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“Absolutely not.”
“Good, because what you seem to fail to realize is that being connected to me has been a lot more dangerous for you than the reverse of that,” she said, stepping away from me to look around the mostly-empty room. “Have you not been kidnapped twice? Did you not get shot? Always because of some shit I was into.” She stopped at the door to a little screened-in balcony, looking out. “I’m really not worried about your enemies. I think the more pressing issue may bemine.”
“I’m not sure they’re so different,” I told her, stepping beside her with a heavy sigh. “It’s quiet right now. I’m not sure why. But the quiet before a storm only lasts so long. I can’t shake the feeling that things are about to get chaotic. The enemies I have… I can’t let them linger any more. I’ve got business to finish.”
“Renard Belrose?”
I nodded. “I want Etienne to know I ended Renard, and I want him to live with it, afraid that he’s next—because he is.”
“Because of what they did to your mother or because you think they killed Jesse?”
“Both,” I answered, pulling the door open for her so she could actually see, instead of craning her neck to peer out. “There’s blanks in that situation that I can’t fill because most of the people involved aren’t here to answer the necessary questions,” I explained as we stepped out.
I thought she just wanted a peek, but instead she dropped onto the bench seat, so… I joined her.
“Let me ask,” she said, slipping her hand through mine to link fingers. “Why did youreallycome to Vegas? And donottell me it was to kill your father. Because the more I think about that, the more it feels like something you’ve told yourself to avoid the actual truth.”
I raised my eyebrows. “And what do you think is the truth?”
“I think you wanted totalkto him. I think you wanted tomeethim. I think you wanted to understand,” she explained. “I think you wanted answers, and closure, and… some type of connection. I think you wantedfamily, Onyx. And I think that’s why you’re still here,” she murmured, leaning into my shoulder as she met my gaze. “I think that’s why you stuck around Vegas, I think it’s why you connected yourself to Brandon, to me. I think that’s why you were so willing to help us find who was responsible forThe Fall.”
I… didn’t like what she was saying.
Didn’t like how the words made me feel.
Didn’t like how the unexamined truth of them made my skin crawl.
Was she right?
Had I pinned everything onI want to kill Jesse Garrettto avoid some sort of guilt aboutreallywanting something completely different from him?
Tati’s fingers flexed against mine. “I don’t think you want that answer because they took away your opportunity for vengeance. ’Cause if you just wanted Jesse dead? Him being dead would have been enough.” She shrugged. “Whoever killed Jesse Garrett took the chance for something so much deeper than revenge from you, and… I thinkyou thinkit’s bad to admit what youreallywanted, because it feels like a betrayal of your mother, to have wantedanythingbut death from him.”
I sat back, pulling my hand from hers as I glared at the night sky. “What is it you think I want so bad?”
“Love.”
My frown deepened. “What?”
“Not in like… the corny sense.” She laughed. “Not…onlyin that sense,” she corrected herself. “I think you want—need—connection, and family, and… yeah…love. Platonic and otherwise.”
I shook my head. “I… can’t…shit.”
“Can’t what? Accept that about yourself?” She let out a huff. “I’d suggest you try, ’cause… it’s a fact, whether you can accept it or not. Weallneed that. And most of us actually deserve it too. Even you. No matter who the fuck tried to convince you otherwise.”
I chuckled. “What is happening right now?” I asked. “There’s so much shit we could be focused on.Bettershit to focus on than this.”
“Is there?”
“ThePredatorsare on the verge of war with Manuel Rojas, and I’ve got revenge to take on the head of a snake that just seems to keep growing back, so… I’d say so.”
“Hm.” Before she replied, Tati pushed up from her seat, moving so that she was straddling my lap instead of sitting beside me. I’d been trying valiantly to ignore the part of me that wanted this closeness with her, but it was impossible to now with her scent filling my nose and her lips so close to my damn face.
“I think…” she murmured, moving in even closer, “that’s evenmorereason to have a moment like this. Cause what if it’s the last one?”
“Cause Blue might kill my ass over you?”
She giggled. “Maybe. I doubt it, though. He’ll get over it,” she said, with this subtle rock of her hips that made the heat from her pussy feel even more prominent in my lap.
