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“Ramirez?” Drake asked.
“Burn them, Drake. I’m sick of cleaning up Fury’s messes. Just burn this shit to the ground. We’ve got more important things to deal with,” Ramirez replied.
His gaze swept the ground until he caught mine. For a few seconds, we exchanged a wordless look, and then Ramirez nodded.
“Keep Dana safe. And ensure no mention of her presence here gets out,” Ramirez said and turned back towards his car. Howser glanced over at me, too, before offering a nod and following his detective.
“Never thought I’d hear that,” Drake muttered.
“Neither did I. Let’s get this shit cleaned up and call Pyro. He’ll blow this place to kingdom come,” Ace said.
“Get Dana home, Hawthorne. Rage will take care of this shit,” Drake said.
Dylan sent me a dark look, and I knew he was going to shout at me. I wondered how tears worked on him? I’d soon find out!
Chapter Fifteen.
Summer
Two weeks had passed since my kidnapping. My arm had healed, but my heart was broken. Uncle Brian was gone. His chair remained at the front of the garden centre, but it was empty, just like me. I’d buried him with full military honours in a small funeral. Rage had attended but stayed away in the background. I’d not been able to look at Slick.
I wanted to blame him but couldn’t. It hadn’t been Rage’s fault for what happened to me. They hadn’t started this war. Detective Ramirez had explained a lot of things to me while I lay in a hospital bed.
The fault belonged to the monsters who wanted to destroy what was good in this world. And they’d taken a man who was nothing but good. It was no surprise when his will was read that Uncle Brian had left everything to me. I’d spent the last two weeks at his house. The first week, I’d holed up and not spoken to anyone except to make funeral arrangements. The second week, I returned to work because being alone in his house was driving me crazy.
Both Marianne and Mom had thought they’d get away with staying in my house, but I’d had my lawyer send them a reminder notice to get the fuck out. No matter what happened, Uncle Brian’s death had taught me to live for today and not put shit off.
I’d buried him next to Dad. Two best friends together.
I was destroyed inside, but I moved forward each day and imagined Uncle Brian being proud of each step I took. I’d not seen Slick since my rescue, and honestly, I didn’t know if I wanted to. After saving me, he took off to find Irish.
That meant to me he still had feelings for her. And I wouldn’t be the cuckquean for anyone. No more being a doormat and letting people walk all over me. It was time to be strong.
Irish
Slick was suffering. There was no doubt how torn he felt. There was also no doubt in the fact he needed both Summer and I. Slick was a complicated man. He had the hard, tough side, which reached out to me and the gentle, loving side, which craved Summer. He needed me for my toughness, but I couldn’t give Slick the gentleness and love he craved. I also didn’t want a freaking kid or family. I wasn’t wired that way. Summer, on the other hand, was. And Slick needed her loving embrace and the family she could give him.
Which was why I was sat, staring at the fuckin’ garden centre Summer owned, about to offer Summer something I thought I’d never do. I accepted that I loved Slick, the hard, tough side. That conversation with Artemis had forced me to study my own feelings, and I’d been brutally honest with myself. Slick filled up the empty space in my heart, but I didn’t have a softer side. It just didn’t exist. I’d beaten it out of me years ago when I walked into my mother’s bedroom and found her spreadeagled nakedand clearly raped and my grandfather tied to a chair and forced to watch. Whatever softness had been in me then had shrivelled up and died.
Slick understood my darkness, my need for vengeance. Despite all that, I was still capable of love. Did darkness not love the night, evil not love the devil? Which is what landed me here today, staring at a beautiful woman who was clearly in pain and suffering. Summer wasn’t anything like me, which, in my warped mind, was a good thing. She was innocent, sweet, and everything decent about this world. Meanwhile, I walked in darkness, surrounded by shadows.
Warily, and guarding myself because I could still be hurt emotionally, I swung off my bike and approached Summer.
Summer
I heard footsteps as I busied myself with the front display. It was too early in the morning for shoppers, and with Brian gone, I flinched at that thought and swiftly moved past it. I expected nobody, so somebody approaching startled me.
I looked up into the green eyes of a woman with short silver hair so dark it almost looked black. And my gut clenched. There was no disguising who she was. This was her, Irish, the other woman. Had she come to gloat?
I’d not seen Slick since Brian’s funeral two weeks ago, and he’d looked haunted and torn. All I wanted was to be hugged, and Slick hadn’t provided that. Nobody had because no one fucking cared about me. The only person who did was now dead and in a cold grave. My mothers had been terrible since, trying to break down my resolve once again. They recognised there was nobody to fight my corner anymore.
Somehow, those two bitches had recognised that I’d completely broken up with Slick and were now doing everything possible to destroy me. Well, screw them. I wouldn’t be their puppet any longer. The harder they tried, the more I clung to Brian’s memory—and Dad’s. They believed in me, and there had to be a reason why. I may dislike confrontation and hate fighting, but I needed to realise I had Dad’s backbone. Quite frankly, I’d shamed him by how I’d let them treat me in the past, and I was even more determined to bring those two bitches to the knee.
“So you’re her?” I asked when Irish stopped close to me and scuffed her boot on the gravel. It was a nervous reaction and somehow didn’t sit right on her.
“I’m not here for a fight,” Irish said in a rush of breath.
“Then why are you here? I thought you’d be warming Slick’s bed,” I snapped, hurt spiralling inside me.
