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Yeah, she’d hate me for what I had to do.
I could live with that. But I couldn’t live a moment longer with the thought she was in danger.
Chapter 4
I waited until she was asleep before climbing out of bed.
I moved slowly, so as not to disturb her.
Thankfully, Ronnie is a deep sleeper.
I once broke into her bedroom when she was seventeen and I was a week off my eighteenth birthday, to make sure she’d gotten home okay after going to her prom with a complete dick of a guy. She had no clue I was there in her room, even when I tripped over the mountain of school textbooks and paperbacks piled high beneath her window.
Reaching for my cell on the nightstand now, I watched Ronnie sigh in her sleep and roll onto her side.
Good.
Turning my attention to my phone, I tapped out a message for Lila Winchester as I crossed the room to the walk-in wardrobe.
“I need Francis and Fluffy at my place ASAP.”
Lila’s reply came a few seconds later. “Done. Why? Are you planning to be stupid?”
I didn’t respond. Instead, I pulled on a pair of jeans, boots, and a T-shirt and grabbed my leather bike jacket.
Ronnie didn’t stir when I exited the room. I stole a few seconds to watch her sleep. To burn her image into my brain. To commit everything she was to my soul.
In my back pocket, my cell vibrated with an incoming message.
Throat tight, I turned away from the sight of Ronnie naked and sound asleep, yanked my phone out, and read the text from Lila.
“Francis and Fluffy on the way. Whatever you’re doing, rethink it.”
“Can’t,” I texted back. “She’s only going to get hurt if I stay.”
I returned my phone to my pocket and hurried down the stairs to the gym. It took me a few moments to shove two hunting knives, a Glock, a Berretta, and a set of brass knuckles into a duffle bag. I contemplated the collection and then added a handful of cable-ties, a short length of heavyweight chain, and a butterfly knife.
Rufie wouldn’t be as easy to deal with as Kitchner and Dewey.
Loaded up, I returned to the living room just as my phone vibrated again in my pocket.
I read the new message from Lila.
“Francis and Fluffy will be there in 5. I’m assuming you’re not going to wait for them? Does Veronica know you’re going? Is she expecting them? If nothing else, please leave her a note asking her not to attempt to shoot them.”
Note. Yeah, I needed to at least let Ronnie know about Francis and Fluffy.
Chest tight, I scribbled one out, filling her in as well as I could without taking too long. The longer it took me to leave, the higher chance there was I wouldn’t.
I finished the note with, “Remember, Ronnie, I will love you to the day I die,” knowing that day might be sooner than I’d ever thought.
Gut churning, I fixed the note to the fridge door with a Doctor Winchester Animal Clinic magnet, and then turned to look up in the direction of our bedroom.
“She is going to be fucking pissed,” I muttered, trying not to think about Ronnie’s reaction when she found the note, and when she came face to face with the two Fs.
With resignation born from both guilt and determination I slung my duffle bag over my shoulder and made my way to the garage.
Ronnie’s clapped-out Camaro sat between the Ferrari and Aston Martin. For a second, I considered taking it. Driving it to my destination would be one way of prolonging my life with her, even if it was in the most disconnected way.
