14. Angel
FOURTEEN
ANGEL
"What do you want me to say, Angel? She’s our fucking sister?—"
I slammed the knife in my hand into the counter, almost pleased when the tip snapped off and flew in who knew what direction. "She’s not our fucking sister, Rowan. She’s a target, or did you forget that when she turned those fuck-me eyes on you?—"
Rowan flew in my direction, his hand closing around my throat with lightning speed. "Don’t you talk about her like that. It’s not her fault?—"
"That’s right, Rowan, choke out your older brother over a bitch," Nash mumbled, picking at his nails with the tip of his blade. "Such a unified front we have here. One brother who wants to kill her, one who wants to save her, and one who couldn’t give a shit what you decide, as long as I get to slice something up."
"You touch her with that filthy knife of yours, Nash, and I’ll flay you alive with it."
Nash threw his hand over his heart in mock surprise. "Oh, be still my beating heart. You make promises you probably don’t wanna keep. Be pretty weird if my brother gave me a hard-on."
"You’re a sick fuck," I wheezed, thankful when Rowan seemed to remember he was cutting off my airway and loosened his grip. "And you," I choked out, seething that he’d dared to put his hands on me. "You’re so in fucking love with a ghost from your past that you’re going to ruin us all just for the chance to get in her pants."
"Get fucked, Angel," he spat, his fist curling into a ball again. "Or I’ll finish what you started in that parking lot."
"No, thank you." I turned back to the sink, tossing the now-useless knife in the bin beside me. "I’d rather stick my dick in a pile of fucking barbed wire and shattered glass than fuck Harper Daniels."
"I didn’t know I even offered," came a voice from the other side of the room, and I froze in place as I realized she’d heard every word. I could hear her move around the room like she was right at home, taking a seat in my armchair with a heavy sigh of boredom. "You know, I don’t think it’s right to discuss a woman’s life if she’s not present. So I thought I’d join you."
"I don’t remember any of us extending an invitation," I spat, hating that her presence was enough to set me on edge. I didn’t want her here. I wanted nothing to do with the complications her existence added to our lives. "What if we decide you’ve gotta die?"
"Then I suppose I’ll just make some last requests and hope you still care enough about your dearly departed sister to grant them before you turn Nash’s itchy fingers on me for sport."
She couldn’t be serious. Sane people didn’t joke around like this.
"You’ve lost your damn mind." My brows were so high up, if they went any higher, they’d jump off my forehead. "I thought there was nothing crazier than the loons that live here in the asylum, but you’ve managed to top them in less than an hour." I started a slow clap, sarcasm dripping from every pore on my body. "Congrats."
"Could you be any less of a douche, Angel?" The couch's leather creaked under Nash’s weight as he shifted on the cushions. "Seriously, now. What’s the verdict here?"
"We were given a job. I say one woman’s life isn’t worth us losing everything over."
I knew it sounded harsh. I didn’t care. Let them think I was an asshole. Let them all think I was callous. I didn’t give a shit if they thought I was heartless and cruel. If she stayed, if they let her live, I wasn’t sure I could keep myself from turning into something I didn’t want to be again. I didn’t like the idea of risking our everything for a woman I thought was dead already. We’d already buried her memory deep in the recesses of our minds. Why dredge up the old pain now when we could just end her and call it a day?
Collect the pay and go on with our lives. All in a day’s work. She was just another target. Another job.
Except she wasn’t.
Nash stared daggers into my back; I could fucking feel them like they were actual blades sticking out of my spine. But I refused to turn around. Refused to pretend I was okay with this. If I turned around, someone would see my weakness, and it would all be over.
I wasn’t that weak man anymore.
I’d changed.
And it was all because of her.
Nash cleared his throat, and I heard the telltale creak of the leather as he stood and meandered his way into the kitchen. I knew what his aim was, but I didn’t plan to give him a second to think it through. With my hackles raised like an angry cat, I split, disappearing to the safety of the office as they stood there in the front room, watching me go.
Like a sad little fuck, I hung close to the door, listening to see if they’d pursue me, or if they were just content to let me go. Was I important enough to this conversation to drag back into it?
The pathetic side of me that sought constant reassurance had reared its’ ugly head once more, and I had tried so desperately to keep it buried. All for naught, it appeared. It made me hate myself. Made me angry at the world for cursing me with my overly attached nature. I longed for someone to tell me I was important— no, fuck that! I didn’t need anyone to tell me I was a valuable member of this crew. How many jobs had I single-handedly pulled off?
I was worlds better than I gave myself credit for. These intrusive thoughts wouldn’t win.
Still didn’t stop me from hanging by the door to see if anyone would follow me .
It wasn’t even shut all the way, so I could still clearly hear their conversation.
"Well, you know what his position is on this, Nash. Where do you stand?" Rowan sounded upset, but whether he was angry with the situation, me, or life in general was still up for debate.
Nash grumbled a response I couldn’t make out, then sighed. "I’ll be your tiebreaker, should you need one. But as much as I wanna cut someone up to vent my frustration, I don’t think it should be her." He paused for a second, logical words not usually being his forte. "She didn’t do shit to us."
"I wanna know more about who hired us for this hit," Rowan finally replied, just like I knew he would. He didn’t want to make a solid decision until he knew all the facts. "So until we know what’s going on, maybe we hold off on any rash decision and just do our research."
This didnt sound like the Rowan I knew. The brother I knew would have demanded to plan this thing out meticulously, down to the last finite, minute detail. Rowan, winging it?
I peeked my head back out the door. "Are you still drunk? We know who took out the contract. Who the fuck else would want her dead?"
Harper’s eyes refused to turn in my direction, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to examine why that stung so much.
Rowan frowned. "It’s not our father’s style to do things behind the scenes. If he knew she was still alive, and he wanted to punish us for fucking up the first time, he’d have made it a point to drag us home to berate us himself.."
"So why not go to the source and ask?" I spat, marching back into the room like I’d never left. "Because we hold the contract. Classified client or not, Lilly St. Clair owes us an answer."
Rowan frowned at the suggestion. "Lilly can’t find out about this. If she learns our first target never died, we lose all standing in the Guild, and we’re ruined."
"Fair point." Nash rolled his eyes, jerking a thumb at Harper absently. "So what do we do with her in the meantime? We don’t have many doors with locks on the outside."
"No point in locking me in a room," Harper said suddenly. "I can pick locks pretty well." She took in our incredulous stares like we were the weird ones and frowned. "What? Can’t a girl learn a few questionable skills in seven years?
"Lockpicking isn’t usually a skill you just pick up, Harper," Nash pointed out. "Who taught you a thing like that?"
She flushed scarlet from her head to her toes and refused to meet his eyes. "Sometimes, when you’re down on your luck, you gotta do what you have to to survive."
I suddenly felt even more like shit for my earlier comments about her past. I had a mom who’d had to do a lot for the sake of survival. Unfortunately, her choices led her to relapse and eventual overdose. Harper didn’t deserve the kind of life my mother had to lead.
After all, she was an heiress. And we took that from her and forced her into hiding.
Her life was off the rails because we switched the tracks out from under her. I couldn’t hate her for what she’d done to keep her head afloat.
"We’ve all done things we’re not proud of in the past," I found myself saying, hating how it sounded on my lips. Like some patronizing school counselor. "Fuck, why do I even care? I was ready to kill you ten minutes ago."
I moved to leave again, but her hand shot out and grabbed mine as I passed her seat, refusing to let me go. I shook it off, she attached it right back, like a fucking octopus with suckers in the ocean.
Her voice was small when she finally spoke, with just a hint of that familiar feeling of longing for something you are afraid you can’t have.
Just enough to make me feel bad.
"You hate me, don’t you, Angel? "
I jerked my arm free after a painfully long silence, scoffing at her tears. "I don’t hate you. I hate that you’ve complicated things." I met her gaze, hoping she wouldn’t make me say anything meaner, the weight of the hope there in those baby blue eyes killing me inside. "It’s hard to hate a dog after it’s just been kicked."
Forcing myself to turn away from her was one of the hardest things I’d done in my life. Refusing to turn around and apologize for the harm I knew I’d done was second in line. But listening to the sound of the silence I left behind as I closed my bedroom door, when I at least expected her to fucking cry?
That would stick with me for a long, long time.