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“Why would they send you of all people?” My brows furrowed in confusion, glancing between the two of them.
“We lost contact for a year or so, because honestly it was hard sometimes not to think of you when we saw each other,” Kellan explained, his lips curving down into a frown. The few inches between us felt like miles at this point. I wanted to curl into his side like I’d done so many times before, resting my feet on Merrick’s lap and reassuring them with my presence, but I couldn’t.
I hated that I got between them like that, made them unable to maintain their friendship because thinking of me was such a heavy weight on their chests.
“I’ll be honest, Giana. We were both fucked up for a long time. We were reckless, fell in with the wrong crowds, even turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain,” Kellan murmured, his words cutting deep. I pulled in a ragged breath but refused to let anything else show. I wanted to know the truth and this was it. Raw and real, they were holding nothing back, and I had to respect that for what it was.
“I went to Kellan and told him about what the Demon Riders had planned and that’s when he told me about his theory,” Merrick said, glancing off to the side and refusing to meet my gaze. His mouth pulled down into a deep frown.
“We weren’t able to see past what you’d done after graduation, enough to really put the pieces together. Our anger had clouded our vision. But things didn’t add up,” Kellan explained, playing with the hem of his hoodie. “But after a few years some of that haze had cleared and despite how hard I tried to find the signs, that you were slipping away from us because you loved him—”
A rumble emanated from Merrick’s chest at that, cutting off Kellan’s explanation for a moment before he continued.
“—but I couldn’t. There were signs that something wasn’t right, that you were hiding it from us. But not that your feelings had changed.”
“Honestly, I wasn’t as convinced. I hadn’t had that moment of clarity yet, but I decided to trust my old friend,” Merrick huffed out on a sorrowful sigh, and I could almost tell by the far-off look he got that he’d wished he could go back to that moment and change his outlook.
“So we came up with a plan; instead of working for the gangs, instead of fearing them, we would take them over,” Kellan declared with a steely glint in his gaze. “There were enough people that we knew who weren’t happy with the small gangs or living with being second to the Barones that we gained allies and started taking them over one by one.”
“The last one was the Demon Riders. They were by far the largest gang of all of them and the most prominent to Angelo and his men,” Merrick explained. “So we knew if they went missing, questions would come up about who had taken them out.”
“So we made a deal,” Kellan announced. “We let them live and in exchange, the older members and leaders would still wear the crest on their backs, still act like they were the ones running the show so no one in the crime family would think any differently. They’d think that the Demon Riders had run off the smaller gangs and that they were the only threat. Meanwhile, we lurked just behind the curtain, waiting until the moment we could strike.”
“And that’s when you came strolling into my bar, looking for a job,” Merrick sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face and shaking his head as he clearly replayed everything that happened that night. “It just caught me so off guard. I couldn’t help considering if we’d done this for nothing, just for you to throw it back in our faces and take off with him again.”
“How long?” I choked out, my mind still racing to piece together the snippets of their lives they’d revealed. “How long have you been planning all of this?”
“It’s been two years since we overthrew the Demon Riders and started planning to get you away from them,” Kellan admitted, pinning me with an unreadable look. “We’d originally planned to go to New York but we moved everything up once you came back.”
I pulled in a shuddering breath and let that admission play through my mind. For two years they’d been working on gathering enough force to go against the Barones, to give me the shot at fleeing, when they weren’t even sure if that was what I wanted.
“So we have to know, Giana. Were we right? Did you have a reason for leaving us the way you did? Or did you leave because you had feelings for him and it just recently turned bad?” Kellan pleaded, his eyes creasing with pain. Clearly he knew either way would splinter his heart. “It won’t change anything; we’re still going to help you either way—”
“We just need to know,” Merrick blurted, like he had already figured it out but just needed to hear the words come from my lips. I wished I could lie, to ease some of that guilt weighing heavily on his shoulders but I couldn’t. I owed it to them after all this time to clear the air and tell them the truth.
I’d only told Sophia about how Tommaso had treated me, what he did to others to keep me in line, and what he’d nearly done to me. I hadn’t told her all the details about how I got to New York in the first place. That would’ve put her in even more danger and I couldn’t do that. Not when telling her the small amount I had already put her in peril.
“It all started with those texts, two weeks before my eighteenth birthday,” I breathed, the words floating out of me and freeing me like a boulder being shifted from my chest. “Reminding me of a deal I’d made two years before.”
Tears sprung to my eyes at the admission, something I never wanted to do. I never wanted Merrick to know that this all stemmed from that day. Merrick sucked in a sharp breath; his lips pressed together in a thin line as he pieced what had happened just after my sixteenth birthday.
“You got into that fight with Tommaso, trying to keep him away from me,” I paused, swallowing down the lump that had formed in my throat. I kept my eyes focused on my lap, my fingers curling.
Tommaso was two years older than us and a few months before he was about to graduate, he took an interest in me. He would follow me home, lurk at the diner until I got off … I was mildly interested in the fantasy of him but had made it clear I wouldn’t go out with him. Despite everything, my heart had always laid with my two friends, even before I’d realized it.
“And after the police took you away, he showed up at my house that night,” I said, not letting my voice falter, not even with the muttered curses leaving Merrick’s lips. “We made a deal, I had to go out with him when I turned eighteen, and in exchange he wouldn’t get his guys in the prison to jump you.”
“If I’d known—” Merrick blurted, but I cut him off, my head whipping to look at him.
“If you’d known you would’ve gone after him and he would’ve killed you and just forced me to do it anyway. He would’ve threatened me with Kellan’s life next. That’s the kind of person he is, Merrick,” I exclaimed, taking and clasping his hands in my own. The motion drew his gaze up to meet mine. “He gave the illusion of choice, had kept it up for over two years, but it had always been his plan.”
“We could’ve helped,” Kellan said weakly, as though he wanted to believe it but knew deep down there was nothing they could’ve done at the time that would’ve kept Tommaso away. If we’d killed him, his family would’ve destroyed us. Hell, we were just kids, barely eighteen.
“No, you couldn’t have,” I said with a sad smile. “I’d honestly hoped he’d forgotten about it all after leaving for college. So much so I had completely wiped it from my mind, grateful that you were still alive.”
“So that’s why you always convinced me not to go after him,” Merrick mused, and I nodded. We both knew that it was suicide to go after the Barones then, but it was as though I had to keep reminding him of that since they hadn’t come after him before.
“I guess I should’ve told you then, at least about his threat,” I admitted, my fingers clammy in his and sweat beaded on my brow. I hadn’t imagined this would be so difficult. “But I knew I’d have to admit the deal I’d made with him then and I just couldn’t. I didn’t want you to have any more reason to go after him.”
