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I nod at Legacy and shove my hand, middle finger raised, out my window before rolling it back up, and I drive back to the clubhouse.
I quietly join the other guys who are working on the extension to the clubhouse. A couple ask me how Lennox is doing, but no one voices their own opinions. We all seem content to just get lost in our own thoughts as we work.
Chapter 37
Lennox
“You don’t have to apologize again,” I tell Sophia, the best smile I can manage tugging at my lips. If she only knew how uncomfortable people wanting forgiveness makes me feel.
“I’m not doing it because I’m bragging or anything,” she says, handing me a glass of iced soda, her hands immediately going to her rounded belly.
We were in high school at the same time, but here she is married with a grown stepson, another young son, and she’s pregnant again.
I’m not usually one to gauge my life against others, but we’re not in the same place in our lives despite our closeness in age. I can’t help but wonder which one of us made the right decision.
“I didn’t think you were,” I assure her, wishing she would drop the subject altogether.
I think I knew deep in my gut before she showed up at my house yelling that no one connected to Cerberus is capable of doing what Joey Dixon did. I also think I knew Sawyer wasn’t.
“Sawyer is a good man,” I say, knowing I believe it deep inside and I’m not just saying it because I think it’s what she wants to hear.
Him being a good man is a lot of the reason why I slunk out of the hotel room this morning without looking back.
My life is an utter fucking mess. My connection to Dixon got Sawyer drugged, got Rochelle and Elizabeth killed. One of their own in the hospital fighting for his life. I got so many people hurt, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the guilt of that.
The least I could do is leave that man alone no matter how much the thought of doing so squeezes my heart like a fist.
“So you and Sawyer?”
I stare past her at a spot on the wall. I’d much rather talk about my attack and the fact that, although justified, I killed someone. Granted he deserved to die in a much more brutal manner, but I was sort of in a time crunch situation.
I thought by leaving Sawyer earlier today that was the resolution, but it only feels more complicated now that I’m here.
I doubt words would’ve helped so I didn’t use any. He’s an astute man. He’ll figure it out.
Maybe then he can enlighten me because it felt like the right thing to do and for some reason now it doesn’t. I blame my head and the erratic chaos of my life. It’s another reason I don’t need my complications to cause him problems.
“There’s no Sawyer and me,” I mutter when it seems she’s got more patience than I first thought. She’s not going to drop it with only my silence. “Tell me about Dennis Milton and his brother.”
I expect her to snap her head back, refuse to speak about him with the understanding that I don’t want to talk about any of this shit either.
She gives me a soft smile.
“It was hard coming back here after he held us hostage,” she says.
Sophia, her stepson, Rick, and his best friend now husband, Landon, were taken hostage in this very home when she and Colton first started dating. The man who showed up at the house that night was deranged, wanting to kill his brother who was in police custody for killing a woman he loved in a fit of rage. A series of bad decisions and drugs brought him here, his mind telling him he could trade the brother that was in custody for murder for the three hostages he took.
“I only felt safe when Colton was around. Even the weapons training that I’d done since childhood didn’t stop the cold chills. I wouldn’t answer the door if someone was on the porch. The people in my life got used to calling or texting before showing up because the doorbell gave me anxiety. We started having packages delivered to the clubhouse because a random shadow crossing the front door had the power to make me hyperventilate.”
I swallow as she describes my future.
“You didn’t think about moving?”
“And let a dead man win? Let him continue to have control over me?” She shakes her head. “We made adjustments until things got easier, but Colton raised his son in this home. We couldn’t let Milton take that from us, but that was what we thought was best for us. You may not feel the same way.”
I look down at my hands as I consider how I’d feel going back to the house I was attacked in.
