Chapter 18 Cash #2
“No. You do not speak yet,” I say, cutting her off.
“I can’t believe you did this, Cece. Do you have any idea what you’ve done by coming here?
How badly you scared your sister? She thought something awful happened to you, and we’re thousands of miles away.
What did you think was going to happen when we landed here?
That I was going to see you and not give a shit that you directly defied me?
Once again, you’re jumping into something completely half-cocked without any thought to yourself or the people who care about you. ”
“I get that you’re pissed, but I had to come,” she says without any remorse or acknowledgment that she royally fucked up.
“I have to see with my own eyes that Red is dead. I should be here. I should be a witness to his last breath, so he knows that he didn’t break me.
I have the chance to finally fight back, and this time, I’m the one who gets to make him hurt. Make him suffer. I deserve that.”
“What about me? Don’t I deserve to be able to trust that you’re safe, that you’re where you fucking said you were going to be?”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “To be fair, I never agreed to stay.”
I open and shut my mouth several times. “Are you seriously standing there trying to justify your actions by telling me you didn’t explicitly say you wouldn’t come? Is that what’s actually happening right now?”
Cece throws her arms to her sides. “I’m standing here telling you that you don’t get to make my decisions for me. I told you I wanted to come. You know why I need to be here.”
I shake my head, too angry for my thoughts to make sense, for words to form.
“Let’s go. We need to unload and get this shit to the safe house.”
“Cash—”
I shake my head. “No. I can’t listen to you right now, Cece.”
I walk off the plane, and Cece follows.
“That was sneaky as hell, Little Bit,” Liam says when we walk up to the group waiting on the ground. “I like it.”
I shoot him a glare that I wish would incinerate him on the spot. Of course he would be proud of her for pulling this asinine bullshit.
We pack up the vehicles and the ATVs with the weapons from the cases. And I get the pleasure of finding Cece’s little hiding spot. She must have pried the side off the crate and snuck inside before repositioning the wood so no one would notice. That was fucking sneaky all right.
Seven of us drive the loaded-down vehicles off the plane. Cece moves to get into the side-by-side with Jude.
“Absolutely not. You’re riding with me,” I call to her.
“Jude is perfectly capable,” she answers.
“I don’t give a flying fuck. Get in here.” I turn my gaze to the dirt road in front of me, waiting for her to get her sweet little ass over here.
When she does, I tell her to strap in, then we take off for the safe house.
When we pull up, it’s only late morning.
We have hours before we’ll be hitting the Bone Breakers clubhouse.
The plan was for us all to get here, go over the attack, get some rest, then hit them in the middle of the night.
Now I have no idea what the plan is. I have no idea what the hell is going on, period.
We get out of the side-by-side and walk over to where everyone else has parked.
There’re twelve men standing around, not knowing what the hell to say about how the situation has changed. And one woman who is still holding herself with way too much attitude for being completely in the wrong.
“What do you want to do?” Ozzy asks.
“I want Liam to get on that plane with Cece and take her back to Shine. We can do this without him.”
“Absolutely not,” Cece says, standing next to me. “Nothing has to change.”
“Everything’s changed!” I yell, then take a breath in an attempt to compose myself. The last thing I want to do is fight with my woman in front of my brothers and Liam’s team. “She can’t stay.”
“I’m not leaving,” she says.
If it were anyone else and this were any other situation, I would probably laugh at the way everyone’s heads swivel between Cece and me. But it’s not, and I don’t find anything about this remotely funny.
“I say she stays,” Liam chimes in.
What the fuck?
“She’s already here. She knows how to use a weapon, and she can stay in the house until we bring Red back.”
“I’m not staying in the house,” Cece states.
“I’m trying to help you out here, Little Bit. Could you maybe do the same?” Liam asks.
“I’m not useless. I’ve been training to fight, and I’m damn good. Ask Cash.”
Everyone looks at me.
“How do you know that?” Jude asks. “Have you been training her?”
“Not exactly,” I reply. I don’t want to get into the whole situation with Roman right now. “But she’s right. She is good.” I can at least admit that.
“So it’s settled. I’ll go with you,” Cece says.
“It absolutely is not settled,” I say. “Since this asshole doesn’t want to take you back,” I say, nodding toward Liam, “you’ll stay in the house like he said.”
She tilts her head and glares at me. “And I said no.”
“Goddammit, woman.” I throw my hands in the air. “Would you listen to reason?”
She doesn’t cower, doesn’t budge when I raise my voice. It’s like trying to reason with a brick fucking wall.
“Are you going to chain me up, Cash? Because that’s what you’re going to have to do to keep me here.”
“The thought crossed my mind,” I mumble.
“She can drive the van. I was going to, but since she’s here, I’ll go in with you guys. That way, we have an even number of men to what we think they have at their compound, and we still have a driver,” Sawyer chimes in. “Win-win.”
I look at Cece, and she nods in agreement.
It definitely isn’t a win-win, but apparently, it’s the best I can hope for.
And it looks like that’s all I’m going to get.
When we walk into the house, there are two bedrooms and a couple couches in the main room, which isn’t saying much.
The place is small and looks like any random run-down house you would expect to find out here.
Dingy white paint, outdated kitchen appliances, scarred wooden kitchen table and chairs, and a layer of dust that covers every surface.
We all spread out. Linc, Jude, and Barrett take one of the rooms. All of us are tired from our early start, and we need to get some rest. Cece and I take the other room, and we leave the rest of the guys to figure it out for themselves.
The bedroom contains nothing more than a mattress on box springs pushed against a wall and an old dresser on the other side of the room.
At least there are blackout curtains hanging from the window, so we don’t have to try to sleep in a bright room.
“Cash, I know you’re angry with me,” Cece says, sitting on the bed
I shake my head, leaning against the closed door. “Angry doesn’t even begin to cut it, sweetheart.”
I’m pissed as hell. But the longer I think about what she did, the more I respect her for it, begrudgingly as it may be.
Cece is a force. I knew it from the first time I met her.
It’s the quiet kind. The kind that’s unmovable, unbreakable.
Part of me wants to strangle her, and the other part wants to kiss the hell out of her for being so fucking brave.
She didn’t cower once when I was doing everything in my power to send her packing.
She stood firm in her resolve to see this through.
“I’m sorry I lied,” she says.
“Oh, you admit it now?”
A ghost of a smile ticks up the side of her mouth. “Yeah, I admit it. You thought I would stay in Shine, and I let you believe that. But do you understand why I’m here? Why I have to be here?”
“Part of me does.” I blow out a long breath. “It’s why I want to be the one to kill the bastard myself.”
“I guess we aren’t so different then,” she says.
I walk across the small room and sit next to her. “The difference is, I’m always one-hundred-percent up front with you. You still keep things from me.”
“I’ve told you more than anyone else in my life.”
“True. But I need more than that. I need trust. I need you to do what you say you’re going to do, not go behind my back.” It’s not as though this is the first time she’s let me believe she was doing one thing when she went and did another.
“I get that. I really am sorry.”
“I know. But Cece, if anything happens to you…”
She shakes her head. “It won’t. I didn’t come all this way to fail now.”
Neither did I.