Page 111 of What We Burn

“I’m guessing everything went well,” Micah says from the kitchen counter where there are two mugs sitting in front of him and a smirk on his face that tells me he spent the last few hours keeping our girl from climbing the walls.

I set Sage back on the floor, dropping a kiss on her forehead before I turn to Micah. “Went as planned. He’s a pendulum under a bridge and the kids of St. Clement’s will be safer for it.”

“Well done,” Micah says, taking a sip of his tea as his eyes move over the others. “No injuries?”

“Everyone’s fine,” Eli says. “Op went clean.”

Sage lets out a relieved breath. Then her chin comes up, and her eyes sharpen, gleeful as she looks between us.

“Sit down,” she says, moving to the dining table. “Tell me everything.” She looks at me. “Don’t you dare leave a single detail out.”

“I’ll get the tequila,” Milo says.

Before all this, I’d have given her a softened version of events and spared her the edges. Protected her from the reality of what we are.

But she fought her way into this room. She’s one of us now, and one of us doesn’t get the soft version.

So we all take our shot of liquor, and we sit across from the woman with the rope scar at her throat, and we tell her how we hanged a man off a bridge and heard the crack of his neck echo around us.

And she leans in, and listens to every word.

THIRTY

SAGE

Sat, Aug 15 at 12:52pm

Brock

That choker won’t hide it forever. Take it off. Show the world what I did to you. What I plan to do again...

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“There’s a four-fifteen showing of that new horror movie. The one with the cult and the creepy kids.”

Jamie’s in his usual booth, laptop closed for once, chin in his hand like he’s been waiting for a gap in the nothing to pitch this. The diner is dead. Not slow—dead. The summer tourists have truly left Hunter Harbor now that school’s back in session and the diner is feeling it. Two customers have entered in the last hour. A guy reading the paper who ordered one coffee and hasn’t looked up since, and a woman who came in for directions to the beach and left without buying anything.

Danny, the cook, is in the back watching something on his phone loud enough that I can hear tinny explosions through the serving window.

“Can’t,” I say, topping off his mug. “I’m here until four.”

“Later, then? There’s a seven-thirty.”

“Jamie.”

“Would your men let you out of their sight for a couple of hours so we can hang? It’s been, like, three whole weeks since our coffee date, you know. And me talking to you in here doesn’t count.”

“I don’t know,” I say, letting out a sigh as my eyes cut to the street. At first it was bubble wrap—the guys making sure I was okay after I went stab-happy on Brock. Now it’s barbed wire.

“Maybe they could come with,” Jamie suggests. “We could all sit in the back row and act like teenagers.” He grins. “I wouldn’t mind pretending to be part of the group if I can sit next to that sexy one.”

“They’re all sexy.” Heat creeps up my neck. The positive side of having at least one of my guys watching me at all times is that my libido is in overdrive. I can’t get enough of them. Last night was Micah, Holden, and Knox, and I’m still feeling it in muscles I didn’t know I had. This morning was Milo in the shower, quick and laughing and soapy, his hands everywhere.

Jamie rolls his eyes. “Yes. But I’m talking about the beautiful one. The one who looks like he could be an elf in Lord of the Rings.”

“Micah?”