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“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
I clenched my teeth.
“I’ve never asked you for anything,” I said, using the last tool in my arsenal. It was the truth. I’d always done what I was told. Everything I was trained to do. I was a good soldier. A good brother. A good son. I didn’t push for anything, because in my limited experience, when you pushed, sometimes the person would never come back. But I was pushing now. I would push for her.
It was what was owed.
“I am asking for this.For her.”
The hurt in his stare almost broke me, but I hid the pain well. Stood taller instead.
“So be it,” he said, his gaze turning dark as he stalked past me, unable to look me in the eyes anymore.
“She doesn’t leave your sight. Not for a second. Not until the trial begins,” he called back, and I stood there, mute and numb until I heard the sound of his engine roaring to life and his tires peeling away from the warehouse, carrying him home.
After Grey returned,they escorted me to the Rover and closed me inside. I could hear snippets of their heated conversation through the bulletproof glass, but not enough to piece together what was going on.
Grey sat with me in the car while Corvus and Rook cleaned up Carl’s body. The air permeated with anger and things unsaid.
It must’ve been hours before they finally returned from the dark of the trees, coated in dirt streaked sweat.
I thought of running again, but with my ankle still in bad shape, I knew I wouldn’t get far. The only other option I saw was to slit Grey’s throat and make a stealthy getaway instead of a rapid one while the others were busy disposing of the evidence of Diesel’s kill, but…
I couldn’t.
Just like I couldn’t let that greaseball shoot Corvus.
I stewed in silence, angry at myself and trying to work through the puzzle of my thoughts, only bothering to speak once Rook slid into the seat beside me and Corvus hopped into the front seat.
“I’ll fight back,” I warned, crossing my arms over my chest as icy dread pooled in my stomach. I could take one of them.Maybe,I could take two. But all three? I could fight, but I knew what the outcome would be.
Rook lifted a brow at me, and Grey swiveled in the front seat, his face drawn. Corvus didn’t bother to turn, sitting stoically in the passenger seat to stare out into the growing dawn.
“Just make it quick, would you?” I requested, sinking into the seat as Grey turned back to the front and started the engine, pulling slowly back onto the road.
They didn’t speak to me the entire drive back to the Crow’s Nest. Rook twisted his lip ring round and round with his teeth, his dark gaze slipping to me and away, only to return again a few moments later.
He kept his distance, lounging in the seat closest to the opposite window, knee bouncing behind Corvus’ seat.
Somewhere around the halfway point, Grey turned on the radio, drowning out the tense silence with the early morning show from the local radio station.
The reality of my situation didn’t seem to truly hit me until we bumped off smooth pavement and onto gravel and the Crow’s Nest came into view. But it wasn’t what I couldn’t stop staring at. The small shed at the edge of the property, half hidden by trees as the first rays of dawn lit the metal roof made my stomach plummet to my toes.
I wasthis close.
This closeto freedom.
Why couldn’t I have just bowed like a good girl and done what I was told.
Oh yeah, because I wasn’t a good girl. I didn’t bow. And I did whatever the fuck I wantedwheneverthe fuck I wanted.
The real question was, why couldn’t I be someone else?
Someone else wouldn’t be about to die in a tiny ass woodshed, their body parts hacked up and hid over three different states.
Fuck.
