Chapter 63 Neve #2
He is unwell.
I want to hold him. I want to move toward him. All these years of manipulation and strategic comments and only ever having him.
Besides, he was good to me in some ways, wasn’t he? The money and the support and never letting me go without. He spoiled me, didn’t he?
“You’ve been here since Thanksgiving.” It’s the only thing I can say. The only words I can gasp out.
He closes his eyes tight, like the accusation stings him.
“I wanted to surprise you with an office building. For your coaching?” It sounds as if he swallows hard in the dark.
He still doesn’t open his eyes. “I was renovating it. Furnishing it. Nearly done, by the way.” A small laugh leaves him, and he looks at me then.
I feel faint.
Unsteady.
“Then why did you run? Why are you running?”
He glances behind me, and for a moment, he looks frozen.
Like a deer in headlights. Like he heard something I didn’t.
When he stares at me again, he is frantic.
“If they see me,” he says lowly, “they will kill me.” He takes a step closer, and I don’t back up.
His gloved hands are empty. I will hurt him if I have to.
Sylvan has been teaching me how. “I haven’t hurt anyone.
” His eyes widen, the whites visible in the dark.
“But they have.” He turns away, like he will run.
I reach a hand out, and his breath catches when he sees the gesture.
“Please, Neve.” There’s so much longing in his voice. “Listen to what I have to say, then decide.” He gestures toward a grove of trees right outside of the gate.
The gate.
“Did you cut the lock?” I whisper.
He frowns. “No.”
“Why are you here? Now? At this time?” It was two in the morning when I woke up.
“I’ve been watching you, to make sure they don’t hurt you.” Real anger cracks his words. “Please listen. That’s all I ask.”
I know I shouldn’t follow him.
But this is my brother. I have nothing else.
I glance over my shoulder. It worries me that none of them are there. Not Faust, Sylvan, Tasia, whomever yanked her out of frame. I start to think she did leave with a friend, and my boys are on a fruitless trek through snow.
“You have five minutes.” I make myself snarl the words. Then I gesture toward the shadow of trees. “Hurry. Because you’re right, they’ll kill you if they see you.”
“Why did you follow them to Kawartha?” We stand in darkness. I can barely see him in the night. But if this is how I get answers, I am greedy for them.
“I’ve told you,” Nolan says, sounding more like his arrogant self. Exasperated. Sick of my shit. He seems relieved that I’m speaking with him, and he hasn’t tried to touch me. “It’s them.”
“They murdered Jackson? Will? Mitchell? Ace?” My voice doesn’t break on their names, and I’m glad. “Why?”
“Because they want you.”
“They’re hockey players, not serial killers.”
“And I’m an attorney, Neve, not a murderer,” he snaps.
“You haven’t been at work.”
He sighs. Loudly. Somewhere at my back, a branch snaps, but it doesn’t scare me. “I told you, I’ve been building a business for you.”
I shake my head in the dark. “I never asked you for that.”
“You never have to ask for anything. I know what you need.”
I go rigid. The tone, the words, before maybe I would have melted. Thought he cared. Loved me. But now, given everything, it feels sickly. Too heavy.
He takes a step closer in the dark, like he senses my distance.
I need to go back. I need Faust. Sylvan. The thought crosses my mind that they’re playing with Tasia, and I want to vomit, but it makes me need them that much more.
“Neve,” Nolan says softly, reaching for me. His fingers rest on my shoulder. I can barely feel it with my winter jacket. “You know I’d never hurt you.”
“I want to know it. But you seem kind of psychotic in this light.” As the words leave my mouth, I know I shouldn’t have spoken them.
He steps closer. Grips me tighter. Hard enough to bruise, and with the cold in my lungs, I am worried I won’t be able to fight him off. With the dark, the night, the many places to hide a body, I fear I’ll stare up at the sky like Jackson, unseeing, never to breathe again.
“Let me go.”
“Let them go. Or they’re next.”
The anger overtakes me. I lift my knee to his groin and shove.
In the snow, he stumbles back, his hold on me loosening.
It’s enough for me to get free. I twist out of his grip, but I don’t run.
The thought of losing them guts me. Maybe we’re just getting started.
Maybe we have questions, decisions, impossibilities to figure out. But they’re mine.
I rush Nolan without another thought, launching myself up in the air and shoving him back with all of my weight. He falls flat on his spine with a grunt, but his coat and the soft snow cushions his fall. That means I barely felt it at all.
I know a punch with my gloves won’t hurt how I want it, but he has no scarf. His face is exposed to the cold. And so, as I straddle him and he stares up at me with wild eyes, I scoop snow up in my glove and I shove it against his face. Again. And more. And again.
He tries to twist his head, but I use both arms now, anchoring myself to him with my lower body weight.
I keep attacking, and I know his face must be red, numb, damaged. I keep going as my arms ache, smashing snow and ice both to his skin.
But a scream pierces the night and I freeze.
It’s my mistake.
“You fucking bitch.” He tries to flip us, grabbing my wrists as he shifts his body weight.
I’m momentarily airborne, but I know if I get underneath him, he might suffocate me in the snow.
If his words didn’t prove it, his actions now do.
He did it.
And he’ll hurt them too.
I yank my arm out of his grip with all the strength I have. His gloved fingers slip on my coat. I don’t hesitate. I get to my feet and spin, turning back toward the house.
I run as fast as I can, sprinting, cold air biting at my lungs, my face, but it must be nothing to how he feels with all that snow. All that ice. I hope I’ve hurt him. Nothing conflicting knots in my chest now.
The open gate is ahead. There are no more screams and I don’t know where anyone is except Nolan. I hear him at my back.
No. You can’t have me. Only they can.
I’m almost to the gate. Which means I’ll be close to them. The house. I’ll call Detective Lincoln and I’ll—
I’m snatched backward. I slip and fall. The ice beneath the powdered snow slams against my knees and a gasp leaves my lips. A body falls on top of me.
No.
I won’t let myself flatten. Then he has me. Then he’ll hurt them.
I use all the burning muscle in my lower body to stagger up, throwing my shoulder back against him and forcing him off balance, sliding behind me.
I run. I don’t look back. He grabs at my coat again but I easily tear away and he swears under his breath.
Then I hear it.
My angel. Sylvan’s voice, wild and lost. “Neve! Neve! Where are you? Come back!”
And I charge ahead faster.
Nolan’s footsteps fall away.
Quicker.
Snow churns beneath my boots.
Then I see them. And I sprint as fast as I can, throwing myself into both of their arms as they grab onto me like I’m something they can’t lose.