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“And for good reason,” Einstein mumbled, then turned to walk toward the couches again.
I stood there, stunned and unable to move as I watched her sit on the arm of the closest chair so she was facing me again.
“If you were Elle and he was Dare, would you leave right now?”
A sigh punched from my chest, and I sagged against the door. “No,” I finally whispered.
“If you were you, and he was just a member?”
“You already know what decision I made earlier, why are you asking?”
Without responding to my question, she continued on, “If he were to come out here right now, knowing what you know about him, knowing who he is. Would you run away, or would you stay?”
I opened my mouth to tell her she’d just prevented me from leaving, but hesitated.
Every moment over the last two years flashed through my mind. Every look. Every note. Every kiss and every touch over the last week. Every word marked on my heart.
“I would stay until it ends.”
And just as I’d told Einstein earlier when I thought he was only Dare, member of the Borello Gang, I knew how this would end.
We were like fire, but fire never lasts. And when it’s over, devastation is left in its wake.
I swallowed past the agony tightening my throat, and said, “I still have to leave now. I have to get back before someone realizes I’m gone.”
“Makes sense,” she mumbled. “I’ll take you.”
“That’s not—”
“I told you, I wish my sister would’ve accepted our help. I know why you have to be there, and I know why you don’t want to be. Let me help you because I’m the only one who can.”
I wavered, thankful and wary and worried for this girl all at once. “You can’t go near the property line.”
“I’m crazy . . . but I don’t have a death wish.”
For the first time that morning, the corners of my mouth twitched into a smile. “If you think Johnny and Dare won’t find out, then I appreciate it.”
But Einstein was already walking . . . again, without looking back to see if I would follow her.
As we hurried down the driveway, she slowed and blew out a steadying breath, her eyes fixed on the ground for a moment before she met my gaze. “Do you even know why?”
I lifted a brow. “Why I would stay?”
“Dare doesn’t have solid proof you’re alive. He’s just been told—well, and I guess your house told him all he needed to know. But do you know why he would want to kill you if he knew you were?”
“Because that’s what you do. That’s what our families do. That’s what this fucked-up world we live in thinks is necessary. They steal and retaliate. Kill and retaliate. It’s endless.”
Surprise flickered across her face but was quickly replaced by grief. “You really don’t know, do you?”
I bunched my shoulders up in a shrug and relaxed them with a frustrated sigh. “What? Is it because Kieran stopped them from taking me four years ago?”
“No.” She tilted her head and looked at me carefully, like she knew she was about to turn my world on its side again. “Mickey murdered Dare’s fiancée.”
I sat on my window seat, head pressed to the glass as I replayed everything I’d learned that morning.
“Mickey . . .” Einstein said uncertainly as she drove me back toward the Holloway property. “He snuck into Dare’s apartment in the middle of the night about two months after your funeral. Dare woke up to his fiancée, Gia, being torn out of their bed. Your dad didn’t make a big production out of it, just said, ‘This is for Lily’ and shot Gia in the head.” She glanced at me a couple times before focusing on the road again. “That’s why Dare wants to kill you. Not because you’re an O’Sullivan. Not because they didn’t get you four years ago. It’s because his fiancée died as retaliation for your death that never happened.”
It all seemed unreal.
