“Listen to me,” I say, scooping her hand up in mine. The same one she’d used to touch my arm. “Under no circumstance do I blame you for this. You understand? None of this is your fault.”
“But if I hadn’t?—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I interrupt again, holding her gaze hostage.Willingher to believe me. “I’m grateful you came into my life, Jhene. I don’t want to know a life without you in it. You’ve become too much a part of it.”
She blinks a few times and almost bashfully looks away. I reach out and brush a curl from her face before she can, tucking it behind her ear.
“I mean it, stray. You got that? I want you by my side. Right where you belong.”
We come together for a kiss, her leaning into me and me pulling her the rest of the way toward me. Our lips brush and we linger a moment, savoring each other like lovers do.
Even when we break apart, I’m holding her face in my hands. We’re still looking each other in the eye.
“Whatever comes our way,” I tell her huskily. “We’ll deal with it together. Alright?”
The corner of her mouth quirks. “Okay.”
I press one more kiss to her lips, then settle back into the driver’s seat and start the engine.
The road ahead stretches out before us, both literally and figuratively. In the literal sense, I might know what’s ahead, but the figurative is another story.
I don’t know what’s coming next with our war against the Bratva. There’s no way of telling how it’ll play out.
But I know one thing for damn sure.
I’m going to find a way to win. I’m going to protect Jhene and avenge the clan and make the Bratva realize they’ve fucked with the wrong boneman.
I won’t rest ’til I do.
EIGHTEEN
Jhene
The Banshee is startingto look like a pub again.
It’s been two weeks since Seamus Callahan’s funeral, and the renovations are moving faster than I expected.
Apparently, Ronan wants the place up and running by the end of summer, a show of strength to the Bratva that they can’t keep the Callahans down no matter how many buildings they burn.
He’s hired a whole team of contractors to make it happen, and they’ve been working around the clock to meet his deadline.
Tom’s been overseeing most of it, which is a relief considering how badly injured he was after the fire. His burns have mostly healed, though he still winces when he moves the wrong way, and there’s new scar tissue creeping up the side of his neck that wasn’t there before. He’s lucky to be alive, and he freely admits as much.
Teagan isn’t so lucky. Last I heard, he’s still in the hospital, and nobody’s sure when—or if—he’ll ever fully recover.
He’s in intensive physical therapy to learn to walk again,and the brain damage he sustained is so severe he can barely talk.
Me and the other servers have started showing up to help Tom get things in order before the grand reopening.
There’s still work to be done—new tables and booths to arrange, glassware to unpack, menus to finalize, decorations to put back up—but the foundation of the place is solid again.
The charred walls have been replaced, the smoke damage scrubbed away, and if you didn’t know better, you’d never guess the place nearly burned to the ground earlier this summer.
I’m in the middle of wiping down the new bar top when Bridget breezes through the front door, a large iced coffee in one hand and a designer purse in the other.
Tom notices it too.
“Well, well, what do we got here?” he says, setting down the box of napkins he was carrying. “That’s a fancy looking bag you’ve got there, Bridge. Swear my wife’s been begging me for one just like it. One of those designer ones, isn’t it? Thousands of dollars?”
