38. Riley
“Riley, what’s going on?”Chloe whispers as Maddoc peels out, speeding away like a bat out of hell now that we’ve confirmed that the fire in the warehouse has caught.
She’s looking at me with wide, terrified eyes, and I don’t quite know how to answer. It’s not like we’ve actually been apart that long, but everything is different now. I’m different. The time I’ve spent with the Reapers has changed me, and now that I’ve finally got her back, I can feel that shift inside myself more than ever.
Chloe is still trembling, though, so I force a smile onto my face and gently push the hair—gritty from the gun smoke and violence we left behind—off her forehead.
“You’re safe,” I tell her, since that’s the important thing. “You’re free from West Point now. That’s what’s going on.”
“Will they come after me again?” she asks, her voice breaking.
My heart breaks along with it, but thanks to Logan’s thoroughness, West Point shouldn’t ever try to get her back.
“No.” I grip her hand, holding her gaze so she can see how certain I am about that.
“But what about Dad?” she whispers, dropping her voice as her eyes skitter toward the front seat. Toward Dante and Maddoc. “And… them?”
I still don’t want to tell her we’re in the car with three Reapers. She’s already scared enough, and besides, I’m not sure what they want her to know. What’s safe for her to know.
But her other question, the first one, is easy, so I can at least give her that.
“You don’t have to worry about Frank anymore,” I tell her. “He’s going to have to deal with his own fucking debts from now on. I won’t let him near you again, Chloe. I promise.”
West Point won’t come after my sister again, and Frank won’t bother her again either, because he’ll think she’s dead too.
It truly was a solid as hell plan that Logan came up with.
The genius of the burnt out scene we left behind is that both of the gangs involved, West Point and Capside, will think the other side betrayed them. We made it in and out and left no trace that we were there. The guys took everyone out, leaving no one to report back any differently, and they did it with ammunition that will lead each gang to pin blame on the other.
Logan said it was the first time those two organizations had done business together, and now it will definitely be the last. There will be bad blood between them, each angry about their losses, which will distract Austin from his war with the Reapers.
And the Reapers won’t just get a reprieve from Austin’s aggression toward them. In the end, they walked away with both the drugs and the money.
I really can’t believe it worked.
I can’t believe it’s over.
“What happens now?” Chloe asks quietly.
Shit. I’m not as good of a planner as Logan is, and I’ve been so focused on just getting Chloe free that I don’t have a ready answer to that question.
There’s no way I still have a job at Club M. I’ve got no idea what happened to our apartment, but I know I missed rent and that both Frank and West Point know about the place, so I wouldn’t want to go back there anyway.
And other than the clothes Dante arranged to have brought over for me, I’ve got nothing anymore.
Chloehas nothing but what she’s wearing right now.
Maddoc and Dante have been murmuring to each other in low voices while Maddoc drives, but I guess they’ve been listening in too, because Maddoc speaks up when I don’t answer my sister right away.
“You’ll both need to stay with us for a few days,” he says, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror. “We need to make sure everything went smoothly.”
“We need to make sure McKenna thinks your sister is dead,” Logan adds flatly.
Chloe flinches, twisting around to look at him. “Dead?”
He turns his head slightly, cutting his gaze toward her. “For your safety.”
“Oh,” Chloe says in a small voice. “Thank you?”
Logan doesn’t respond, and Maddoc and Dante go back to talking quietly to each other. I squeeze Chloe’s hand to reassure her that it’s all okay, and she doesn’t ask anything else as we head back to the Reapers’ house.
Where, if I’m honest, I’m grateful to know we’ll get to stay for a bit longer.
It’s strange. The Reapers’ house has been my prison, but now, with our future so uncertain, it feels almost like a sanctuary. With nowhere safe to go when we leave, the fact that Chloe and I will have a little protection for a few more days while the Reapers make sure everything worked out the way they planned is a relief.
We arrive at the house a few minutes later, and the guys usher Chloe and me inside with enough efficiency that I feel like they want us under cover.
For a second, fear spikes through me, fast and hard.
Were we followed? Is Chloe still in danger when I just promised her she wouldn’t be anymore?
But no. Logan planned for as much as humanly possible before we went into this thing, and whatever he was doing on his laptop afterward probably accounted for anything else. This is just an ingrained caution, the kind that must be as natural to men like them as breathing.
Chloe walks tentatively into the house, her arms wrapped around herself and her head swiveling as he takes it all in.
“Hey,” Dante says quietly as he follows us inside, stepping up behind me, close enough that I feel his body heat. “You did good tonight.”
The way he says it, his voice filled with heat and respect, warms me from the inside out. I slow my steps, not minding at all when he doesn’t, and lean back against him for a second, craning my neck a little to look into those impossibly green eyes of his.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “You did too.”
The weight of those words hits me in a rush.
This man killed for me tonight. He saved Chloe’s life, and probably mine too.
He smiles, and I can’t look away, my heart suddenly pounding so loudly that it drowns out everything else.
I was lying to myself back at the warehouse when I told myself I didn’t want the Reapers to die because it would wreck the plan. It was a lot more than that. I don’t really know how to define this thing between me and Dante, whatever it is. But I don’t have to define it to feel it all the way down to my bones.
If he’d died, it would have wrecked something in me.
“Anytime, princess.” His eyes rake over my face like he’s memorizing it, lingering on my lips like a kiss, then he gives me a gentle shove. “Go on now. Go take care of your sister.”
Chloe is still glancing around, shifting her weight uncertainly as she stands in the Reapers’ entryway.
“We need to clean the gear,” Maddoc says from nearby as he drops a bulky black duffel bag on the floor.
“On it,” Dante says, scooping the bag right back up. “You gonna help, Logan?”
“Basement,” Logan says cryptically, already heading out of the room carrying some of the things they brought in from the vehicle.
Dante follows, and I start to step toward Chloe, but Maddoc grabs my arm.
He glances down at the bloodstained part of my shirt, and the wound beneath it throbs at the reminder that I was shot earlier. “That needs to get cleaned and taken care of.”
“There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom upstairs, right?” I say, trying to brush him off, but he doesn’t let me.
“You need Logan.”
“I’m fine,” I insist. “I can get Chloe to help me put a bandage on it.”
Maddoc’s eyes blaze, his grip tightening. “I wasn’t asking. It needs stitches, and he’s the best with that shit. Got a steady hand. You’ll barely have a scar.”
An involuntary shiver rocks through me at the idea of Logan pushing a needle through my skin. Of course he’d be good at it. He’s so fucking precise and particular about everything, his stitches will probably be invisible and as straight as a ruler.
But he likes to hurt me.
He has hurt me.
And the most unsettling thing is, some part of me has enjoyed it.
Shaking off that thought, I refocus on Maddoc. He hasn’t budged or loosened his grip on my arm at all, clearly not willing to let this drop.
“Fine,” I tell him. “He can patch me up whenever he’s done with whatever he went to take care of.” I wave a hand in the general direction where Logan and Dante headed. “But I need a minute with Chloe first.”
She’s holding herself together pretty well, but I know she must be freaking out on the inside. She needs a break from trying to put up a good front.
Maddoc nods, the hard line of his mouth softening a bit as he glances over at her, almost like he gets it.
“Sure,” he says, finally releasing me. “She can stay upstairs in your room with you. Take a few minutes to get her situated.” Those stormy gray eyes of his land on me before I can move, intense as always as he adds in a low growl, “But don’t forget to see Logan.”
“I won’t,” I promise.
He holds my gaze for another beat, narrowing his eyes like he’s trying to gauge whether I’m telling the truth or just saying what he wants to hear so he’ll back off. But finally, he nods and strides after Dante and Logan.
I watch him go, then jerk my eyes away.
“Come on,” I say gently to Chloe. “Let’s go upstairs. I’ve got some fresh clothes you can borrow.”