32. The Emerald Ring
The Emerald Ring
CALLIE
It’s morning on the day after finding Shane at the fight club, and I’m nervously waiting for him to get in touch with me.
“That man doesn’t deserve one penny of your money,” Wes says to me earnestly. He’s sitting on the second untouched bed in Noah’s hotel room. I’m at the desk, and Noah’s pacing. We’re trying to come up with a game plan.
“I know.” We’ve been going in circles with this. Wes is right, of course, but what else can I do? I want to end this. Be free of Shane forever. The only way to do that is to give him what he wants. “It’s just money.”
Wes growls.
“You should text him,” Noah says to me, pausing mid-pace.
He’s got a wicked black eye and a split lip, which Wes can’t stop staring at. They had some angry, hushed words when we first saw Noah’s injuries this morning, which he assured us are ‘nothing’ and ‘fine’.
The last thing I want to do is text Shane. I scrunch my face and glance at my phone on the desk.
“Callie, you don’t have to.” Wes leans forward with his elbows on his knees.
“At least we got a tracker on his car, right?” Noah crosses his arms and glances at Wes, who winces as he once again looks at his brother’s swollen eye. “If we don’t hear from Shane, we—well, you—can go wait for him by his car.”
“You shouldn’t have left the fucking fight club without me.” Wes glares at Noah, fixated on his face.
“Okay, maybe, but now we can track Shane’s car.” Noah shrugs and resumes pacing. “And I’m fine. I can handle two assholes trying to steal my wallet. They’re lucky I didn’t slice their stomachs open.”
Meadow followed Noah out of the fight club last night.
He told us he tried to shake her, but then she identified Shane’s car parked along the road a block away.
Meadow and Noah then separated, and Noah got into some kind of scuffle with a pair of dudes who tried to mug him on the way to the stakeout spot he was headed to.
The look on Wes’s face when Noah told us about the mugging was lethal.
And it’s my fault. I’m the one who Wes stuck by last night when he should’ve been with Noah.
I should’ve insisted he go check on his brother instead of spending the night with me, especially since he didn’t even end up finding their target, but instead stuck a tracker on Shane’s car. For me.
“Callie’s fucking sister was trying to be sneaky and follow me, but she was as subtle as a herd of elephants.” Noah scoffs and shakes his head, but I have the feeling that he’s protesting a bit too hard.
“Stop trying to distract me.” Wes is firm. “You cannot go alone this morning. Wait until we hear from Shane to go anywhere.”
“I can go alone, and I will if I need to.” Noah shakes his head at Wes, like he’s dealing with a petulant child. Or maybe Noah’s the child, I dunno.
I’m a wreck. Again, Wes is having to choose between me and Noah? I’m desperate for him to come with me, but I feel awful that Noah is insisting he can go alone. I should tell them I can meet Shane alone today, but I can’t get myself to do it.
I can’t tell Wes I don’t need him today, and he wouldn’t leave me anyway. I know it.
This is it though.
I didn’t think everything would get done during this trip, I really didn’t. I thought it would all take longer. But the thing is, once I have the ring and Shane signs the papers, this all has to end. I can’t let it stretch out longer. I might lose the nerve to actually leave.
Portland.
And Wes.
I am going. I need to go.
“Why can’t you go later?” I ask Noah. I can hear the panic in my voice.
“Because the tip from Scorpion is about this morning. He said there should be a certain car at the apartment building that belongs to Joe Killer.”
“Why didn’t he know that last night?” Wes asks, a sharp edge to his voice.
“I don’t know, you ask him.” Noah shrugs.
“Okay, well, I can tell Shane I can’t meet him until later.”
“Sure, if that works out, fine,” Noah says, looking not impressed. Wes, on the other hand, is literally growling across the room.
Just then, my phone buzzes, and we all stare at my screen. I click and read it out loud.
Shane
Roots Cafe, 555 West Street, at ten o’clock
don’t bring your fuck boys
Me
can we do it later?
Shane
no
I look up from my phone, desperate. Wes glances between me and Noah.
“Welp, looks like I’m on my own this morning,” Noah says, looking pleased.
Wes looks absolutely pained.
A hot tea sits in front of me, untouched. I’m waiting for Shane in the diner and ordered the hottest drink I could in case I need to use it as a weapon. I also have a knife that Wes slipped under my jeans and strapped onto my calf. As if I have any knife skills.
Wes is watching. I don’t know where from, which he said is best so I don’t accidentally look in that direction, but I’ve already gotten a text from him noting I haven’t taken a sip of my tea.
I love how he watches me.
There might be some trauma there to talk to a therapist about at a later date.
Shane walks in, and I’m struck by his harsh good looks, strong with a hint of cruelty in his sharp jawline and prominent chin.
Both eyes are bruised—the fresh one from last night and fading one on the other side.
A new bruise is on his cheek and his lip is split.
His eyes are a cruel gray, and his hair light and thick.
He’s noticeably more fit than when he disappeared six weeks ago.
Back then, he wasn’t a fighter. I would’ve noticed if he showed up at our apartment like this.
“Hey, Cals.” Shane slides in across from me, glancing around the mostly empty diner. “Where are your guard dogs?”
I hate it when he calls me Cals. It was sweet at the beginning when we first got together, but he’s used it contemptuously for the last years of our relationship.
“Not here,” I say, trying to keep my face blank. But I can feel myself cringing, flinching, showing my discomfort.
Shane laughs bitterly. “Okay.”
“Got the ring? Ready to sign?” I tap on the table where the divorce papers are waiting for his signature.
He leans back, arching his back and tucking his hands behind his head. He smirks.
Yeah, I know. The money. Worth a shot, I guess.
“Maine is a no-fault divorce state. If we split before figuring this out, everything will get divided fifty-fifty anyway. Your father died before any theoretical divorce, so…” He shrugs and takes his hands down, linking fingers on his abdomen. “I’d get half in the courts.”
Fucking asshole. But he’s probably right.
I can’t wait to get as far away from this hateful man as I can.
But even as I think that, there’s a stabbing in my belly because getting away from this life includes getting away from Wes.
There’s no restarting my life in a squeaky-clean way but also having anything to do with those serial killer brothers.
Regardless of the fact that they are killing bad guys and saving young women and girls, Wes is still a murderer.
And a stalker. And apparently has a kink for zip-tying me while he does unspeakable things—
“Hello?” Shane waves his hand in front of my face, and I return from the hot, sharp flashback of last night.
“And what do you need the money so bad for?” Money is money, so it’s probably a stupid question.
But all this drama of him disappearing to New York and calling me from Boston and waiting for me to find him…
it’s such a waste of time. Jones has leverage over him.
That’s gotta be the reason. “You already drained our bank account before you left.”
A flash of something crosses Shane’s face, then it’s gone.
“Like there was any money in there anyway.”
He’s right. We didn’t have much. But he left me with nothing except for my secret bank account, which he didn’t know about. I open my mouth to argue, but he cuts me off.
“Fine. Take half of what was in our bank account off my share of the inheritance. Then it’s fair, Cals. That’s all. I’m only looking for fair.” Shane’s voice is hard. Cruel.
“What are you talking about? How is this fair?” It’s frustrating because I feel like there’s something else going on, but I can’t put my finger on it. “Why did you even disappear if you wanted this money so bad? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to stay in Portland?”
“I was sent here to New York, Cals.” Shane’s jaw is clenched, and he grinds his teeth together. “By my boss.”
Never mind. I don’t want to know what’s really going on, actually. I just want to be free.
“Fine. Whatever.”
“No courts, no lawyers. Easy.”
“Fuck.” I look out the window, wishing I could spot Wes’s comforting presence.
Shane narrows his eyes at me. He’s not bluffing about not signing the divorce papers. My phone buzzes in my pocket.
“I’ll do it now.” I swallow the hard lump in my throat and pull out my phone. There’s a text from Wes.
Wesley
what’s going on?
I don’t respond. I need to finish this right now. So I click through to my bank app and accept the piece of paper Shane shoves toward me with all the numbers I’ll need. It takes a few minutes to enter the information correctly. I show him, he nods, I press submit.
He signs the divorce papers. A copy for him, a copy for me.
Then Shane yanks a chain out from his hoodie and pulls it over his head. A ring dangles from the cheap chain. My mother’s ring. I take a sharp breath and reach out my hand.
He looks like he really, really doesn’t want to hand it over. He’s got the money, so it’s out of pure spite. A desire to make me miserable. Punish me for things I never did wrong.
But he extends his arm, and I grab the ring and clutch it to my chest.
No more words are spoken.