I nod and pull into a spot just past the small convenient store that’s to the left of the highway. It’s a newer place with three cars parked out front of the store and two at the gas pumps, all with Georgia plates. I take note of these things in case I need it for later. It’s important now that we pay attention to every detail of our surroundings.
Max pulls in behind us and stands from his truck stretching. He hasn’t changed much in three years except for the tattoos and a longer beard, which I assume he thinks makes him look extremely different. It doesn’t. There’s a year between us, but he took a different path than me, maybe a smarter one. He was brave. He ran, while I stayed and dealt with all this shit that’s ruined my fucking life. Dad saw it in us, though. He saw it far before we were old enough to know what we were doing or who we were. Our father knew by the time I’d hit sixth grade that I would be second in command and Max would be, well, a goon. If he believed that’s where he belonged, then he’d have been much better at his job, but he didn’t. Max did the work of a goon, believing he deserved a seat at the top based on relation alone. Dad doesn’t see it that way.
I round the corner to his car and lean against the engine block. “You’re not giving up, I see.”
He sighs. “I know you want this to be about you, but it’s about Everleigh. I didn’t expect to see her again. My whole body is aching for her, man. Did she calm down at all?”
I let out a heavy sigh that’s been bundled up since I first saw him again. “She’s okay. Pissed, but that’s to be expected,” I laugh. “Honestly, she’s probably more pissed with Ryan and I right now than anything.”
He looks down, his head hanging low. “She’s all I ever wanted. I hated fucking leaving her.”
“You did, though. You left. You left, and everyone else stayed here to deal with the shit you left behind.”
“Fucking hell, brother. I wasn’t made like you. I was the kid with my finger up my nose by the vending machines. You were a grown ass adult by thirteen, running candy bar scams in the dark hallways.”
“Dad found you, though. To kill me, you must have hit the needle with him somewhere.”
He laughs. “Dad is fucking psycho. He got off on the fact that he found me against all reasonability, and he’s getting off on the fact that he’s asked me to kill youandEvie.”
So Dad knows she’s alive. That’s not positive.
“Why would he believe you’d ever kill Everleigh?”
Max shrugs. “He has it in his head I’ll do anything for the right amount of money.”
“Probably because you took the money and left her behind.”
“I told you, I left because I thought she’d follow. I didn’t…” He pauses sucking in a deep breath as though he’s already tired of explaining himself. “My point is, I came back to warn you guys. I had to let you know what was going on before Dad’s men got to you. I made it just in time with that reporter or he’d have smoked her when she got home.”
“Right,” I say caustically. “And you don’t think that was a trap to get you out in the open? Get us all together again? You don’t think he knewexactlywhat you’d do?”
He huffs low as though he hadn’t thought of that option.
“How’d you steal the money, anyway?”
“I learned to hack Ryan’s codes a while back and transferred the money into another untraceable account.”
I shake my head. “Fuck, Max. What did you think would happen when you left her eight million dollars then disappeared?”
“You know fucking everything. My big brother. My big, underboss, asshole brother, who couldn’t find a woman of his own, so he had to watch mine take her clothes off nightly?”
I laugh. “Like every other man in that club. You should’ve taken her out of that place and given her a real life. I gave you more than enough money.”
“I was trying to do things right. I—”
“Didn’t. Instead, you stole money from the fucking family and ran.”
His face darkens to a shade of red I rarely see. “You weren’t in a place to give her that money. She was mine to care for. Mine to watch. You had everything. Evie was the one thing I—”
“It was you that night, at the club.” Her voice is soft and smooth as she steps in from behind. “You gave me that money… but why?”
Fucking hell. We really need to start having these conversations in more private places. I turn toward her, reaching out but she pulls away like a small animal who’s been wounded. My heart breaks.
“I came to watch you dance.”
“I know. I saw you… the man in the corner every night. The man with the watch. I—”
“I watched you dance so amazingly and I listened to the way you laugh with your friends. It made me want you. I’ve wanted you for—”
