Chapter Twenty-One
Theo
“Kip guarantees three hours, but we should try to be out in two just in case,” James says from the Jeep’s driver’s seat.
I left June on the couch, where she fell asleep soon after we got back from her office.
Luna will likely get there before she wakes up.
Before we left, I stared at her, considering once again waiting until tomorrow to break into Lorry’s house while June is at her Taco Tuesday.
But the plans for Kip to get Lorry and his wife out of the house tonight were already set, so I reluctantly left June and haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
“Sounds good.” I open the camera app on my phone to see that June hasn’t woken up yet.
“You did a number on her, didn’t you?”
I realize James has clocked me spying and lock my phone. My neck tenses in response, and I think of what I did to her. And, more specifically, what she did to me.
“Daryus asked a lot of questions about her last night,” James says. “So did some of the other guys. Seemed to think not just any girl could kill someone like that, even with their fight or flight on full blast.”
“I don’t really care what they think.”
“You should. They’re your club. You really want them asking questions about your girl's past?”
“She’s a badass fighter, that’s all they need to know.”
“They don’t know her. Right now, they see a random girl who showed up two weeks ago and managed to gain their president’s trust enough to go to church and live in your house even after everything. Then she brings down a turf war on us by murdering a South Fiver in front of everyone.”
“To save my life,” I bite, forearms tightening as I curl my hands into fists.
“I get that, and most of the boys do too. Raph was going on and on about how amazing she is. Bonnie and Clyde are ready to adopt her. Nico was singing her praises. And you know Luna is her biggest fan. But still, you can’t ignore the fact that this changes things.”
“So, things will change.”
“T…”
“I get it, James,” I interrupt. “I do. But I don’t care. I can’t… I won’t…” lose her. The words refuse to form.
James reaches over and squeezes my arm. “I know.” He moves his hand back to the steering wheel and faces forward, letting the conversation end there.
For the rest of the drive, I think about what to tell the club, how to deal with the South Five, and what to do about Lorry. I check the cameras in my house one more time before we get to Lorry’s and see June has woken up and is now eating pizza in the kitchen with Luna.
“Ready for this?” James asks, parking a block away.
I nod. Lorry and Bethany are already with Kip, so the house is empty.
I pass James the jamming device from the glove compartment and keep the LED laser for myself.
He turns on the device when Lorry’s house is in view, hopefully drowning out the security system’s Wi-Fi signals to disconnect it from the network.
In case that’s not enough, I shoot the lasers into the lens of each camera we pass to blind it and keep it from filming us.
Lorry shouldn’t have any reason to check his security tapes, but if he does, I want it to look more like a mistake with the system than someone intentionally tampering with the cameras.
I pick the front door lock, and we carefully follow Kip’s directions to the office in the back of the house on the first floor.
That lock is slightly more difficult to pick, but once we’re in, I find the camera and blind it while James drapes a black rag over it.
We’ll be in this room too long to risk the cameras coming back on and catching us.
“Alright, where’s the safe?”
I head to the closet, push open the door, and reveal a shining black safe about five feet tall. “Have at it,” I say, waving James in. I’m better at picking locks, but James has a way with safes. He’ll be much faster than me, and we only have two hours.
So, I spend the next hour and a half standing in the office, keeping watch while James works on the safe. I check my house cameras a handful of times and find June in the living room with Luna. Finally, James shouts in celebration. I turn to see him pulling the safe door open.
“I deserve an award!”
“I’ll plan a ceremony,” I say, crossing the room to help him dig through the safe. The second file I flip open has a picture of June at the front. It’s thinner than I expected and takes less than five minutes to make copies of everything.
“Dude, he has files on all the Saints, too,” James says.
“Really?”
“Yeah, here.” He walks over to the copier holding a stack of other files, many of which are much thicker than June’s. “We have time, let's copy these too.”
So we do. We’ve already returned everything to the safe and made it out when Kip texts us that Lorry is headed back. I flip through June’s file on the drive home and pause on her personal history, which Lorry has dated back to her childhood. My research on her was much less extensive.
According to Lorry’s investigation, June’s mom, Heidi, went to prison when she was five, and she lived with her dad for a few years until CPS removed her after one too many ER trips. I’d bet anything several of the old scars I saw in hidden places on her body were from that time in her life.
She was in foster care from age seven to thirteen.
Her foster parents tried to adopt her, but Heidi was released from prison, got a job and an apartment, and ended up getting June back.
Heidi remarried a respectable man, Calvin, who legally adopted June after the wedding.
He already had a daughter, Imogen, from his first marriage.
June’s dad showed up less than a year after Calvin and Heidi got married, probably wanting some of Calvin’s money, and when June was fifteen, the man mysteriously died in what the cops assumed was a drug deal gone wrong.
Lorry thinks he was June’s first kill. I, unfortunately, agree with the assumption.
I almost wish she hadn’t killed him so I could do it for her, but I’m also glad she had the satisfaction of ending the miserable man’s life.
Imogen had a baby when she was seventeen and moved to San Antonio after high school.
June, meanwhile, went to college at The University of Texas, graduated at twenty-one, turned twenty-two in July, and moved here the same month.
That August, she started school at the University of Arizona and graduated with her master’s in counseling in two years.
Lorry had compiled a list of every possible disappearance or death he thinks could be linked to June. From a quick glance, I could eliminate over half of them. June wouldn’t kill a guy for having gambling debts or abandoning his family.
Which means if she did kill Lorry’s cousin, the man deserved it.
“Anything good?”
“He’s zeroed in on June, that’s for sure,” I say. “I’ll study it more later.” We’re almost home, and I haven’t checked the cameras in a while, but the last time I did, they were drinking and playing some sort of board game.
I don’t expect to walk inside my house and find Luna completely nude and June wearing only a small pair of underwear, showing off all the marks I left on her skin.
She shrieks at our entrance and struggles to cover herself, even though I’ve seen it all before, including Luna.
She may be gay, but we have very similar tastes in women and have noticed that women who like one of us often like the other too, so Luna and I have shared more than once.
Which is why when she drunkenly suggests we share June, I’m not completely surprised.
Watching June get off with Luna between her legs, drinking like her arousal is nectar from heaven, makes my cock twitch in interest. It hardens at the thought of June exploring another woman’s body with her tongue.
Imagining all the other ways Luna and I could use June and make her see stars has my entire body burning with need.
But all those images also twist the veins in my chest and compress my throat. It’s almost painful to think about anyone other than me being inside her, making her come. Hearing anyone else’s name on June’s lips, even Luna’s, might shatter me.
The fucked up, masochistic part of my brain wants to try it, to see how much I can handle or when I’ll start daydreaming of ripping Luna apart.
Tonight is not the night to figure that out, though. June is in no shape to be consenting to anything, much less a threesome. She’s barely keeping her eyes open.
So, I tell Luna later. That we can do it once. Because more than that would be dangerous for everyone involved.
“You’ve never been so stingy and jealous before,” Luna whines. Next to her, June falls against the edge of the couch, her eyes shut.
“You’ve never seen him falling in love before,” James says.
For the first time since entering the house, I pull my eyes from the naked serial killer in my living room to glare at my best friend. “I’m not in love.”
“Maybe not, but you’re on your way. I mean, look how possessive you are with her.”
“He may be right, boss. You’ve got the evil twinkle eyes,” Luna says.
“You’re drunk,” I say. “Go to sleep.”
“I’m not drunk, I’m just happy and very good at Battleship.”
“Either way, you’re sleeping here tonight. You can take June’s bed,” I say, crossing the room to scoop a passed-out June into my arms.
“Ooh, yay!” Luna says, jumping to her feet. She instantly sways and falls onto the couch.
“By yourself. June will be in my room.”
“Booo!” Luna calls after me.
I ignore her and take my little reaper to bed, where I tuck her into the freshly cleaned sheets.
I set a glass of water and a few painkillers on the bedside table and a trash can on the floor, just in case.
After brushing my teeth, I pull off my clothes and crawl in next to her.
As soon as I’m settled, June mumbles something unintelligible under her breath, then turns over, curling into my side.
James’s words come back to my mind as I run my fingers through her hair and kiss her forehead.
Fuck .