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“If they do, the Reapers will stop them,” I tell her confidently.
Maddoc, Dante, and Logan have already proven that they’ll protect us, and I know they’ve also arranged to have a whole contingent of their gang members escort us to the meeting with the estate manager. We’ll be safe… I hope.
Chloe’s shoulders relax as she takes me at my word, but I can tell something is still on her mind.
“What?”
She bites her lip for a second, then blurts, “I know it’s what we talked about before but things have changed, right? Are you really still okay just leaving all this behind?”
“Leaving what behind,” I joke, “our shitty apartment? Stripping? Because you know I can do that anywhere, and now I won’t even have to anymore unless I want to do it for fun.”
“No, that part will be nice,” Chloe says, shaking her head. “But I meant… these guys. The Reapers. Can you really leave them now? I can see that something’s going on with all of you.”
My heart lurches. I’ve told Chloe that things changed between me and the guys after she ran away, that I trust them, but I definitely didn’t get explicit about my feelings. She was dead passed out the other night when I fucked all three of them, but the way she’s watching me with knowing eyes right now tells me that I haven’t been as good about keeping my emotions in check as I’d hoped.
For her sake though, I need to.
I shake my head, denying how huge and intense the connection between us is.
“There’s nothing here for me,” I lie, trying to put her at ease. The last thing I want to do is have Chloe feel like I’m not going to be a hundred percent there for her as we build our new life together.
“Riley,” she starts, her eyes going soft.
“Shh,” I say, hugging her tight… partly to avoid her seeing too much truth in my face. “It’s fine. We’re leaving. It’s for the best.”
She hugs me back without pushing it, and I’m glad. It’s not that I want to hide the truth from her, because I am falling for the guys. For all three of them. And yes, a part of me wishes I could pretend things were simple enough that that means something. That circumstances were different, and we could stay here in Halston and I could see where it goes with them.
But being the Sutherland heir doesn’t change anything between Chloe and I. I’m still her big sister. I’m still determined to give her the good life she deserves. And even before we got tangled up in Halston’s dirty underbelly and caught the attention of the gangs we’d spent so many years avoiding, I knew that that better life for her wasn’t going to be here.
I can’t leave her. I won’t. And that means I need to leave Halston.
No matter how much I might wish things could be different.
47
RILEY
I spend longerthan I should staring into the darkness after Chloe falls asleep for the night. I’ve never been an indecisive person, so the fact that I’m lying in bed thinking about the three men I’m about to leave instead of actually heading downstairs to spend some final time with them is just another sign that things have gotten all jumbled up and weird.
I don’t want to leave them that way though, so I finally get fed up with myself and roll out of bed.
“Everything okay?” Maddoc asks when I silently pad into his office.
Dante and Logan are with him, all three of them clustered around his desk, and my heart starts to thump with a longing I don’t have time for. “Yeah. Fine. I was just…”
Already missing them.
“Everything’s in place for the morning, princess,” Dante says with a warm smile that just makes the idea of leaving even worse. And suddenly, I can’t stand the thought that they’ve done so much for me and don’t know—notreally, at least—how I feel about them.
“I want to give you guys some of the money,” I blurt out, which makes all three men freeze and stare at me like deer caught in the headlights. I swallow, the idea sinking in and feeling right when nothing else about leaving them does. “Tomorrow, after I claim my inheritance,” I go on, “I want to give the Reapers a cut for all your help.”
I owe them, but it’s more than that. They changed their minds about trying to force Chloe—or me now—to marry one of them so they could take it all, and that means everything.
But to my shock, Dante stays quiet, Logan’s face goes blank, and Maddoc’s gaze turns hard and flinty.
“No,” he bites out. “We’re not taking your fucking money.”
It feels like a slap.
