Page 128
Even the pigs are quiet.
I don’t say anything. I’m still furious with her, but I unwrap her wrists, rip off a piece of my T-shirt, and wipe the crusted blood on her forehead. She winces.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“You stole my line.” She tries to smile but doesn’t get there.
She slowly pushes herself up on the table, and that’s when I notice she’s wearing a bulletproof vest. “Why the hell are you wearing that?”
She gulps. “I just, I wanted to be prepared, in case, you know…”
I have an idea of what she’s getting at, and I don’t like it. “You really thought I’d put a bullet in you?”
Her bottom lip quivers, and I fucking hate seeing that. She really believed I could hurt her. It cuts deep. I thought about it—a lot—but even though I couldn’t admit it to myself, I knew I’d never really go after her. I jerk back from the table, needing to walk off this anger hitting me. I know I should want to kill her, but I don’t. Her bruise isn’t helping calm me down, either.
“I just thought—” At the look I give her, she pivots. “I also brought you a peace offering in the form of a pumpkin spice latte and habanero jerky. Your favorite, but it kind of…”
She nods to something on the barn floor. It’s an empty coffee cup with cinnamon-sprinkled whipped cream spilled out over the dirt.
“Normally, I prefer my coffee in a cup,” I grunt. “And if you think dried meat and caffeine are gonna cancel out the fact you lied to me about killing my brother, then you’re missing a few brain cells.”
Her shoulders sag, and then the words fall out. “I know. I’m sorry, but I didn’t know what to do. He was trying to hurt me, and then after what he did to that woman, I lost it. I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. I mean, he was your brother. You loved him, and—”
“Wait,” I cut off her rambling. “What do you mean he hurt that woman?”
She steels herself and looks me in the eye. “There’s something I need to tell you, and it’s not going to be easy to hear.”
I don’t know if I want to listen, but I still say, “Then talk.”
64Sabrina
Lawton procures an ice pack for me, insists on holding it to my head, and then leads us outside the barn. Silence inflates between us, the dusky sunlight warming my face as the wind rustles through the oak trees.
I don’t know what the proper etiquette is for informing your faux husband that their only sibling was a psychopath with a head-shaving fetish, but I pull up the evidence on my phone and do my best to deliver the news delicately.
Which fails miserably.
After thirty minutes of clumsy word vomit involving I’m sorrys and I didn’t knows, Lawton scrubs a hand over his jaw. “So he…?”
“Yeah.”
“And Bobbi and Arch…”
“They know.”
“And those women?”
“Uh-uh.”
A third-trimester pregnant pause. “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, wishing it could make this better. “Like, genuinely, sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, but I also didn’t want you to think I murdered your brother for fun. I only did that one time using a flamethrower on an arsonist.”
“I get it.” He nods absently, no small smile, no barely there snort, just… nothing.
Lawton lowers himself onto the creaky porch steps, hunching forward. He reminds me of that statue of the man with the world on his shoulders, but if all of a sudden his stone knees cracked from the weight. He hangs his head and laces his bruised knuckles behind his neck, shoulders heaving from a shuddering breath.
I don’t know how many breaths I take, but suddenly he launches himself off the steps, picks up an axe, and hurls it into an oak tree. It hits the wood with a solid plunk, wobbling there. He watches it, pulling at his strands of dark hair before turning to me. “If Walker did all this, if he—” Lawton sucks in a shaky breath. “Why the fuck does it still hurt so bad? I should hate him as much as you do.”
