“You need to stop her,” I say. “Don’t let her go there.”
“Tate.” The amusement fades slightly. “She called Jasmine. You know how Jazz is. She loves Sophia, and Sophia is welcome here as long as she wants. I’m not going to turn her away. I’m calling you because you’re Tracker’s brother, and you deserve to hear it from me first. What you do with that information is up to you.”
“What am I supposed to do with her, Quill? It hasn’t even been that long, and she’s already on her way back. Tracker wouldn’t have wanted this for her.”
The moment I say it, I regret it.
The line goes still in a different way.
“Look,” Quill says after a moment, his voice careful now. “I know you feel responsible for her. I know what you promised him. But Sophia being here, being around people who loved Tracker, well… that might beexactlywhat she needs right now. We were his family too. Don’t forget that.”
I rub a hand over my face. “I know. And I’m sorry for both things. I should have handled it better.” A pause. “Look, I’m going to call her. I want to ask her to consider coming out here to Vegas instead, where I can keep an eye on her properly.”
Silence.
“Quill?”
“I’m here.” A careful pause. “I’m not going to stand in your way. But Tate, if she says no, she’s welcome here, and I won’t try to talk her out of it. She’s family now. That’s just how it is.”
“Yeah. I get it.”
“All right. Go make your call. Let me know how it goes.”
“Will do, brother.”
The line goes dead, and I sit there for a moment in the quiet, Memphis’ warm weight pressed against my leg, the desert stretching out silently and vastly in every direction.
The Sinners have been operating a car detailing and customization shop on the east side of Vegas for the last eighteen months. It looks legitimate on paper and useful in ways that don’t need spelling out. It’s been bringing in steady money and giving the club a clean face in the city, but the opportunity in front of me now would take it to another level entirely. A developer has approached us about taking over a second, larger premises on the Strip, a high-end customization shop catering to the kind of Vegas clientele who drop fifty thousand on a paint job without blinking. The numbers are good. The location is better. And the front it would give the Sinners is worth more than the money.
I need to call church about it. But first, I need to speak to Sophia. So, I dial her number.
It rings three times before she answers, “Hello.” Her voice is husky, the sound of someone who’s been crying, hasn’t slept, or both.
“Soph.” My voice stays low. “You okay?”
A pause.
“You calling to check on me? Or did someone call you about my plans?”
“I called to check on you.” Standing, I walk down the porch steps into the front yard, Memphis falling into step beside me. “Are you packing?”
“So what if I am?”
“For New York?”
“Yes.”
“That’snothappening.”
Sophia lets out a short, humorless laugh. “Since when do you get a say in where I go?”
“Since my brother bled out in my arms and made me promise to look after you.”
The words land hard.
The line goes still.
When she speaks again, her voice is softer, the fight in it pulled back just slightly. “That promise doesn’t give you the right to control my life, Tate.”
