Chapter 30 – Grey
GREY
O ne by one, our surveillance cameras went online.
Two for every one of Drake’s we removed based on Ava Jade’s direction.
It was a condition of being able to return to the nest. Not only would we bring half our remaining force with us, but also surround the place in tiny glass eyes where we couldn’t watch.
That and trigger alert systems all along the road leading up to the Crow’s Nest. Along with a handful speckled through the forest just in case the surveillance cameras became compromised.
The three land mines lovingly laid to rest six inches beneath the dirt by Rook around the house felt a touch overboard, but I wasn’t about to argue. Not when it came to her safety.
If it was up to me, I’d have put her on the first flight to our cousin gang in Arizona under an alias. Have Uncle Ransom bury her so deep there that no one could find her. Not even us. Until this was over.
But I knew there was absolutely nothing I could say that would coerce her into leaving. She may have been finished with me, but she wouldn’t leave my brothers. And as long as she stayed, there was a chance I could win her back. Missing eye and all.
I tabbed through each camera, flipping from a view of the woods to one of the road.
The parking lot. Behind the Nest, toward the thinning wood that led to the cliff side.
I watched the Saints Diesel sent with us skirting the buried mines on their way back inside.
It was about to get real fucking cozy in here with all of them crammed in with us.
AJ gave up the loft Becca and she shared for a few of the more injured ones to sleep in proper beds. The rest would camp out in the living room or the garage.
Once I was satisfied that every cam was up and running, I grabbed the radio walkie from the desk. “All good up here,” I told Pinkie. “Let Dies know we’re set and then settle in, yeah? It’s late.”
“Roger.”
I let the walkie clatter back onto the desk, rubbing my burning eye. Strange, even though the other one wasn’t there, it somehow burned with exhaustion, and I pressed against the black eyepatch covering the place it used to be all the same.
“Grey?” AJ’s voice came muffled through my bedroom door.
I pushed my hair back, sliding out from the desk to smooth the front of my shirt. “Come in.”
AJ hesitantly opened the door, a mug of something steaming in her grip. “I, uh, thought you might like some tea. Figured you’d be up for a while, so it’s that green blend you have in the cupboard, with a bit of honey.”
She cringed when our eyes met and something in me deflated and I felt my shoulders slump with it.
“You don’t like honey in your tea, do you?” she asked, staring down at the mug like she might shatter it against the nearest solid surface. “That’s okay. I can make you one without. I’ll drink this one. Be right back.”
“Don’t,” I blurted before I could stop myself, my mouth going dry. “I like honey.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I was just—just surprised to see you is all. I figured you’d be with one of the others. Getting things ready for Sunday.”
There was still the issue of a lack of funds to purchase our new firearms and ammunition from down south. Which we would desperately need if we were going to stand a chance against the Kings who outmanned almost two to one.
Surprisingly, it was Rook who came up with the solution for that problem. With Diesel’s contacts in the black market, all we needed to do was pay a little unsolicited visit to Viola Humphrey.
Un surprisingly, AJ didn’t so much as balk at the idea of breaking into her aunt’s mansion at the edge of Thorn Valley.
In fact, she was ready to lead the charge, almost giddily eager for the heist. She’d said each one of those Fabergé eggs were worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Those combined with anything else we could find would fetch more than enough for all the munitions we needed.
And the old bag fucking deserved it.
She nodded. “I was. But they can handle getting the rest of it together without me. I thought maybe I might be able to help up here.”
AJ padded across the carpet, settling the mug down carefully away from the monitors, but within my reach. She hunched down, squinting at the three screens now showing a myriad of surveillance angles.
She visibly recoiled, and I frowned.
“What is it?”
She shook her head, clearly trying to play it cool even though I could tell something had really bothered her. “It’s just… Drake, I mean Carson … he had a set up almost exactly like this. Cameras and all.”
The comparison made the muscles across my back flex and strain, but I knew she didn’t mean anything by it. I just hated to have anything at all in common with the fucker. But if he had even half of the shit I had here set up, then he knew what he was doing.
“Sorry, uh, can you switch them to night vision? Might be hard to see much with these.”
She pointed to the ones around the side of the house and the others in the forest.
I tapped a few keys and changed the upper right camera to night vision, showing Rook’s kill shed and the rear ends of a few parked cars in vivid green light.
“ Awesome .”
“Yeah?”
“Fuck yeah. I don’t know why, but anything night vision just gives me such a lady boner. So cool.”
I found myself smiling. “Yeah. Same.”
Shit.
“I mean, not about the lady boner, but… you know what I’m saying.”
She laughed nervously, pushing off her knees to return to standing, taking in my room as though it was the first time she was seeing it when we both knew that wasn’t true.
She wandered to the shelving across the room, fingering the neat rows of manga before she stopped.
I didn’t have to look to know she’d found one of my many hiding places.
Behind the manga, in a nook of carved out drywall, rested an old six shooter, loaded and ready to be fired if needed.
If she continued toward the closet, she’d find a go bag filled with money, a change of clothes, a fresh passport, a flare, and enough water and protein bars to last me several days.
But she didn’t continue to the closet to find my hiding spot, she turned suddenly, sharply, clapping her hands together. “So, is there anything?”
I cocked my head at her, not understanding.
“Anything I can help with,” she amended, putting all her weight on foot before switching to the other one.
She was… nervous.
It became so utterly, painstakingly obvious, that my lips parted in surprise. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her like this. Vulnerable. Almost afraid.
Of what?
“Not really,” I found myself saying. “I have it all covered.”
“Oh.”
She bit her lip, her sea glass eyes darting to the door.
“But you can stay if you want.”
She visibly relaxed, her body heaving a sigh as a small smile pulled the edge of her mouth. “Only if I won’t be distracting.”
But she was already settling herself on my bed.
I laughed quietly to myself, tossing her the stack of letters Carson sent to Diesel. “Might as well make yourself useful. Want to sort those by date and then we can go through them? Make sure there’s nothing we can use.”
AJ snatched them up hungrily, seemingly eager to be helpful. She tucked her legs beneath her, chewing her bottom lip as she focused all her energy on the letters, quickly pulling them from the envelopes and beginning to sort them.
It was harder than it should’ve been to pull my eye from her and return to the screens in front of me, but I found her reflection in the monitor on the left. Despite her wish that I wouldn’t be distracted, I knew that wasn’t a possibility. Not with her on my bed. No more than a few feet away.
I cleared my throat, dogging the erection begging for attention in my jeans with the firm press of my palm.
It took me twice as long as it should’ve to find anything on Carson Bates.
There were the things I expected. His mother’s obituary.
Some other easily accessible documents. But nothing useful.
No property in his name. No corporations.
No medical records. The guy was basically a fucking ghost. Which I guessed I should’ve expected.
But it frustrated the absolute fuck out of me all the same.
There was still no fucking sign of him or the Kings and with each day that passed, I knew we were edging closer to him making a move.
“You know, I don’t really agree with Dies peacing out on his kid, but I think he did the right thing not bringing him in.”
“What?”
I pushed away from the desk, wheeling my office chair around to face her.
She waved the letter she was holding in her hand. “Kid was fucked up. Right from the start. Some evil is made, but I think this monster was born rotten. He goes into detail in this one about how much he hates cats. Like, how he used to trap the ones in his neighborhood and beat and skin?—”
I held a hand up to stop her there. I could watch a man be brutalized beyond recognition, but animals? Not a fucking chance. Something about their absolute naivety. Their innocence. Didn’t sit right with me.
“Sorry,” she said in a hush, setting the letter down. “I said I didn’t want to distract you and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make yourself so uncomfortable. You don’t need to be in here at all if you don’t want to. You don’t owe me anything.”
Someone had to say something. I needed it out in the open. So we could deal with it. So I could see if there was any chance for us or if I needed to lock myself away from her forever. Resigned to being happy for my brothers, but not enjoying her attention myself.
“Wait… what ?”
The confusion on her face gave me pause. Her lips twisted.
Then she was shoving all the letters aside. “Come here. I think we need to get something straight.”
I dragged my ass from the chair, not daring to hope as I slid onto the bed across from her. When I caught her looking at my eyepatch, I dropped my head, making my hair fall forward to cover it from her view. My jaw clicking.
She darted forward and grabbed my chin, dragging my gaze back to hers before letting go. “Don’t do that. You don’t have to hide it from me, Grey. I should be made to look at it. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be whole.”
I snorted. “What?”
“I don’t know what you’re thinking in that big beautiful head of yours, but I’m only uncomfortable because you’ve carved a fucking line between us deeper than Mariana’s Trench.”
What?
“And I get it,” she continued. “I really, really do. It’s my fault and you’re angry with me for it. You could’ve died and you were this golden boy. Fucking perfect down to every last hair and now?—”
“I look like a fucking cyclops?”
Her face screwed up and for a second I thought she might hit me. My brain was still playing catch up, trying to figure out what was happening right now, but I couldn’t seem to shut myself up and listen, speaking over her instead.
“…and every time you look at me you’re disgusted and probably filled with guilt even though it wasn’t your fault at all . So instead you do your best not to look at me at all. Tell me if I’m warm?”
A deep sadness filled her eyes. “I do feel guilty,” she admitted. “But Grey, you’re still you. You could be missing both eyes and both your fucking arms and I’d still love you.”
It became clear all at once. Like swiping a hand over a fogged mirror to see the truth reflected back at you in all its startling realness.
I was sitting there thinking Ava Jade was disgusted by the sight of me. Wouldn’t ever be able to look at me the same way because of my deformation and the fact that she thought she was the cause of it.
Meanwhile, she was over there, on the other side of the trench between us, thinking I was blaming her. Hating her.
I dropped my head, shaking it, a smile pulling at my lips. A soft laugh on my lips. My fists twisting in the sheets. I hadn’t lost her at all.
She wasn’t leaving me.
AJ was going to stay.
She would always stay.
My heart squeezed. “Well, I’m not planning on losing another eye,” I choked out. “Or either of my arms. So, we have that going for us?—”
She tackled me, knocking me onto my back as she pressed her knees to either side of my hips, lying over me until I could feel her hard pebbled nipples brushing my chest. Smell her hair as it tickled along my jaw.
“Greyson Winters,” she said, holding back a smile of her own. “You are a monument to idiots everywhere.”
“Takes one to know one, babe.” I winked.
She let out a breathy moan as her mouth landed on mine with crushing force, stealing the breath from my lungs. I couldn’t get my hands on her fast enough, running fingers up her sides, grabbing, pulling, digging in so deep that she wouldn’t ever be able to disentangle herself from me again.
She moaned against my mouth, but the sound was spiked with pain, and I immediately loosened my grip, breaking the feral kiss. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait. I don’t want to hurt you. You’re still healing.”
AJ grinned wickedly in response, gripping the collar of my shirt in her fist. I barely felt the pull on the back of my neck before she tore it all the way down to the hem, exposing my chest and abs to her.
She hungrily followed the line of my body all the way down to where my waist vanished into my jeans in a tight V. I adjusted my position, flexing the muscle there for her, making her jaw clench with need.
I meant what I said. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I sure as fuck wasn’t about to deny her, either.
She reached down, easily unfastening my belt before pulling it through all the loops and discarding it on my bedroom floor.
My buttons were next and my throat went almost painfully dry as my breaths deepened.
My cock, rock hard, twitched at the slightest brush of her hand as she worked to pull my jeans off, letting it spring free.
I lifted my hips to help her, seeing how much she wanted this written all over her face. Maybe almost as much as I did.
AJ stood back a second, her wicked stare fixed on my erection as she licked her lips. “Did I ever tell you that you have the most beautiful cock I’ve ever seen?”
A smirk twitched on my lips. I wouldn’t tell her she wouldn’t be the first person to tell me that. Instead I tucked my hands behind my head and cocked my head at her. “Is that so?”
“ Mhmm .”
She crawled back onto the bed. “I don’t think there’s a single flaw.”
Her gaze flicked up to my face, tracing every ridge. Every hollow. “In fact, I don’t see a single flaw anywhere .”
“Neither do I.”
She bit her lower lip, making my body burn with a need for her so strong I worried she might go up in flames if she came too close.
But my girl didn’t fear fire.