Bram.
I didn’t even mind getting the shit kicked out of me. After my years on Wall Street, getting beat up was the kind of thing that made me feel alive.
The injury to my pride had been worse.
We’d dialed it back with the Butchers out of respect for Cassie — Bramwasher brother — but Cassie didn’t know that and I hadn’t loved walking out with a broken nose courtesy of Bram Montgomery.
Oh well. It wasn’t the first time I’d had a broken nose. It would heal up in a few weeks.
I checked the time on my phone, got out of the car, and walked around the dark green Aston Martin. The car was a holdover from my days in finance, but I loved it and I saw no reason to replace it. That was one of the things I loved about being off the Street: Wall Street was as much about the appearance of money as it was about the money itself.
I’d have gone through at least three more cars by now if I’d stayed.
It was quieter in Blackwell Falls, both inside and outside my head. Here I was able to ask myself what I wanted — what I really wanted — to do, to eat, to wear, to drive.
I’d thought I was an independent thinker before I’d taken my first finance job, but the unflattering truth was that I was as susceptible to peer pressure as everybody else. Sinking into a life of penthouse apartments at the perfect address, tailored suits made in London, and a new luxury car every year (paid for with cash) had been as easy as sinking into a two-thousand-dollar down comforter.
But the truth was, I hadn’t liked the person I was on Wall Street. Hadn’t liked what it had revealed about myself.
Living the way I did with Hawk and Vigo — working the way we did — forced me to tap into more primitive desires.
At least it was honest.
The coffee shop was busy when I walked in, the lunch crowd just beginning to wind down, and I stood at the back, scanning the large bright space. There were people in line, more people at the tables scattered throughout the space, but there was only one person who mattered.
I found her behind the counter, her pretty face warm and open as she talked to a guy about my age in slacks and a button down, a laptop bag slung over his body. He had blond hair and a mild face, the kind of guy who would end up with two kids, a dog, and a white picket fence.
