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“You change your last name?” Colin slings back. “Last time I checked, you’re a Donnelly too.”
“Yeah, I am.” Tightness grips my chest, and I suck harder on the cigarette.
“You think they’ll chew you up and spit you out like the rest of us?” Colin asks, leaning forward.
I blow smoke right at his face.
Colin snaps. He shoots forward out of his chair, grips the back of my head—my hair pinched between his fingers. I’m bent over the table, and I jerk against his clutch. I’m stronger but he hoists his cigarette near my eye. So I go deathly still. “They’re not gonna do shit to us,” Colin sneers. “We’ll keep coming back—we always come back.”
“What do you want?” I grit out.
“We need money.” He’s twitchy. “You’re gonna get it for us.”
I glare. “I’m already giving my paycheck to Scottie. Take it up with him.”
“You have connections—”
“I work for a security firm. I don’t talk to anyone,” I lie. “They barely tolerate me when I do.”
“Bullshit.”
“If I could ask for money, I wouldn’t be counting pennies for a coffee while Scottie’s getting everything I earn and spending it on commissary and extra telephone calls.” Of course I wouldn’t tell them I got a raise.
I’m trying, trying, to show him that I’m just a bodyguard. Faceless, nameless in a hierarchy of security that come and go.
That’s all I was ever supposed to be.
And then he says, “You’re dating Beckett Cobalt.”
Fuck me. “I’m not. That’s a rumor.”
“Why’s his name tattooed on your ankle, then?”
I’m an inch from Colin’s face and I grit out, “So is Tom’s name.” I don’t mention Xander’s name, the newest tattoo of the bunch. “They’ve been my clients. They’re not friends.”
“Beckett is differe—”
“It’s fake,” I cut him off.
“Honestly, I don’t care if you fucked Beckett, dated him, made snow angels together in the fucking winter. You need to steal something from him that we’re going to sell—”
“I’m not.”
“It’s a—”
“I’M NOT!” I yell, jerking hard out of his grip. He snuffs the cigarette on my shoulder, skin searing, and I slap him across the face with a stiff palm.
He swings.
I duck, body trembling in rage, in sheer will to hang on, and I spin towards the sink and collect my clothes. Why did I go for a bitch slap?
I have no idea.
His face is reddened from the smack. His jaw clenching and unclenching, and it takes something so deep inside of me not to bolt out that door. I stay in the kitchen and prove that I’m not afraid of him.
Colin is one person, but he speaks for so many that I feel myself facing every family member.
“You need time to think, then think this over,” Colin says slowly. “We’ll talk later.”
“I made my decision, Colin. I’m not the family’s piggybank and gateway to cash so you all can get high and keep a roof over your head while you’re doin’ it. You fuck with my job and these families, and I’ll be the one making sure you’re behind bars. End of discussion.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s not a birthday wish.”
He lifts his chin again, scratching at a scab on his jaw. “You think they’d fire you if they found out you were talking to me?” He hoists his phone and suddenly snaps a photo of me. In his kitchen. In his girlfriend’s robe. “It’s saved to the cloud. Don’t try to break my phone.”
I go still. “You plan to send that to my boss?”
“Or you could just steal something from Beckett. Hell, have him help you. Get him to sign his underwear. That’d go for a grand, at least.”
I grind my teeth and shake my head.
They can blackmail me, if they want. I’d rather they fucked over my job, my life, than hurt anyone else. “I won’t,” I say again.
“Then the picture goes out.”
“Then I’m fired and no longer allowed access to Beckett’s apartment.”
“You’re his boyfriend—”
“I’m nothing!” I shout, and I hate that because I know I’m something. I am someone to people, and I am more than this family who did nothing for me. “You risk what you wanna risk. I’m out.”
Colin watches me toss away his girlfriend’s robe and put on my soaked clothes. My feet squish in my boots.
We say nothing else before I leave. And I realize, I’m worse off than when I showed up. Loren Hale doesn’t trust me much, and if he knows I’m talking with my family, that photo might just be the nail in my coffin.
I thought I’d be able to scare my cousin about the power that the Hales, Meadows, and Cobalts possess.
But cockroaches aren’t afraid of much. I should know.
I am one.
With a sinking feeling in my chest and a cigarette-singed shoulder, I drive to the Hale House. Don’t have time to go to the penthouse and change. Didn’t add “getting soaked” into today’s plan.
