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At least Romeo and Juliet had the whole mutual love thing going on before they killed themselves.
“I don’t need a warrant,” he said. “Got a tip.”
I raised my brow. “A tip?” Disbelief saturated my tone.
He nodded once. “From a concerned citizen.”
I put my hand on my hip. “A concerned citizen? Give me a fucking break, Luke.” I paused, anger seeping out of me as quickly as it had inflated me. “When are you going to stop this? Can’t you just let them be? Can’t you just….” I caught myself before saying what I had been going to say. Which would’ve not only labeled me weak and pathetic, but a traitor to my family.
Can’t you just notice me? Like really notice? Take a second to realize that I’m more than Rosie, the little sister of the man you hate, and remember that I’m the Rosie you’ve shared those stolen moments with. The ones you do your best to forget as soon as they’ve happened.
Something changed in his expression, a softening at the edges, a shimmering depth in those eyes that had been so full of ice before. Giving me a glimpse of it, what my mind had asked for but what I was sure I hadn’t said out loud.
“Can’t I just what?” he said, little more than a whisper, stepping toward me so I inhaled clean linen and peppermint.
Luke scent.
He even smelled different.
But then, as moments that shouldn’t be usually are, it was broken. Exactly the way moments were broken in my life.
With a dead body.
Okay, maybe not most moments in a normal person’s life, but it had been established just how far from normal I was.
“Can’t you just—” My words were cut off when my eyes wandered, too cowardly to meet Luke’s eyes. “Oh my God,” I choked out, my voice half–broken, half of it trying to remember to keep my shit together.
Luke was immediately on guard at my exclamation. He knew I didn’t have an affinity to calling out things dramatically, and I guessed my face was painted in a look of horror.
“What?” he demanded, hand on the butt of his gun.
I didn’t answer, just skirted around him, sprinting toward the motorcycle boots just barely visible behind the car parked in the lot. And the thin, almost invisible but unmistakable stream of liquid trickling past the boots.
Blood. It had to be a lot of it for it to travel that far.
Obviously why Luke hadn’t noticed on his approach; his angle meant he didn’t see them, and then he’d been distracted by me.
The few seconds it took to make it to the body were the longest of my life. Those motorcycle boots were the unofficial uniform of the Sons of Templar. Everyone wore them, some with variations. The only person I could rule out was Gage, since he had those cowboy spikes on the back of his. I would say only for decoration but I’d be lying.
In those few seconds, I listed all the people those boots could belong to, each choice more horrifying than the last. Every single choice was a bullet to my heart, the thought of losing someone else in our family unthinkable.
I skidded to a stop, going to my knees in the puddle of blood beside the man who had long left this world. There was no saving him. Not with half of his head gone.
My white dress pooled around me, getting stained in blood.
That’s why I don’t wear white, I thought with detachment. Bloodstains.
My shaking hand went to what was left of his forehead.
“Oh, Skid,” I whispered, a single tear trailing down my cheek. Skid was a kid. A prospect only a few weeks shy of getting his cut. He was quiet but as loyal as they came. He’d been taking care of my friend and Lucky’s woman, Bex, for as long as she’d been in trouble with drug dealers and an abusive ex-boyfriend. After she was kidnapped, raped, and beaten by those very men. He was never far from her side, and to this day, meant to be on her protection duty.
My heart dropped about the second Luke’s bellowed, “Rosie!” preceded him coming to Skid’s other side, gun out.
I glanced up at his blank face, regarding the dead body and then me.
I gently closed Skid’s opened eyes. “He’s dead,” I said quietly, pushing up from my spot, wiping the blood from my hands on my already-ruined dress.
The smell of blood and death danced in the air with Luke’s clean scent, polluting it. It was an ugly poetic example of just how vast our differences were.
“Rosie, I need you to get in my patrol car, lock yourself in and call for backup,” he instructed, his voice cold, eyes scanning the empty parking lot for signs of a threat.
I wanted to laugh and tell him just how similar to Cade he looked doing that. But he wouldn’t appreciate that, so I settled for saying something he’d appreciate even less.
