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“We wanted our wingman,” Brad adds. “Up for it?”
“Yes, I’m up for it.” I need a change of scenery. Something to take my mind off this pain. “Give me five and I’ll be ready.” I look around the room to the endless people, literally every member of this fucked-up family. “I’m naked under these sheets.”
The girls scatter like ants, all bar Beau, of course, and the men casually leave, heading down to the office. I whip the covers back and shift my legs off the side of the bed.
“No!” Beau puts herself in front of me, adamant in her stance.
I lean forward and bury my face in between her shirt-covered boobs, getting a hit of her natural smell, my hands sliding to her arse and holding it.
“James,” she pleads, holding my head. “It’s too soon.”
“Doc said I need to get on my feet.” I look up at her. “I’m walking down to the office, Beau, that’s all.”
“To have a meeting with a man who sent someone into my hospital room while I was unconscious to kill me.”
“It’s all water under the bridge,” I say, making her laugh out loud. “I’m not joking.” I’ve thought about this endlessly. I’ll never be his best mate, but I have to accept that he has made moves, shared information, that has gotten us to the end. A few bullet holes to boot, but we’re at the end. “It’s over, Beau,” I whisper. “Now we get to enjoy the light.”
She shakes her head but smiles, smoothing over my face. “You’re about to go downstairs and negotiate a deal on some guns.”
We both accepted quite a while ago that this is our life. We just need to make it as easy as possible, and that is what we’re doing. Setting the bar. Defending the bar. “We’ve risen,” I whisper. “We cannot fall.”
Her eyes scan mine, and she lowers her lips, kissing me softly. Delicately. It’s the lightest kiss we’ve ever shared. “Come on,” she says around my lips. “Before something else rises.”
I jerk with my burst of laughter, hissing, wincing. “Jesus.” Every muscle feels like it could snap, they’re so tight. “It’s too late, anyway.” I take her hand and lead it to my groin, and her eyes widen.
“Thatdefinitelyisn’t happening.”
I won’t argue. The last thing I want to do is have sex like an old man. And that thought alone makes me determined to recover. I stand from the bed.
“Take it easy,” Beau snaps, staggering back.
“I need to brush my teeth.” I take one step. Another. “Good God,” I hiss with each move, my muscles protesting, but they’re never going to loosen up if I stay in bed rotting away. Break through the pain. It’s another pain on top of my endless injuries.
But nothing compared to the agony of Beau’s despair.
She walks me to the bathroom, insists on brushing my teeth, helps me into some sweats—no suit—and the whole time I watch her, fascinated by how light her dark eyes appear.
I strain to lift my arms when she helps me into my T-shirt. “You’re too thin,” she muses, pulling the material down my torso. She pauses at the bandages covering two new bullet wounds.
“I can put on weight,” I point out, forcing her to look up at me. We stare for a long, long time. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Signs that she’s not okay? Because how the fuck could she be after everything that’s happened? Her mum, for fuck’s sake. All this time, her mum. If there’s one thing I’ve given a lot of thought to during my time of forced convalescence, it’s her mum.
“It was the payday we needed toward our retirements. I really wasn’t expecting backlash of such monumental proportions. No one on the estate was supposed to be left alive.It was easy money.”Slaughtering my family had been foreasy money.She played the game well. I’ve always known Jaz Hayley knew who I was. Where I’d come from. What I’ve done. After she ‘died’ in the explosion the night I saved Beau, she as The Bear could never reveal that she knew who The Enigma was. Because only Jaz Hayley knew who The Enigma was. She had to move her pieces with precision and care if she was going to keep her true identity secret. Hence the safety deposit box. She devised a plan to have the box compromised so my identity would be exposed without risking her own being discovered.
Every time I’ve thought about it, I’ve wanted to scream. I’ve wanted to kill her. Slowly. I hate that Beau mourned her mother’s death for so long. Hate that she will forever have killing her own mother on her conscience. It should have been me. But then I consider what revenge did to my soul, and how black it became. Because of Beau, hatred no longer rules me. She set me free. Allowed me to rise.
So, really, it had to be Beau to end The Bear.
Besides, I got to end The Snake and endless other Irish fuckers, so I guess it’s an even playing field.
Beau feels my chest, her cheeks brightening. I take her hand, bringing it to my mouth, and kiss her ring. “I’m okay,” she whispers, feeling my chest, the color in her cheeks seeming to increase by the minute.
She’s okay.
Finally.
Beau leads me to the bed, sits me down, and puts my trainers on. I get an even more potent hit of the peace radiating through the house once I’m in the corridor.
Our walk down to the office is slow, but with every step, my muscles give a little more and the effort lessens. “Okay?” she asks, as we take the stairs, looking up at me.
