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“Just because she held the guy’s hand doesn’t mean there wasn’t something else going on,” he shouts back.
“Then why won’t she tell us what the hell is going on? That’s all she has to do,” I remind him.
Liam and Mikey sit down at the breakfast bar, knowing better than to get in the middle of anything between me and Conor.
“You heard Lisa. She's terrified. She was on a cocktail of fucking drugs. And then we drugged her and kidnapped her, Shane,” he says again, as though I might have forgotten this information in the last twenty seconds. “She woke up in that tiny fucking cell and who knows what the fuck she was thinking. And you wonder why she wouldn’t talk to you? Then you fucked her instead, before you left her to lie there for twenty fucking hours, shouting for help. Shouting for something so she wouldn’t have to lie there bleeding all over herself.”
“I didn’t know that she was going to get her period, Conor.”
“No. But you would have if you’d have fucking checked on her like we agreed. You’re convinced that she’s the enemy...”
“She walked out of here holding the hand of the head of the Russian fucking mob.” I stalk toward him, my face inches from his.
“You don’t know that,” he snarls.
I don’t even see Mikey or Liam move, but I feel Liam’s hands on my shoulders. “This whole situation is fucked up,” he says in that quiet tone he has that seems to tap into something in me that reminds me so much of our mother. “But, we can fix this, can’t we? Let’s give Jessie some time to rest and then we can talk to her tomorrow and straighten everything out.”
Tension slips from my shoulders. I realize my anger is fueled by my guilt too. Perhaps I have been too harsh on Jessie. What if there is an explanation for what she did? But I can’t forget the looks on my brothers’ faces when they realized she had left us. I can’t forget how my world ended when I read that note. She looked in my eyes and promised me she would never leave us, and like a goddamn fool, I believed her.
We made her family, and she walked out on us like we were nothing to her. I can admit I wanted to punish her for that. I don’t believe in happy ever afters. To think that it might have been some sort of misunderstanding, and that everything she told us while she lived here wasn’t a lie, is too hard. It’s easier to be angry and blame her than to hope that she might come back to us.
“If she doesn’t want to be here, then we have to let her go, Shane,” Conor says quietly, “because the alternative is unthinkable.”
I nod at him. I’ll never forgive her, but I could never hurt her either. “I still want answers.”
He places his hand on the back of my neck. “Then we’ll get some. I promise.”
Chapter
Thirteen
JESSIE
My eyelids flutter awake at the sound of the door opening. I sit up quickly and rub my eyes, watching as Conor walks into the room and toward the bed.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I just wondered if you needed anything else?” he asks softly, almost as though I’m his guest again and not his prisoner now.
“No. I’m good, thanks,” I croak.
He looks at the uneaten sandwich and the unopened bottle of Gatorade on the nightstand and sighs. “You need to eat and drink, Jessie.”
“I ate the candy. And I drank some water from the faucet. I’m fine.”
“Why didn’t you eat the sandwich? Or the Gatorade? Blue is your favorite.”
I glare at him in the dim light of the room. “I couldn’t be sure they weren’t poisoned. The seal on the Gatorade was broken.”
“Poisoned?” he snaps. “Dammit, Jessie. What the fuck?” He runs a hand over his beard and shakes his head.
“You knocked me out and kidnapped me, Conor,” I shout at him.
He sucks on his top lip and holds his hands up in surrender as he steps closer to the bed and then he stares at me with those deep, brown eyes. “How did we get here, Angel?”
“Don’t call me that,” I say, my voice cracking with emotion as tears prick at my eyes. “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”
He drops his head low and then he just stands there for a few moments. I watch his chest rise and fall with each breath he takes and all I can think about is how much I loved him. How much I still love him. My heart feels like it’s breaking into a million pieces as he stands there right in front of me. Close enough to touch, but a million miles away.
“Get some rest, Jessie,” he says eventually in a low growl that vibrates through my core.
