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“I have another request.”
My thoughts were so deep that I’d forgotten he was there. My eyes shifted back to him.
“I’d like to buy Raven’s freedom.”
The glass was held to my lips, but I didn’t take a drink. My hand shook slightly before it lowered back to my knee. The look I gave him must have been sharp because his eyes turned guarded in preparation for my wrath. “No.”
“I will pay you whatever you want—”
“There’s not enough money in the world, Magnus.” I set the glass back on the coffee table.
He should just let it go, but he didn’t. “She’ll still be a prisoner. But she’ll be my prisoner—”
“Not good enough.”
“Melanie would appreciate it—”
“And she’s asked many times. My answer has never changed.” The only reason I didn’t scream at him was because of the scene I’d just witnessed. He wanted to remove her from the camp because she was clearly unsafe here. When I vacated the premises, the guards might creep in once more. “It won’t change for you either. She had her opportunity to be free, but she chose to spend that freedom burning down my camp, the place I built with my bare hands alongside you. She chose to destroy the thing I care most about. So, no, she will never get the offer again. I granted her mercy once—and she chose to piss it away.”
Magnus asked to leave the camp early.
He wanted to give Raven a change of scenery after what she’d suffered.
I allowed it because I didn’t want to look at her anyway.
Magnus and I walked together to the wagons that were tied to the horses. The drugs were packed and covered in the rear, ready to be transported to their next drop-off point. Magnus offered to do the job so I could keep an extra man at the camp.
Raven was somewhere behind us. I chose to believe she didn’t exist, so I genuinely forgot she was in my presence.
Magnus cupped my forearm in a salute of goodbye before he turned to the wagon. “Brother.”
I repeated the phrase. “Brother.”
But then Raven walked up to me.
Right up to my face.
She looked at me, having the same eyes as Melanie.
Magnus turned back and stilled.
Her eyes shifted back and forth as she looked into mine, closer to me than she’d ever been before. There was a hint of fear, but also something else. She studied me like I was an animal thought to be extinct a very long time ago.
Fury swept through me. Deep in my veins. Deep in my blood. Deep in my bones. I’d spared her from a violent crime, and she had the audacity to look at me—like we were fucking equals. She was the one thing standing in my way. She was the one thing that kept Melanie and me apart. I felt hatred. Pure hatred.
“I just wanted to say thank you…for what you did.” Her eyes searched mine, as if she expected to see humanity in my gaze.
There was none. “Your appreciation means nothing to me because my intervention had nothing to do with you. My only interest was keeping my brother’s dick clean. Speak to me again, and I will cut those blue eyes out of your skull and feed them to my dogs.”
Magnus grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away. “Get into the wagon. Now.”
I abruptly turned away and marched back into the camp, trying to forget that shit ever happened.
Seventeen
Gilbert
Melanie
He left without saying a word to me.
If he’d stayed home, I would have ignored him anyway, but it still upset me that he’d left without saying goodbye.
I had no idea when he would return.
I couldn’t ask Gilbert because he wouldn’t know either.
So, I spent my time reading, in the swimming pool, keeping myself busy.
Waiting for him.
A week had come and gone, and he didn’t return. Despite how angry I was with him, I missed him. Every time I went to bed, I hoped that he would be there the next morning. I lay in bed in the dark, cold despite the summer heat outside, and struggled to fall asleep because I replayed our final conversation over and over.
I knew he was more than that.
I knew it, and I think he’d gotten angry because he knew it too.
My eyes flashed open when I heard it.
Gunshots.
Lots of gunshots.
I sat up in bed and looked around, even though the sound was coming from the front gate. There was no one in my bedroom. I was alone. My heart raced a million miles an hour. Anxiety like I’d never known hit me so hard. Fear. Pure fear hit me. “Fender…” I got out of bed and tripped to the floor. I got to my feet and turned on the lamp so I could see two inches in front of my face. I dashed to the windows and opened the curtains.
