“Saving your fuckin’ life,” I muttered as I chucked a wad of cash at his feet, then wound around a beavertail cactus.
“Please!” Billy shouted just before I reached the Rover. “Please, you can’t just leave me here!”
He was right, of course. It was a death sentence either way. Throwing him off that cliff would have been a kindness, considering the sun would probably get him the next morning without shelter or water.
“You’re just going to leave him?” Mac asked, even as he started the truck. “That’s kind.”
“Whatever it is, it’s not that,” I said, ignoring the shouts of Richards behind us and the reflection of the man waving his arms in the rearview mirror. “Now go.”
Kindness was never my job. Fixing was. Even if this time, I was willing to let the desert make the final call.
I grimaced.I could imagine it all too clearly, along with the guilt I’d felt whenever I wondered if Billy Richards was dead or alive.
Now I had my answer. “But he still came back with you?”
That was the bigger surprise. If he had chosen to flee to Mexico instead of going home to his daughter, maybe I should have shoved him off that cliff, anyway. Although right now I’d be in real trouble.
“We didn’t give him much of a choice,” Ares said. “Although he wasn’t too happy when the FBI showed up at the station.”
“I don’t imagine he was.”
Ares’s expression darkened. “Neither, apparently, was Bas Huntington. A little bird told me he’s the one who tipped off the Vegas Metro.”
Liam and I shared another glance. Well, fuck. That threw a wrench in things, although it wasn’t totally unsurprising to hear that Huntington was actively trying to sabotage me. I had a feeling he had it out for the whole family after what had happened to his son.
“Did you know that Ezra Huntington was involved in a bunch of other human trafficking cases, Ronan?” Shea was buzzing, like a kid who’d just learned a new curse word. “Richards told them all about it. They’re starting a new investigation into his dad now, too.”
Well, that was interesting. And was either going to solve my family’s problems or make them worse.
Maybe I should have felt better that Billy Richards’s resurrection from the dead had been possible at all, and on top of that, had assured Mac’s and my freedom. Maybe I should have also been glad that leaving the guy in the desert didn’t, in fact, amount to his murder.
But guilt still gnawed at my gut, knowing that he was now condemned to a different kind of sentence. There would be no reuniting with his daughter unless she came to visit him in a correctional center. In that way, I had still traded his life for mine. I couldn’t quite be happy about that.
Maybe that was the price of finding a conscience in the end.
I couldn’t feel too bad about that. Not when it took me one step closer to earning the future I wanted for myself. The one I could maybe, just maybe, let myself imagine.
“Thank you,” I said to Ares. “I appreciate your… assistance in the matter. We’ll probably just head to the airport.”
Beside me, Mac grunted, clearly still upset that Shea had been involved in anything connected to the Antonis.
“Of course,” Ares replied with a closed-lipped smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Not even close. “I’m sure you’ll figure out how to return the favor.”
My chest tightened even as I nodded. I knew from the second I was picked up this wouldn’t be cut and dry. It wasn’t a question of whether I would owe a family of mobsters for helping me out of a considerable jam—just how much.
Still. It was worth it. For Laney, anything was worth it.
“Let’s go,” Shea said. “It’s hot as fuck out here. My makeup is melting off my face.”
Just as we moved to get into the Mercedes, a silver Escalade came screaming into the lot and pulled up at the curb. The front door popped open, and Owen jumped out.
I reared. “What the?—”
I couldn’t even finish my thought before the other door opened, and I watched a familiar petite figure slide out of the passenger side until her feet touched the ground.
I thought my jaw would follow. “Laney?”
She looked like she wanted to run, but she clearly couldn’t. Something was wrong—something was?—
