My last memories come flooding back into me as Ash leans forward in the seat, his eyes critical as he takes in the damage the bullet to my chest did.
Avery.
Avery was taken, locked in a glass cage, and fought her way out of there because there’s never going to be a cage that could contain her, and then I got to her. The bulletproof vest. The call of everything being clear and then the gunshot.
Avery.
“She’s alive. She’s alive and well. I can already see you freaking the fuck out about her. It’s a very distinct look you get and it’s at least half of the reason I fucking loathe you.”
I can’t move anything except my eyes, glancing around the room again before I take him in properly. He’s dressed casually in a pair of dark jeans and biker boots, a band tee with Morrison’s tattooed face on it, and a leather jacket slung over his shoulders—he looks like a very polished version of a Mounty kid. All of his time with Lips and the other degenerates is rubbing off on him.
These little pieces of information mean nothing right now because I’m completely at his mercy.
If he wanted to kill me now, there’s no stopping him.
His eyes are the same shade of blue as Avery’s, but the icy-cold edge of them cuts into me the second he flicks them back over to me, his casual derision an insult to even the strongest man. “You have always been everything to her. I hate it. I hate that you’re a Crawford and you have that sort of hold over her. If I could burn you out from under her skin, I’d do it. If there was any way to get rid of you without hurting her, it would already be done.”
I barely have control over my eyelids, there’s no way I’m going to be able to answer him, to tell him of all of the ways that I would destroy myself rather than hurt her.
Except I have hurt her.
I have and I just keep on hurting her with all of the ways that she grew up differently than I ever expected. Better, because this girl isn’t some pretty little society girl. No, she’s become the greatest asset any man in our world could ever ask for.
The Stag saw it and took her for himself.
“I thought she moved on from you. I wasn’t happy with her choice, but an O’Cronin is a better option than a fucking Crawford. Except he’s willing to share her, he knows that part of her will always belong to you and he doesn’t want to break her. He was man enough to come and face me, none of this sneaking around and building fucking slum empires as though I’ll be impressed by it.”
He leans forward in his chair a little more, his voice dropping down lower as though he’s telling me some great secret, “How does it feel to know that with all of your advantages, all of the money and connections you walked into the Bay with, that a little girl with nothing is more respected than you? To know that the Wolf is the one who came out of the war with the Jackal with the respect and fear of the Bay, and it’s not you? Because I’ve watched them all, you know. I’ve spent all of that time in those stupid fucking meetings you insist on having, and they all watch her. The ones worth something, anyway. If you got unplugged from this machine and died right now, nothing would change in the Bay. The Wolf would still reign supreme, with Avery at her side.”
I already know this.
The Wolf always did play the game of the Bay better than anyone else, she could walk the line between cold-hearted killer and merciful crime lord better than anyone I’ve ever seen. She built a web of loyal spies and contacts faster than anyone else on the Twelve through nothing but hard work and that very special brand of integrity of hers.
It’s all of the reasons I let her live when she arrived at Hannaford Prep.
There’s another beat of silence and then he stands, stepping around the seat with one parting statement, “My sister will be here soon to fawn over you. Make your decision about her and follow through with it, because if it drags on much longer, I’ll slit your fucking throat.”
He gets to the doorway and I force my voice to work, the thready tones and gasping are shameful as hell but I need to know. “Is this… your approval?”
He scoffs. “Over my dead fucking body will I ever approve. This is me saying that I love my sister enough to let her live her own life, and I will be watching your every move. At the first sign of you betraying her, I’ll make Nate look fucking normal. I promise you that, Crawford.”
It’s a huge claim but if anyone were to turn into a monster for his sister, it’d be Ash Beaumont.
Chapter Twelve
Avery
Two weeks after Holden’s death, Atticus wakes up.
He wakes up without me around because that’s just who he is as a person. He couldn’t possibly wait for me to be there, no, he just does his own thing. It’s fine.
It takes him a full day to be able to speak to me, and then he is furious when I won’t talk to him about how things are going in the Bay beyond, ‘I’m handling it.’
He can’t sit up without help and a lot of pain—there’s no way I’m telling him about his brothers or Amanda’s escalation. I’m also just a little bit terrified to speak to him aboutus,so I just keep my mouth shut for now.
Instead, I fuss over him and watch every little movement in the room as he recovers. He passes every test the doctors throw at him with flying colors, as though he hadn’t just spent weeks in a coma. I spend days there in the room with him, working on my phone while he grunts and snarls at every little thing the nurses force him to do. I sleep on a chair in the corner for three nights before Aodhan comes looking for me and demands I go home to rest in a real bed.
Atticus looks at him as though he’s a murderer, here to kill us both and wear our skin as suits, but I ignore it, kissing him on the cheek and heading home obediently with my Irishman.
