Chapter 8
WOODY
"Okay, what the fuck gives?" I demanded. Forrest could play that iron-masked leader bullshit with the rest of them, but I wasn't buying it.
Yeah, he was pissed his house burned down, but that was just material shit. Wood, glass, furniture. The place could be rebuilt and refurnished.
Sure, someone burned it down to get to him, but there was more to it than that.
He didn't bother to take shit personally.
Not when, in his line of work, people got personal a whole bunch of the time.
Blaming him for the decisions he'd made.
Insisting he make the decision they wanted.
Suggesting their friends or family were innocent because they wanted them to be.
No, there was a shit ton else going on here. He wouldn't have a face like a thundercloud if he didn't have a good reason for it.
"Maybe nothing gives," Forrest suggested.
"Have you ever heard the expression, 'don't try to bullshit a bullshitter?'" I stopped to adjust a painting on the wall that was hanging slightly lopsided. "It means—"
He stopped, spun around and said, "I know what it means. They would have been waiting for us in the Hamptons if we'd gone there instead."
"Yeah, so?" I asked.
"So they knew we were leaving the city before we decided to," he said.
I absorbed that for a moment. "Someone ratted us out."
Should I strangle Savannah now, or ask questions first, then strangle her? Yes, I know I hate strangling people, but if she was working against us, I'd make an exception.
“That, or they tried to anticipate us," he said.
"You don't think Savannah had something to do with it?" I asked, keeping my voice low. Sable would defend her if she heard me accusing her of anything. Of course, she would, she was loyal. She adored her friend. I admit I liked her too, as much as I liked anyone.
He rubbed a hand over his chin. "No, I don't. I think she's genuine. We might be more predictable than I expected."
"I should be insulted by that," I said, "but this was your plan. You might be the one who is more predictable than you expected."
"It doesn't matter who is predictable. Whether it's me or all of us. The point is, they knew what we were going to do."
"They might know we've come here instead." I took a better look around at the house, its hardwood floors and pale blue wainscoting. It was as quaint as you might expect of a house of this age. Too nice for me to burn down. Bummer.
"They might," he agreed, "but this place is standing. As long as it is, so are we."
I took note of all the doors. If they'd burned down his other house, they might try to blow up this one.
Excuse me if I didn't want to be blown up in my sleep.
Or when I was awake for that matter. I objected to being blown to pieces.
Not to mention if someone tried to blow up Sable.
I'd tie them to the back of my car and give them a nice tour of town at full speed.
By the time I was finished with them, there wouldn't be any skin left for Leif to harvest.
"Leif is going to be disappointed if he can't go to any of his parties," I said. So much for a relaxing break.
"Leif will get over it." Forrest adjusted the painting I'd straightened.
"What's the plan?" I asked.
The moment he knew his other place was gone, he would have formulated a plan. That was how he worked. He did nothing without thinking it through quickly but thoroughly. I admit, he impressed me relatively often. Vice versa, probably. I mean, definitely.
"There's a restaurant in the village that serves incredible seafood," he said, adjusting the painting back to the way I'd put it.
I smirked at him. "All this shit is going down and you're thinking about fish?"
"Really good fish," he said.
"You want to be seen," I guessed. "People are going to notice four people walking around town, who aren't usually here. Word is going to get out quickly."
He turned away from the painting. "I'm counting on it."
"I can't decide if you're the only sane one here, or the craziest," I told him. "We couldn't just raise a flag on top of the roof, with the words 'Here we are, come and get us,' written on it?"
"Are you going to climb onto the roof?" He raised an eyebrow at me.
"Hell no. What I'd like is to be able to walk around without thinking someone is going to try and kill me. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a better way to spend the rest of the day."
After a long drive, I was ready to sit back and relax with a beer and Sable's mouth around my cock. Not in that order. Her mouth was top of the list.
"We can do that when all of this is over," he said.
I leaned my shoulder against the wall. "I liked it better when we were sneaking around, slicing throats. This whole being a sitting duck thing, it's not as much fun as it sounds."
"I know," he conceded. "This isn't the way we usually do things. If I knew who was behind the auction and taking Savannah, that's what we'd be doing right now. Sneaking, slicing."
"Maybe a little dicing," I said, since it rhymed. Also, because dicing would be a priority, along with the sneaking and slicing.
"That too," he agreed. He lowered his voice and added, "I hate feeling like we're running away."
That wasn't the kind of admission he'd usually make. I was surprised as hell to hear it from him.
"I thought the idea was to have a quiet holiday? Regroup and shit."
"It is, but we could have gone to the Hamptons instead. We could have turned up to survey the debris. We could have been ready for whatever they had there for us."
"Your instinct told you otherwise." I wasn't usually into this woo-woo stuff, but he'd kept us alive for this long, based on knowledge and observation as well as instinct.
"It told me to stay away from there," he said. "Whatever they set up, we weren't ready for it." He curled his hand into a fist and tapped it against his lower lip. "We'll be ready for them to come after us here. We have to be."
"Yeah, we do," I said. "Otherwise we'll be nice and dead. I have a personal preference for staying alive for a while longer. A long fucking while. You have something else in mind other than parading up and down Main Street, waiting for people to take potshots?"
"They won't be that overt," he said. "This place might look rustic, but the security system is as good as the one on my apartment.
Better. We can see outside, in every direction.
No one will be able to sneak up on us without us seeing them coming a mile away.
In the meantime, we play it cool. Pretend we don't know what happened in the Hamptons. "
"Let them think they wasted their time," I said.
He nodded slowly. "Exactly."
"That fish better be exceptional, because this whole thing feels like it could turn into a shit show real quick."
"We won't let it turn into a shit show," he insisted. "We've been through worse and walked away unscathed."
"Yeah?" I asked in disbelief. "When? I don't remember a bigger shit show than what this could turn out to be."
"The auction, for one," he said. "We got through that. This will be a walk on the beach in comparison. Literally."
I glanced down toward the floor. "I wouldn't say we got through that unscathed."
He didn't respond for so long, I looked up to see if he was still there. He was regarding me, his brow creased in a frown.
"You said the senator didn't touch Sable."
"That's right," I said. I didn't quite meet his eyes.
His frown deepened. "He didn't do anything to you, did he?"
I grimaced. "Fuck no. I would have pulled his dick off if he brought it anywhere near me." Not that I wanted to touch his dick, but it'd be worth it.
"What then?" Forrest asked in a voice that suggested, if I didn't tell him what was on my mind, he'd find a way to force it out of me.
I let out a long, slow breath.
"He told me to fuck Sable," I said reluctantly. "He thought because I said I hated her that I'd have fun forcing myself on her."
Forrest looked disgusted, but not at me. His anger was all aimed at the senator, exactly where most of it should be aimed. Most, but not all.
"That sounds like something he'd do," Forrest said. "What did he say when you refused?"
I cleared my throat and scratched my forehead.
"Woody," he insisted.
"I didn't refuse, okay," I said finally. "I fucked her. He watched. I didn't hate it. Neither did she," I added quickly. "She hated him watching, but I didn't force her."
For a moment I thought he was going to punch my lights out. Instead, he scrubbed a hand over his chin.
"The senator watched you fuck our woman."
"Yeah. Then I poked his eyes out," I said. "It seemed appropriate since he saw her, you know, naked."
Forrest swore softly. "Very fucking appropriate. Why am I only hearing about this now?"
"Because it's not easy to talk about," I said.
"I wanted to put it behind me. Sable does too.
" I didn't want to talk for her, but I wasn't wrong.
"I figured you should know what went on.
She and I, we didn't walk away from it unscathed.
We walked away from it a little bit more fucked up than before. "
Yeah, I know, that was saying something, because both of us were fucked up from our pasts.
Most of it was because of my father. The more I learned about him, the more I discovered he was much worse than I ever thought.
If she had killed him, I would have given her a fucking medal, not tried to kill her.
I couldn't claim to have always made good choices. Thank fuck I hadn't followed through on that, or things would have been very different.
"It can't have been easy for either of you," Forrest said finally. "Both of you were forced to do something you didn't want to do." He hesitated for a moment before saying, "You didn't want to do it, right?"
I thought about being offended at the question, but if the tables were turned, I'd be asking the same thing. Probably sooner than he had too. It would have been the first thing on my mind.
"Not in front of that prick, no," I said quickly.
"The whole thing was…ugly as fuck. I can't stop thinking about it.
I promised her I wouldn't fuck her until I was worthy of her.
And then… Then I did it anyway." I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck, dragging my nails across the skin, a small way of punishing myself.
"Let me guess. She said you were worthy of her," he asked.
"Of course she did, but I don't buy it," I admitted. "I'm not backing down from her. I'm not going anywhere, but I still think she deserves better than me." Chances were I'd think that for the rest of our lives, no matter what she, or anyone else, had to say about it.
He clapped me on the shoulder. "She deserves better than all of us, but none of us is walking away. She loves you, you know. She might not be ready to admit that to herself yet, but she does."
"She loves you too," I said. I'd seen that in her eyes.
"Yes, she does," the bastard actually said, looking smug. "All the more reason for us to keep her safe and keep each other safe."
"Yeah," I said gruffly. "Let's go and get some of that fish of yours." And keep a really close eye on everyone around us.
I'd say anyone who looks suspicious, but right now, everyone was going to look suspicious, including us. All right, go on, say it, especially us. No lies detected here.
"Woody," he said before I could step away. "Don't be too hard on yourself, okay? What happened, happened. You didn't have a choice."
"I know." I shrugged. "Thanks."
He nodded. I felt his eyes on my back as I headed down the narrow corridor.