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“No, you don’t get to die,” she cried out, her words coated with anger and grief. “I didn’t spend the last ten years protecting you for you to get yourself killed now.”
Beck smiled weakly. “This is right. You yelling at me. That’s my Jess.”
Her body trembled violently as she grabbed his hand in hers. “You can’t leave me too. You’re the only one who’s always been there, Beckham. Please don’t leave.”
“I’d just ruin—” A gurgling noise sounded deep in his chest before he was choking and coughing up more blood.
Jessica froze with her free hand hovering over him like she was going to try to make it stop.
When he settled, he said, “Just ruin your life.”
“Then stay and ruin it,” she whispered. “Stay and continue being the best and worst friend I’ve ever had.”
An easy smile crossed his face. “Like being the best. At something.”
A soggy laugh tumbled from Jessica’s lips. “I love you for alwa
ys being there.”
Tears filled his eyes. “Always loved you.”
My stomach dropped when his body relaxed. “Beck?” I hurried around him and dropped to the ground above his head, my hands going to his neck to check for a pulse that wasn’t there. “Beck?” I ground out, still searching even though he was looking up, unseeing, with an expression I’d seen more times in my life than I wanted to admit.
My body bowed, my heart shattering under my grief.
From the time he and Conor had been brought to Holloway eleven years ago, Beck had been trying to figure out how to get them out. I’d promised I would make it happen.
Now we were steps away from being free of this life, and I’d lost another brother because I hadn’t been fast enough.
I refused to lose anyone else. I refused to be chained to this world any longer.
“I’m going to finish this. I’ll get them out of this life. I’ll make sure they have what you always wanted for them,” I vowed and moved my trembling fingers to close his eyes. “See you in hell, brother.”
I watched the members of Holloway slowly filter into the meeting room that night from where I stood at the head of the table. Stood because the boss’s chair was gone. I refused to sit in it.
Some of the members leaned toward others to murmur things they thought I couldn’t hear.
Others looked at me with pride and excitement, as though they’d been waiting for this day for a long time.
I had too, but for reasons they didn’t understand yet.
The men were usually loud while waiting for meetings to take place, but the atmosphere in the room was tense and heavy. The few who spoke kept their voices low. Emergency meetings were almost never called.
The few that had happened during my lifetime were for Mickey’s children’s deaths and when we’d all thought Lily had been kidnapped.
Before that, the last had been when Mickey killed the previous boss.
And once the last member arrived, this would be our final meeting.
We’d spent the day disposing of Tommy’s and Mickey’s bodies and taking Beck’s to the morgue between trips to town. Everything was done quickly to keep word from spreading to the rest of Holloway. For members who didn’t work for Mickey during the day, odds were they were out of town spending time with their families since the boss was too busy to notice. Seeing as we’d worked through the middle of the day and Mickey was dead, there was no one to spread the word of their deaths.
Until now.
It made it easier to clean up what we needed kept silent for a few hours.
Easier to do everything else we needed done by tonight without being seen.
Conor helped with my gunshot wound, since hospitals were last-resort-only for our kind. And when he and Jessica crashed from their exhaustion and grief, I’d tracked down Jessica’s brother and his wife. Both were safe, and oblivious to any danger as they went about their days.
