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Shannon’s slipper stopped tapping the floor. I couldn’t bring myself to meet her gaze. I wasn’t sure why I told her. Perhaps I needed someone else to know what I’d done. Someone on a more even playing field with me. Eoghan was used to violence. Criminal activity was just an average day for him. Not me. Not us.
“It’s strange,” I continued, picking at the leather sleeve of my jacket. “I don’t feel guilty. I just… I was given an opportunity tonight and I took it. Jack was destroying himself and you would have to go to bed every night knowing justice still needed to be served and—”
Shannon wrapped her arms around my waist, pulling me tight. She stood on tiptoe, her mouth at my ear. The force of her embrace almost knocked me over. She was shaking. Crying. Relieved, I let my own tears fall.
“Thank you,” she sobbed. I hadn’t expected her gratitude, not so soon. I’d thought she was going to question me, demand details, say that we had to tell Jack. “Who was he?”
“He was actually she. Her name was Amara.” Saying it aloud was soothing, like aloe on a sunburn. “She was Luca Nicoletti’s niece.”
“And who else knows this?”
“Just me, you and Eoghan.”
“We need to get you cleaned up and dressed for bed before the meds kick in.” She let go, spinning around to turn the shower on. “You can borrow something of mine. Lord knows I have enough crap to pack as it is.”
“Are you still leaving Thursday?” I asked, reeling at the transition back to casual conversation. Shannon was amazing at compartmentalizing. The first advice she had ever given me came floating to mind—“Living in their world, you have to know when it’s okay to talk… and when to just smile.”
“Day after tomorrow, yeah.” She pointed at my bloody clothes. I stripped without question. At this point, Shannon and I were beyond boundaries. I had watched a human come out of her, for God’s sake. “You’ll see us off at the airport?”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” I replied with a plethora of emotions. I was losing my best friend, my confidant. I’d have to survive whatever came next without her, but it was for the best. Things were only going to get worse once Luca saw what I’d left him on the flash drive.
“Jack’s going to come around,” she promised as I slid behind the glass of the shower. Her next words were convoluted from where I stood under the waterfall. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on his hands and knees begging your forgiveness by tomorrow. Are you going to give it to him?”
“I don’t have much of a choice on the matter.”
I was hopelessly, unconditionally in love with the man. Fucked as it was, Jack had sacrificed his own happiness to protect me—the same way I’d gambled with my life to end his suffering. His absence was an ache deep within my bones. I was desperate to wrap him up in my arms, to kiss him all over, to let him know everything would be okay. At least between us.
“You should still make him work for it,” Shannon replied, her advice making me smirk.
“Oh, I plan to.”
* * * *
Jack
I cursed for the millionth time, glancing at my watch. Three a.m.
The room was an absolute mess. I’d torn the shelves down, cracked open the locked filing cabinet with the butt of a rifle, opened each and every case full of cash. I’d even tried the serial numbers on the gold bars, hoping against hope that one of them was the code.
Nothing.
My bladder was painfully full after I had drunk over a gallon of water. I could piss in one of the empty bottles, but if Emma found me with jugs full of pee, I would never let myself live it down. Talk about weak.
Six hours. That was how long I’d been trapped in a room of my own creation, in a mess of my own volition. I did deserve this. I deserved far worse. I realized that now.
This obsession with the Babau was killing me, destroying everything that I loved. And I loved but two things—my family, blood or otherwise, and my girl.
Emma Marshall was first on my list. She had been from the moment I had walked into her apartment for the first time. When I’d bared my life to her, telling her I was a criminal. Instead of kicking me out like most sane people would, she had launched herself onto me and never once let go. Not until I had forced her hand.
Choosing vengeance over love. What a fucking idiot. If Connor were alive, he’d slap me upside the head. How could I salvage my relationship with Emma? I hadn’t actually cheated, but what I had done was just as bad. I’d used her own weakness against her, fabricating a lie I knew would devastate. Confidence I’d spent months building had shattered before my eyes. She would never trust me again, nor should she. I had a lot of work to do.
Earning Emma’s forgiveness was a challenge I could get behind. It would be easier to kill a thousand Babaus, but I didn’t love Emma because she was easy. She constantly begged for more than I could give. She wanted to see inside my head, to know my darkest thoughts, my sordid past. I had to be willing to open up to her—to expose the secrets I’d kept hidden from everyone else—and pray she didn’t run. I wasn’t sure if I could do it, but I owed it to both of us to try.
I clenched my right hand into a fist, eyeing the markings there. My oldest tattoo mocked me, forever reminding me of my first kill. Eighteen years ago. The memory of it was haunting, but it hadn’t stopped me from killing again and again.
Until Emma. My life had started once I met her. Before, I had just been a machine. Carnage and mayhem were the only activities that had brought a smile to my face. Even sex had felt forced at times. All in the past, pre-Emma. I was a better person now. Better today than I was yesterday. I simply had to be.
Oh, fuck.
