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I have never been one to let my frustrations get the best of me, not ever in a domestic situation. In a bar fight, maybe. When someone shoulder checks one of my friends, for sure. When I’m kidnapped and have no choice, absolutely. But never with a partner.
So when my hands reach out and shove every bit of their strength into Coen’s chest, I no longer recognize myself either. Pain ripples through my left arm and if I’m not mistaken, I’ve torn one of my sutures. I lower that arm to my side because I have no other choice, and shove him again with my right. “How fucking dare you.”
I had barely moved him but he regains his footing long enough for Simon to jump around and get in front of me.
“You lay a fucking finger on her and I’ll snap your fucking neck,” Simon tells him.
“Oh, you think you’re a tough guy.” Coen pushes Simon.
Simon holds his ground and doesn’t budge. “Get your fucking hands off of me, Hayes.”
“For fuck’s sake, will you two cut it out?” Dominic slams his glass on the table.
Magnus steadies his palms on my shoulders and guides me away from the confrontation. “Come on, princess. Sit back down.”
Dominic drags his hand along his beard. “Listen, we’re all stressed, tense, whatever you want to call it. But if there is one more fucking childlike outburst, you’re out of here. Done. That’s it. I will not tolerate you disrespecting June like that.” Dom settles his serious sights on me. “But I do think you owe it to us all to let us know if you’re sleeping with Beckett.”
“Ay,” Magnus calls out. “That’s not any of our business.” He focuses on me. “You don’t have to answer that, princess.”
“I’ll answer it for her,” Simon interrupts. “You guys are the worst profilers ever. We’re not fucking. We never have. We haven’t even so much as kissed.”
“Well…” I add.
“See!” Coen exclaims. “I fucking knew it.”
“Who are you?” I crane my head toward him and then glance at Simon. “I gave you CPR when I thought you had drowned.”
Simon brings his fingers to his lips. “I had to drown to get you to kiss me?”
“It wasn’t a kiss,” I tell the entire room. “It was life or fucking death. I would have done it to a stranger.” I exhale and tug my arm toward me and hold it with my other hand. “But Magnus is right, it is none of your business. Especially now, after everything you’ve put me through. I never crossed that line with Simon because I was trying to be respectful, but it doesn’t seem we have a mutual understanding of things here. On our relationship, or my fucking life.”
I reach for the glass of bourbon across from me and down it in one gulp.
"Sit your fucking asses down before I leave," I tell Simon and Coen, but mainly Coen. "You're all fucking lucky I'm still here." I point my thumb toward the garage. "I could walk out that door and not look back but I'm here becauseIlove you. Not becauseyoulove me, but because I fucking choose to loveyou.” I skim my gaze across the room, even hovering it on Simon temporarily. “Now if you don’t want me to walk away, there can’t be any more lies. When I ask you a question, you answer it, and you answer it truthfully.”
I don’t know what’s finally gotten into me, but I’ve had enough. Enough of the lies, the deceit, the being pushed aside. This is the moment they finally show me if they actually do care, and the moment I decide what I’m going to do with that.
Leaving would be easy, but staying would be more work. Nothing good in life is ever simple, but should things really be this Goddamn difficult?
“What do you want to know, princess? I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” Magnus rubs my shoulder.
“Everything. I want to know everything. Start from the beginning.”
The guys finally settle back into their seats. Simon at my side and Coen in the chair opposite Dom's across the way.
They do their best, or what I think might be their best, in filling me in piece by piece. It's a lot of information to dish out spanning more than six months. They go over how they found the people the first time, how they thought they had eliminated the threat, and Simon even chimes in on how he was certain they had squashed the people that were responsible.
"So, hold on," I tell him. "If someone was able to orchestrate a cover-up that good, they had to be higher up in the organization, right? Since when do you not know of shit like that?" I train my sights right on Dom.
Dom nods. “Exactly. That’s why I called in Lorenzo Savini.”
“Who’s that?”
“He’s a mercenary with a specific set of skills. He knows almost every hit that gets ordered and who and where it happens. The inner details that aren’t made common knowledge.”
“Why? Why does he have all that information?”
“Because he’s that good.” Dominic drains more of his bourbon. “He can make anyone disappear. Not the type of person you want to be on their bad side.”
