I know I’m safe, I know the baby is safe, but I need to know the people I care about are safe, too. If Sin is going to accost me while I’m on this walk, he better give me some goddamn answers, because I am drowning in questions.
I hear the purr of his car just before he coasts to a stop beside me. I bite down on my bottom lip, barely able to contain the burst of happiness I feel when I look in the rolled down passenger window and see Sin in the driver’s seat.
“Get in,” he tells me.
I open the door and slide in without delay. “What’s going on?”
Putting his hand on the gear shift, he pushes it into drive and speeds up. “We’re going to my house.”
That wasn’t at all what I expected. “What? Why?”
Nodding toward the door, he says, “Put your damn seat belt on.”
I huff, grabbing the seat belt and stretching it across my body. When it clicks into place, I demand, “Fine. Now can you tell me what’s going on?”
“I’ve got a long night ahead of me. Some long days after that. These are my last few hours of peace. I want to spend ‘em with you.”
The raw honesty of those words knocks the words right out of me. I can only stare at him for a long moment, then eventually I find just enough of my voice to murmur, “Good answer.”
34
Sin
This was not the plan.
Last night when I left Laurel, I had no intention of seeing her again until it was all over, but then Rafe invited me to breakfast this morning. Each of us sat there, going through the motions of a liar’s dance, and I know that he knows. I’m not sure how much he knows, but whatever he knows, it’s too much.
He definitely knows I killed Theo, which means he knows why.
He might know I was with Laurel last night.
He doesn’t know Marlena is dead, and he must not know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’ve turned on him, because if he did, I would not have left breakfast. He would have splattered my brains all over the tile floor, and depending on if he knew Laurel and I were together last night, maybe he would have made her clean it up as punishment.
The time for debating my options is over. I debate much longer, I won’t have any options left. I know what I have to do, but as with any war, there’s no guarantee my side wins. There’s no money-back guarantee I even have a side. I think Gio is being real with me, but it’s not impossible he and Rafe are in cahoots and Rafe just wants me gone. If I’m wrong about all this, I won’t be wrong for more than a few seconds, then I’ll be nothing.
Either way, whether it’s my last day or just my last day of peace, I want to spend it with Laurel. I don’t even care if Rafe finds out at this point. Let him find out. He’ll know soon enough. Laurel is mine, not his, and if he doesn’t have the fucking sense to figure that out by now, that’s on him.
I look over at her now and she looks peaceful. I stopped and bought her a milkshake, so she’s sipping on it, watching out the window as the wind blows her long dark hair. She seems content, even though she doesn’t know where we’re headed. I mean, sure, she knows we’re going to my house, but in the larger s
ense she has to know something is up.
I get the impression she’d follow me anywhere, and I fucking like it.
I’d follow her anywhere, too.
I sort of wish I’d said yes the first time she asked me about Chicago. I don’t want any part of the war I’m about to start. I don’t want to lose men I’ve worked beside for years, I don’t want to upend this whole damn family again. We can’t keep doing this. Shit like this needs to be handled and then not repeated again for a long time so people have enough time to forget, otherwise you start looking like you have instability, and instability brings out the predators. Other crews sense weakness, they’ll pounce on it and try to take more power for themselves. You lose enough of your guys, you’re asking for an ambitious up-and-comer to come at you with all they’ve got.
Especially now, that’s the last thing any of us needs.
I can’t think about what comes after, though. First things first, and the first thing is dealing with Rafe.
Well, the first thing after I make sure this is what Laurel wants. I’m tempted to keep her in the dark about some things—I know she’d let me get away with it—but before I make her mine permanently, I need to make sure she knows what she’s in for. I already see things going sour with her and Rafe, and I couldn’t bear to have that happen to us. I’ve lived through that hell before. I won’t do it again.
“Good milkshake?”
Laurel looks over at me, smiling brightly and nodding her head. “Very good. Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” I tell her, reaching over and taking her free hand, twining our fingers together.