“I said, Martin.”
“Right.” Liam steps away from me. “Regan, it was a pleasure. I’ll see you at the wedding.”
Bile fills my throat. God, the wedding. I’d been able to disassociate from that, but it’s really happening. “See you then,” I say and it comes out a manic croak.
Dad looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, and honestly, I’m pretty sure I have. “Don’t lose it here, Regan.”
“I’m fine.”
He turns and walks off, leaving me alone in a sea of faces I wish I could never see again, thinking about my gun-selling brother and my future husband and all the ways my life has shockingly, and aggressively, turned for the worse.
CHAPTER 11
REGAN
Ishould let it go.
Those words deserve to be tattooed right on my forehead:let it go.
That’s been my motto, my anthem, for years.
Let it go, let it go, except even though a few days pass after the gallery event, I still can’t stop thinking about that alleyway.
Liam has to be wrong. It’s the only explanation. Luke’s been drifting toward the dark side of the business for years, but there’s no way he’s got enough power and clout to make actual gun deals. No, what we saw was fine and normal and innocuous, and Liam’s the one making it a much bigger deal than it really was.
He’s the problem, not me, no way.
Luke shows up at work on a rare Tuesday afternoon. I find him at his office, a tiny interior room with terrible lighting and cheap corporate art on the walls. He looks up, eyes bloodshot, clothesrumpled. “Regan, I love you, but whatever you’re about to say, please say it very, very quietly.”
“Why do you always act like you’re getting in trouble when you see me?”
“Habit. Experience.”
I tap my nails against the doorframe. “I wanted to ask you about something from the other night at the gallery.”
“No, I can’t explain the meaning of all the weirdly drawn tits, except that the artist must like boobs.”
“I was thinking more about your meeting in the alleyway.”
There it is, a brief moment, where he looks up at me with a sharp frown and narrowed eyes. His hungover act fades, burned away by a flash of intensity, but it’s back again as he pushes himself to his feet.
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” He stretches and comes around the desk. “But I got a lunch meeting soon.”
“It’s only ten in the morning.”
“Yeah, well, I have to work up to it.” He brushes past me.
I keep pace with him as we walk through the hall. “Who were those guys though? I don’t remember seeing them before.”
“Some friends.”
“I know all your friends.”
“That’s not remotely true.”
“Seriously, there’s Leopold, Bobby, Small Bobby, Wrighty, Ashley, Asher, Tom?—“
“Are you listing everyone I hung out with in high school?”
