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“I want you to trust me!” My heart thunders in my chest. “I want you to be my brother again. I want you to stop looking at me like I’ve committed the worst of all betrayals, when I know, Iknow,you’d have done the same in the same situation.”
“I would not have lied to you!” He stomps forward, his honeycomb eyes firing with a rage I’ve never seen in them before. “I wouldnothave let you try to solve a case I committed! I would have, at the very least, told the captain we couldn’t take the case. Got us both out of there. But no, you had me walking around like a dickhead, trying to solve something we didn’t want solved.”
“Youaccepted Fentone’s file,” I growl. “Youdid that, without asking me. And if I’d told you to toss it, you’d have demanded to know why.”
“Which is where you tell me the fuckin’ truth, so we’re on the same page!”
“You.” I shove him backward. “Don’t have spousal privilege!” And again, so his shoulder thuds into the doorframe. “You would have had to tell the captain—which,” I slam him back again, and his head raps against the wall. “Is what you did anyway! Now tell me I was wrong for keeping that from you.”
“Arch—”
“Tell me I was wrong!”
“Youwerewrong!” His chest heaving, and his nostrils flaring, he stares deep into my eyes and works through the turmoil pulsing through his brain. “I’m not mad she did what she did,” he rasps finally. “I’m hurt you kept it from me.”
“And we’ve already discussed why I did that.” Exhausted, I turn my back on him and snatch up the bag I’ve already started packing, then I head back to the dresser drawers and continue stuffing things inside.
“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, Fletch. I am. But I did what a man does to protect the woman he loves.” I shove the drawer closed and move to the next. “I can’t be sorry for that. I won’t apologize, and if you wanna throw our friendship away for something I know you’d handle in the exact same way, then I guess we were never truly brothers to begin with.”
“I didn’t throw us away.” He steps up on my right and takes things from my bag; I set shirts in, he takes them out. Jeans in, jeans out. “I was working through my shit, while dealing with Jada in my fucking home, and Mia, who is so traumatized by her mother’s actions, she can’t be near her, but also dealing with Jada throwing a tantrum over the fact her daughter has trust issues.”
He steals stacks of money—literal stacks—from my bag. “Althoughyourworld revolves around Delicious,minedoesn’t. Mine revolves around a little girl who turns four today. And her mom isn’t taking my calls, her uncle is fleeing the country, her aunt is stoned off her head and talking to the cat, and Sera is somehow the nicest person in our group.”
He removes a gun from my bag and demands, “What that fuck is happening to us that Seraphina Lewis is the nice one?”
“Robbing banks isso cliché,” Minka drawls from her end of the apartment. “Like, seriously. They’re not gonna hand over money that easily.”
I snort and replace the gun Fletch unpacked.
“Mia is my whole fucking world,” he repeats. “My baby. And Fentone was gonna hurt her.” Groaning, he props an elbow on the tall chest of drawers, and scrubs a hand across his face. “She would be dead right now if Delicious didn’t do what she did.”
“And yet,” I take the small bottle of perfume Minka sometimes spritzes on, and tuck it safely in our bag, “You didn’t do shit at the bank to help her.”
“I dideverythingI could. Everything! Bower was watching me, but Asa was up my ass too, barking orders. I was the fucking reason we got eyes and ears inside in the first place! I was helping the best way I knew how. But you’re so blinded by anger, you don’t see the truth.”
“What?”
“She’s such a stupid cat,” Minka chatters and sighs. “I hate her more than I hate anyone else on the planet. But my husband likes her, so I have to keep her around, ya know? And sometimes, when he’s not home, she sits in my lap. But we don’t tell him about that.” She audibly shudders. “HisI-told-you-sosmirk is infuriating.”
“You told me I was dead to you.” With his heart in his throat and emotion in his eyes, Fletch shakes his head. “You burned us to the fucking ground.”
“I thought you were putting her in danger.” My voice croaks with a pain deeper than anything I’ve experienced. Deeper than when my father killed my girlfriend when I was a teenager. Deeper than when my brothers stomped back into my life after sixteen years. “I thought you were hitting back at me by hurting her.”
“You know me better than that!” His nose wrinkles in anger. “Youknowme, Arch. So even when I’m pissed at you, I’ve still got your back. Even when I wanna kill you with my bare fucking hands, I’m not gonna let some other asshole step in and hurt you. Even when I think your wife is a slice of homicidal crazy, I’m still protecting you.Bothof you.”
“I heard she’s doing okay,” Minka murmurs conversationally. “Doctor Cleary is a badass boss babe who saves lives. And she maybe had sex with my husband one time forever ago, so he asked her to operate, and she did.” Then she quietens for a moment, so in my mind, I see her eyes narrow. “They totally slept together.”
“I didnotsleep with Cleary!” I recommence packing. Socks. Underwear.
“We’ve gotta go.” I bring my gaze back around to Fletch. “You still hurt us with that shit with the captain.” Thrusting away from the drawers, I cart my bag into the hall and stop for toothbrushes and toothpaste. “You did us dirty, Fletch.”
“You’ve gotta be in his office in an hour.” He stops at the bathroom door and pins me with a glare. “Be there at nine, or you’re fucking yourself over.”
“Asshole, I won’t even be in this state at nine.”
“I think… to rob a bank, you need a better plan. Ya know? Be ready with your weapon, know who’s inside. Because trappingme, when my husband is Archer freakin’ Malone?” Minka whistles under her breath. “Ballsy move. In the end, I’m not sure it paid off.”
“Stop talking to yourself, Mayet.” I snatch a razor and toss it into my bag, then I push into the hall again, moving toward the living room. “I just need factor packs,” I announce—for Minka? For Fletch?—“then we’re out. Oh, and…” Glancing down while I walk, I tug out a pair of Minka’s jeans. “You need to get changed, babe. It’s time to go.”
