The ride back home is… some sort of outer-space-level silence. It’s not exactly awkward, but it’s definitely interesting in a way that’s difficult to explain to someone on the outside of my SUV.
Kieran is less shocked than I am, and Silas is still all in. He might be moreinthan we originally suspected.
Eris is humming along to the radio like she didn’t just call in and order to have a woman zipped up in a body bag and tossed into an unmarked van because she tested the wrong boundary.
I don’t even know what station is playing or how I drive us home without wrecking. My brain short-circuited somewhere betweenshe shot someoneandshe shot someone for us.Meanwhile, she’s adjusting the fucking seat like this is a normal night.
And maybe it is for her…
But what does this mean for us?
The door to the loft barely clicks shut behind us, Kieran still pressing buttons to arm the security system, before I turn on her.
“Are you going to pretend that didn’t happen?”
Eris kicks her shoes off and raises a curious eyebrow. “Which part?”
“You shot someone.”
“I was there.”
I scrub my hand down my face. “Yes, but why did you shoot her?”
“Are you upset that I shot her?”
“Well—” I cut myself off and sit with her question for a moment, glancing at Silas and Kieran like they might feel differently than I do. “No. I’m not upset. A little shocked, perhaps. Confused. I’m trying to understand when, or maybe just why, it escalated to murder?”
Eris snorts at me and fights a grin. “It’s a relief to hear you’re not upset.”
“Eris,” Silas prompts, intrigued by the entire situation. He lowers himself into his favorite armchair and props his elbows on his knees as he stares at her. “She had no actual leverage. The entire thing was a bluff from the start, but we went because we wanted to shut down the situation for good.”
“Bluffing. That’s cute.” Eris leans back against the counter, eyes sharp as that grin continues to play across her lips. “She tried to callmybluff, but I wasn’t lying when I told her I’d put a bullet in her pretty little head. I warned her. She was just too ignorant to comprehend that she had stepped into a world thateats people like her for sport. And I won’t apologize to anyone for being a top contender.”
“Who the fuck are you?” I catch myself whispering once more, admittedly a little more awestruck this time.
She stretches her arms over her head as if her muscles are tight; the hem of her black shirt lifting just enough to distract me in a way I want to resent right now. But I can’t even fake being mad at her. I’m just so relieved.
“Aren’t you the ones who started digging?” she challenges us. “Couldn’t find anything useful while you were stalking me?”
“Nothing like this,” Kieran mutters, though he’s smiling like he’s happy he’s been one-upped. “Nothing about your… hobbies.”
I sit on the edge of the coffee table, mimicking Silas with my elbows on my knees. “The cartel thing. That’s real?”
“Yeah.” Eris doesn’t take a single second to think about her answer. “Very real.”
Kieran stares at her like she’s fire wrapped in silk, intoxicatingly dangerous while remaining delicate. “Define real.”
Okay. Maybe he’s struggling to process some of this too. At least I’m not alone.
“So you’re a fixer,” Silas says, having a better grip on the background of cartel politics in the Bay. Better than Kieran and me.
Sometimes I forget Silas spent every summer here with his grandparents. I visited them with him when we were in college and fell in love with the coast. And the hockey team… But nothing prepared me for the crime. Not until someone tried to rob us, and Silas stabbed him without hesitation.
“No.” She smiles and shakes her head. “I’m the solution.”
“And us?” I ask. “What does this mean for us?”
Because that’s a big fucking hole in this conversation.
