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He nodded. “Chase told me. I was contemplating how to break it to you, but it’s good you already know.”
“Yes. Angel called me.”
He stiffened a little at Angel’s name but said nothing.
“Wait, Chase told you?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How much do you really trust your brother?” I asked.
He paused, considering my question.
“With my life,” he responded confidently, his gaze meeting mine.
“Should you? What if he’s the one orchestrating this entire situation?”
“It’s not Chase,” he said. “But there’s something I’m not seeing. Come on, let’s eat.”
I sighed, resigned, and then went to him. He tucked me into his arms.
But the moment I got one whiff of the stir-fry, a wave of nausea suddenly hit me, and I threw up all over the floor.
24
CHRIS
“You okay?” Emily asked.
It was the first time she’d spoken up during the entire ride, and I glanced at her. It seemed she was now less pale than she had been back in the living room.
But it still did nothing to remove the fear sawing through my psyche.
From the moment I saw her throw up and then drop to the floor, fear had been my constant companion. Even as I caught her and carried her into the bathroom, it was there. It was there when I held her through the racking heaves that nearly racked her body, sending it forward each time. I’d had to hold her tightly to keep her steady, absorbing most of the force into my own body.
All the while, there was a growing unease that something was terribly wrong with her.
The unease was still there now as she glanced at me again, probably noting the fact that I hadn’t replied to her question.
“It’s probably just food poisoning from yesterday,” she said, trying to reassure me.
“We ate the same food,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but maybe my stomach is more sensitive than yours.”
I shook my head. It hadn’t been a problem yesterday, and she didn’t even seem all too sick this morning. But now that I thought about it, I noticed she looked tired yesterday, and she had gone to sleep early the day before that too. I didn’t know what was going on, but I didn’t like it, and I had a feeling something very bad was wrong.
Just when I was relaxing and coming to terms with having feelings for a woman, this had to happen. Of course.
Throughout my life, I’d always sensed that I just wasn’t meant to be happy.
I wasn’t the superstitious type, but maybe there were forces at play preventing me from ever finding joy and peace and other softer emotions.
Usually, the moment I started settling into any kind of contentment, things would go wrong for me. My father hated me for most of my life, except a few years before his death. I wasn’t sure why, but he started asking for me more often and showing signs of regret for how he’d treated me.
And just when I was getting around to forgiving him and making my peace with the entire thing, he died of a heart attack.
Then there was everything else. After years of work, when Revit Renewables was reaching its peak as a company, Dom died. And after I finally resolved to leave The Brotherhood behind once and for all, some bastard was out there framing me for murder.
