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40
Knox
“She just left?”
It’s a dumb question, I guess. As soon as I got back to the house, I could tell River wasn’t in it. Her car was gone, the dog was gone, and all the little odds and ends and shit she’d left lying around the house were gone too. Plus, the energy was different. There was something about the air when she was around. Something charged, like anything could pop off, like gasoline just waiting for a match to spark and light a whole fucking inferno.
I got used to that while she was here, and it’s weird having it gone. Having her gone.
“Yeah,” Gage says. “She must’ve. She said she was going to, and all her shit is gone. Her motherfucking dog is gone. So, yes.”
It’s all the same shit I noticed, and I narrow my eyes at him a little.
“And you’re just good with that?”
Gage’s face hardens, his emotions disappearing behind that angry look he usually wears. “Why wouldn’t I be? Our arrangement is over. Ivan is out of the picture, so River is free to do whatever she wants now.”
“She didn’t even say goodbye,” I point out.
He shrugs. “So what? This was never about us being friends or sentimentality or anything. She had a job to do, and she did it. The whole thing actually worked out pretty smoothly. Since River went through that hooker, there’s almost no chance anyone will be able to connect us to Ivan’s disappearance. We were never seen with him.”
“And that’s all that matters?”
He gives me a look. “The problem is taken care of. Now we can refocus on our business and get on with shit.Allof us.”
He’s right. The arrangement was that she would leave when the job was done, and the job is done. I’m the one he sent after her in the first place to make sure she couldn’t run away before she took care of St. James. But even knowing that, it still feels wrong. Like there’s something under my skin that’s different from the usual shit. Like when you eat a meal, and at the end you’re still hungry. Unsatisfied.
I look at Ash and Priest, who are both standing in the kitchen with us. Neither of them have said anything about coming home to find out River had already left. Like they don’t even care.
Ash is doing his fiddly shit, like fucking always, turning a coin over and over again in his fingers. Priest just stands there, arms folded, looking like a piece of wood for all the feeling I can read from him.
“Are you two good with this?” I ask them, trying to get them talking, at least. See where their heads are at.
Ash shrugs, flipping the coin faster. He doesn’t look happy, but he’s not going to say anything about it in front of Gage, apparently. “Gage isn’t wrong. The problem is solved, and that was always the arrangement.”
“I know what the fucking arrangement was, Ash,” I snap.
He just shrugs again, clamming up. However he feels, I’m not getting anything else out of him.
There’s nothing from Priest at all, who’s locked down so tight that nothing’s coming through. He looks at me like he couldn’t give less of a shit and doesn’t say a fucking word.
Now the restless, unsatisfied feeling in me turns to anger. No one seems to give a fuck that River’s gone. Like it didn’t even matter that she was there in the first place.
I want to hit someone or break something, but I settle for kicking over one of kitchen chairs, letting it crash to the floor with a loud clatter.
“What the fuck, Knox?” Gage snaps, but I turn and storm out, hands fisted at my sides.
“Where the hell are you going?” he calls after me.
“To find someone to fuck up,” I snarl back.
“Why?”
“Because I fucking feel like it.”
I let the front door slam behind me, not giving a shit what that looks like or sounds like to our neighbors. That putting on a good front shit is all Gage, and I’m too keyed up to care right now.
My momentum carries me all the way to my car, and I get in, slamming that door too. The window rattles, and it feels good to make noise and give something physical to the whirlwind of emotions in me right now.
