AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Reid’s eyes turn on me. There’s a stark warning lingering in them, but I don’t take it seriously, despite the fact I probably should. Both my husband and I are now rocking extra holes in our bodies, thanks to him.
I keep my eyes on his, letting him see my indifference to his silent threats. And finally, after a few minutes, he grabs JD by his upper arm and shoves him toward the door.
“Wait, I don’t—”
“Go,” Reid barks, refusing to listen to any excuse JD might have to stay.
I stay where I am until the door clicks closed behind them, and then I’m on my feet, rushing toward the TV screen.
“Mav,” I sob quietly as my tears resurface, flooding my eyes and spilling over my lashes. My fingers lift and I trail them across his skin, wishing I could feel the warmth of it. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
He’s here because of me.
He’s been shot because of me.
The guilt over that realization is almost too much to withstand. My knees give out and I crash into the dresser beneath the TV before sinking to the floor where I crumble.
* * *
Imust cry myself to sleep, because when I crack my sore, swollen eyes open again sometime later, I’m still on the floor where I fell.
Looking up, I find Mav still in the same position as he was earlier, only now, he looks to be sleeping although his body seems tense, his muscles locked up tight. He’s shirtless, wearing only a pair of jeans, exposing the ink he has on his chest with one arm resting over his stomach, the other lying on the cot beside him.
I focus on the large white bandage covering his shoulder. A lump of emotion crawls up my throat, it’s so huge I struggle to breathe around it.
My hands tremble with my need to go down there, to free him, to tell him to go and get on with his life and forget all about me.
But it’s pointless.
He’s here for me. He came for me.
Just like he always promised he would.
And look where he’s ended up.
Self-hatred like I’ve never known before poisons my veins, forcing me to curl in on myself in an attempt to hold it together.
This wasn’t how it was all supposed to go.
When Victor propositioned me with a job, I didn’t fight it. It wasn’t just because I knew I didn’t have a choice. When Victor Harris tells you to jump, the only thing you can ask, if you want him to spare your life is, how high? It wasn’t just because he threatened Mav, which would have been enough to have me agreeing in a heartbeat, because no one goes after my husband and gets away with it. But it gave me a chance to infiltrate his inner circle. And for us to implement some kind of plan to take them all down, we needed intel, badly.
We knew they were all corrupt, drug-dealing murderers. But with Victor having every single cop and influential person in this town under his control, getting anything to stick was going to be a challenge.
We needed something bigger than what we already had. Something so much bigger and has enough evidence that it couldn’t be ignored.
It’s just a shame I never really found anything of use.
It was coming. I could sense it.
I just never expected the turning point to end up being this.
Reid Harris.
I think about the things he said, the anger he’s shown toward his father that no one on the outside ever gets to witness.
As far as the rest of Harrow Creek is concerned, Reid is Victor Harris’s little protégé. He toes the line and does the job that Victor expects from him.
But it’s not true.
