Chapter 16
Reed
It’s late at night when I get the message from my guy at The Ruin.
He knows somebody on the West Coast—a guy named Derrick who used to be tight with someone named Seth, the right-hand man of one of the Cross brothers.
We were given the blessing to leave, to take refuge there with new IDs, new passports, a new life.
It’s a gift in exchange for the information about Cillian’s uncle Eamon. The Ruin verified it and said they’d take care of him, and it would be the end of the Cavanaugh Crest.
They didn’t say we couldn’t kill him first, though.
“Promise me you two won’t do anything stupid.
” Kat’s words ricochet in my head as the engine revs beneath me.
She’s made me make that promise a thousand times.
I ride behind Cillian in the dark of the night on the way to the Cavanaugh Crest, gripping the handlebar as the vibrations travel up, warning me that keeping that promise is going to take a fucking miracle.
We don’t find Cill’s uncle at the club. That would be an amateur move. I used my contact at The Ruin to set up a meeting at a place outside the city limits. There’s a large reservoir there, and once something comes in, it doesn’t come back out.
Still risky as hell to do this. We have no guarantees that someone else won’t show up.
Hell, I’m relying on my contact from The Ruin to get Eamon here. I half expect Finn to be with him or serving as his lookout, although I was assured he’d come alone.
We park down the hill from the reservoir, side by side on our bikes and kill the lights. Fear and doubt creep in as we wait. “We could keep riding,” I suggest to Cill. “We could pick up Kat and get the hell out of town.”
I don’t want her mixed up in this. It broke her heart when Cill went to prison. It doesn’t need to happen twice. We can figure things out on the road.
Just us, getting the hell away. Ever since he suggested it, I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s the only thing that feels right anymore.
“If he killed my father … you know he did. I know he did. I’m not leaving here till he admits it.” With a nod, I follow him down to the meet. It’s a hill between two old warehouses, the moonlight and security lights are all that help us see.
There’s a good chance Cill’s uncle doesn’t show, either. There’s a chance all of this is another setup.
We wait about five minutes and a light appears at the bottom of the hill. An old man, a touch overweight in dark jeans and a black hoodie, checking a cell phone. It’s Cill’s uncle.
“Holy shit,” Cill says under his breath. “There he fucking is.” My pulse spikes.
Although we see him, it takes him about halfway to realize it’s us.
He stops in his tracks as it registers. I wonder if he knows then.
All I can think is he has to realize at some point tonight that we know.
“Hey, Eamon,” I call out, keeping my voice even and trying not to raise suspicion as his hand falls to his waistband.
I can’t come back alone. The thought is buried deep in the back of my mind.
The crickets and the night sounds surround us until all I can hear is my blood rushing in my ears. Eamon’s eyes narrow. “You’re not who I’m supposed to be meeting with.”
“We got a message too.” I keep my tone even. I don’t want to scare him off. “It said to meet here and ask about Missy … is that what you’re doing here? Something about a rat?”
He laughs, nervousness filtering into it and I know he hears it just like the two of us do. Clearing his throat he adds, “Now they didn’t tell me that. That’s,” he shakes his head, one hand running down his jaw, the other lingering over the gun tucked in his jeans.
“That’s what?” Cill questions. “You sure she was a rat? We heard it might be someone else. We heard it might be you.”
A moment of silence hangs over the hill.
“It’s a shame,” Cill’s uncle says.
“What’s a shame?” Cill asks.
“That it has to end this way,” his uncle replies.
He pulls out the gun, recklessly in an attempt to be fast. I’m faster, though, prepared and aiming it at his skull without stumbling. His is still aimed at the ground, his hoodie having slowed him down.
“Lift it and I pull the trigger, Eamon,” I tell him, my tone deadly.
“How about you drop it?” Cill says, the heavy gun in his hand slowly rising to aim at his uncle. “Tell us what happened. Did you kill my father?” A faint click tells me Cill’s a hairline pull of a trigger from ending it all. A cold sweat breaks out across my skin.
Eamon’s gaze goes from me to Cill. Gun or not, he’s still outnumbered. He’s going to have to hit us both if he wants to walk away from this place. There’s no way that’s happening. He swallows loudly and then gives a half-hearted smirk.
“Don’t you boys think this is all a bit overblown?” he says, the breeze in the chill of the night carrying his voice to us. “This is a misunderstanding. Put down the fucking gun, Reed.”
“A misunderstanding?” Cill says it slowly, like he can’t believe his uncle just said this to him. “Did you call my dad’s death a misunderstanding?”
“That was a heart attack,” his uncle snaps.
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” Cill says. “I heard different. I heard it was you.” Emotion carries into his words. The mourning, the betrayal. “Are you gonna deny it?”
He waits and the silence stretches.
“You’d have done the same thing,” spits his uncle. “Your father ran the club into the ground when you left. He refused to take the opportunities we were given … so I took one instead.”
Cill takes an uneasy step forward, a step too close for my liking. “You decided to get in bed with the feds and pick people off.”
“At least I didn’t get in bed with your old lady, like Reed did,” Eamon shoots back. Cill’s jaw clenches and for a second I’m worried he’ll lose his temper, but he ignores the taunt.
“You set me up … set Reed up?” He motions toward me with the gun and glances at me. His uncle doesn’t, though, and I keep my focus on Eamon.
Bitterness seeps into Eamon’s tone. “I did what I had to do.”
“What the fuck?” Cill almost laughs. “Admit it. Admit you killed him.”
Two things happen at once: Eamon lifts his gun and fires at the same time I pull the trigger. Cill’s too lost in his emotions to act quickly enough, but I saw it. I saw Eamon’s thumb move back. I pulled it as quickly as I could, but still, his uncle got off a shot.
Bang. Bang.
Heat overwhelms me and I’m paralyzed as I watch both of them drop. Eamon falls backward, a bullet ripping through his throat. Blood sprays and I take two steps forward, watching his hands attempt to keep the blood from gushing out of his neck, even as he chokes on it.
Training keeps me focused on him, even though fear cripples me. “Cill.” I call out his name as the life drains from Eamon’s body.
“Cill!” I call out louder as Eamon’s eyes fall back and his body stills, his hand drops to the ground.
His chest is still. I don’t trust it. I move forward once more, aim the gun and shoot two more bullets into his chest. They thud one after the other, jostling his body from the force. There’s no sound, no expression.
He’s dead.
It’s only then that I can move, turning to find Cill propped up on his knee. Thank fuck. Relief floods through me but I can’t stop my hands from trembling.
“I thought you were dead.” Adrenaline rushes through my veins. “I thought he got you.”
“I’m all right,” he tells me, although he stays focused on Eamon. “He didn’t say it.”
“I’m sorry, Cill.” I know he wanted to hear it, he needed to. Fuck, I did too. I settle on a single truth. “He’s a coward.”
It takes two of us two drag him to the edge of the reservoir. We weigh down his pockets with rocks and throw him in. Doesn’t take long for him to disappear under the water. Even after it’s done, it doesn’t feel real. None of it does. Not until Cill tells me, “Let’s get home to Kat.”
I only nod, keeping my answer to myself, but he says it. He says the exact words I was thinking, “I need her.”
Kat
Cill and Reed thought they could tiptoe out of my house without me knowing, but they were wrong. I heard them leave.
I swear there’s some part of me that just knows when they’re in trouble. Like my soul is attached to theirs. And right now, it’s worried.
I tried to fall back to sleep, it’s what Cill would want. Instead I either stared at the spinning fan, thinking the worst, or tossed and turned … also thinking the worst.
They’re gone long enough that after an hour of uselessness, I get out of bed and make a hot cup of tea.
It feels better to wait in the kitchen. Lying under the covers and hiding has never been my thing. Maybe for a couple of days after Cill got arrested, but you can’t hide under the damn blankets forever. Eventually, the world finds you anyway.
Time slips by and I text Lydia. Her response is to call and the moment I answer she asks, “Want me to come over?”
“No, that’s okay. I’m just–”
“Waiting for two men who are nothing but trouble,” she half jokes, sleep evident in her voice.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t dreaming of anything special so I don’t mind,” she tells me. A sad smile graces my lips as I sit down at the table.
“How are you two?”
I chew my bottom lip at the word two. “We’re … kind of like old times, kind of like new,” I admit to her and pull out the chair at the table, debating on what I should tell her. I want to spill everything, every last detail.
“Does he make you happy?” she asks.
“Yeah, happy but worried.”
“But happy?” she asks again and I let out a short laugh, pulling one knee into my chest balancing my foot on the edge of the chair.
“Yeah, he really does make me happy. He makes me feel like me.”
“It might take some time not to worry, you know?”
Swaying in my chair, I know she’s right. I hate time, though, it hasn’t been good to me.
“Yeah,” I agree with her and then ask, “Want to take my mind off of it? Or is one a.m. a little too late and you’d rather sleep.”
The sound of her rolling over in bed filters through the phone before she lets out an easy sigh.
“I may have met a man,” she says and then hums. I’m grateful for her, for friendship, for her stories.
I try not to think about the fact that I probably won’t see her very much once this is all said and done.
Instead I laugh along with her and decide I’m grateful phone calls exist.
It’s not long after that I hang up, thanking her and telling her to have sweet dreams of her dark-haired mystery man that I hear their bikes.
Breathing in deep, I down the last of the decaf tea and head to the sink to wash out the cup. I grew up to that sound, the rev of the engines. I know it so well, I can clearly hear two of them.
I don’t know what exactly is going on with the three of us, but I’m grateful both of them are coming home to me. Whatever it is we’re doing, I want it. I want both of them however I can have them.
Reed comes in first, holding the door open for Cill. Adrenaline pushes me to move to the threshold and fuck I wish I hadn’t. I’m paralyzed by the sight of Cillian. Tremors run up my spine.
He’s covered in blood. His shirt is stained.
“Oh my God,” I nearly fall to the floor, my trembling hands covering my mouth. “Hey, Hellcat,” he says. “It’s not mine,” he clarifies and although that’s fucking horrible in and of itself, the relief is immediate.
“Are you all right?” I ask and look over both of them, still standing in the threshold and too scared to move. Reed closes the door and I note there’s a bit of blood on him too that’s smeared across his shirt.
“We’re both fine.” Reed adds, “Promise.”
“What did you do?”
“We ended things here.”
Things. I know exactly what that means. It’s his uncle’s blood.
“Do we need to leave?”
Cill nods, catching my eyes as he pulls the shirt over his head. “We’ll pack up and move tonight.
“Tonight?” Surprise is evident in my rushed-out word.
Cill nods as if it’s not a big deal to pick up and move in the middle of the night. “We’re starting over. Just us, and Reed.”
It takes me a minute to process what he’s said, my head spins with all of this happening at once. “Reed too?”
“I think the three of us should keep doing what we are …” Cill says and lets his gaze drift down my body. “What do you think, Reed?” He looks over his shoulder at Reed, who’s stripping down to take off the bloodied clothes.
His muscles ripple as he does the same, looking me up and down like I’m some kind of meal for the two of them to enjoy together. He even licks his lower lip before nodding and saying, “I think that’s exactly what I want.”
My body flushes from head to toe. I can’t believe he just said that. I can’t believe that Cillian is standing in the middle of my kitchen with someone else’s blood on him, and talking about sharing me with his best friend.
Something in my heart clicks into place. I meet Reed’s deep brown eyes, feeling shy. I can’t speak. I never dreamed that Cill would suggest something like this. I didn’t think I’d want him to, but now that he has, I can’t imagine it being any other way.
“You like that, don’t you?” Cill questions.
I’m hesitant to nod, but I do it. “I just want to love you two.” I swallow down every apprehension.
“Good,” he says with finality. “’Cause that’s all I want too.”
“Same,” Reed adds. “We love you, Kat.”
I stare between the two of them, not believing while also eager for this to be true. “I love you both too.”