“Perfect.” She flips her hair off her shoulder. “Are we done here?”
“That was about it.”
“Good.” She turns and walks out of the room, her hips swaying dangerously. No doubt off to start her torment. Or, more likely, continue it.
I focus on Fallon. “And your answer?”
Her face is completely locked down. “You really only care about this faction, don’t you?”
“Yes.” The word feels like a lie on my tongue, but I ignore the sensation. The faction is my end all, be all. Whatever confusing feelings I’m housing for Abel and Eli have nothing to do with that.
She nods slowly. “I’ll take this devil’s bargain as well.” She rises to her feet, a human-shaped pillar of ice. “Just know that if this is some ploy to get the Mystics’ secrets, it will be for nothing.”
That remains to be seen. But I’m reasonably sure that neither Monroe nor Fallon will do anything to endanger their family within this house. I nod, holding her gaze. “I’ll take that into consideration.” I rise as well. “It will take some time to get the details finalized, but we should be able to put this into motion next week.”
“Good.”
I wait for her to leave before I sink back onto the chair and exhale slowly. That went better than expected. It’s still going to be a complicated situation to maneuver through, but as long as we can keep both Fallon and Monroe on leashes, I suspect the rest of the Brides will follow suit.
I pour myself another cup of tea. Despite my best efforts, my mind goes back to Abel and Eli. I don’t know if either of them will listen to me long enough to sit down and have a conversation with each other. It’s impossible to say if that will help or hurt things, but the stark truth is that we can’t go on like this. If we’re too busy tearing into each other, we’re not going to be able to face any threat that arises.
No matter what Eli thinks of the Paines being back, even he has to admit that they’re likely preferable to us losing the faction altogether. At least as Abel’s Brides we have a chance to influence the situation.
Not to mention… Abel isn’t what I expected at all. He’s brutal and harsh, but there are threads of kindness and caring that appear at the most unexpected times. He might seem very similar to his father on the surface, but the core is different.
That makes what happened the night of the coup all that much more tragic, but Eli did what he had to. I believe that even if I stopped believing in us.
Except…
Have I stopped believing in us? I don’t know. Things were complicated before Lammas, and the last few days haven’t uncomplicated them. I thought my love for Eli had turned to hate, but last night…
I shake my head and lift my tea cup to take a sip. After all this time and all my certainty, it seems foolish in the extreme to let an outstanding night of sex change how I feel. But did it really change things? Or did it bring what was already there to light?
I don’t have answers. All I have are more questions.
27
Abel
“Do you believe him?”
I stare at the beer bottle dangling from my fingers. I don’t drink much these days, not when any blurring of the senses can be the difference between survival and death, but today just flat-out called for a beer. “I don’t know.”
I’ve spent hours going through the compound with Broderick to oversee the changes and ensure all the security features are up and running. Tomorrow we’ll officially get our answer from Old Town, but from Finnegan’s spy tech, we already know what they’ll say.
They won’t fight us.
That public support will go a long way to smoothing the transition of power, and having Eli and Harlow publicly at my side will go even farther. I should be feeling victorious right now, should already be considering what changes I want to implement.
Instead, all I can think about is the past.
Broderick’s the only one of my brothers I can talk to about this. He’s the most level-headed of us, the one who likes to weigh all the facts before making a decision, the steady one that keeps all seven of us grounded. It’s why I gave Monroe to him; if anyone can handle her dangerous recklessness, it’s him. I have no right to be leaning on him now, but fuck if I can get my thoughts in order.
He pops the cap off his beer bottle and sinks onto the chair next to the desk. We’ve co-opted Eli’s study for our own, but really it’s Broderick’s now. I’ve never been comfortable being idle for long, and being locked in a room with a shit ton of paperwork is my idea of hell. Another way that we’re fundamentally different.