22. Riley
I’m shiveringas I step out of the shower, but at least my head feels a little clearer. Clear enough that, when I hear voices downstairs and realize that Dante and Logan are back, I don’t let messy emotions get in the way. The three of them are talking, and while I may not want to see Maddoc again right now, I do want to know what’s going on.
I need to—more importantly, Chloe needs me to—so I quickly dress again and head downstairs.
As usual with these three, they’re clustered around the kitchen island when I walk in. They all go quiet when I walk in the room, and my stomach drops.
“What happened?” I ask, the question making Maddoc’s jaw clench in a familiar tell.
Whatever it is, it’s not good.
I steel myself, making eye contact with each of them. “Just tell me. Is it about Chloe?”
Maddoc’s the one who answers. He looks less wrecked than he did before, but his face is just as closed off and emotionless as when he dismissed me after we fucked.
“Payton managed to get some information out of the West Point guy she and Luis targeted,” he says.
I flash back to the moment before she died, when she pulled him down to whisper her last words to him. Was that what she took the time to say? I’d figured it had been a last gasp declaration of her feelings, and the fact that it may not have been—that she may have been looking out for the good of the gang right up to the end—makes me think a little more highly of her. She obviously had her faults, but the Reapers clearly have a code of ethics that really does set them apart from other gangs in Halston.
“What did he tell them?” I ask, wiping my suddenly sweating hands on the sides of my pants. I know “tell” is a euphemism. Payton and Luis had to have extracted the information the same way West Point got whatever it was they wanted out of Troy.
But I don’t care. If that makes me a bad person, then fuck morality. It may not be smart to let myself think I’m on the Reapers’ side, but I’m sure as shit not on West Point’s.
Still, I send up a silent prayer that Maddoc’s not about to tell me Austin McKenna has my sister again.
He doesn’t.
“West Point knows Chloe is alive, and just like we figured, that got them curious about why.”
“Madd’s mobilized our whole organization, trying to get her back,” Dante adds grimly. “We tried to keep it on the down low, but that wasn’t ever gonna last for long.”
“So they know we’re looking for her?”
The three of them exchange looks, but this time, it’s Logan who answers. “Worse. They found out she’s the heiress to William Sutherland’s estate.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, my stomach cramping with tension. This is what I actually need to remember. That I can’t trust them because, even though they’re not lying to me about their intentions anymore, their intentions are to use my sister, and her money, like a pawn in their fucking gang war.
Except Logan’s right. This really is worse. With both gangs competing for control of Chloe and both sides having already shown how ruthlessly they’ll attack each other, her chances of staying safe out there on her own have just dropped hard.
“Hey,” Dante says, walking over and tipping my chin. “It’s not all bad news, princess. It’s not like McKenna’s got any more leads than we do.”
I give him a wan smile. “An even playing field? That’s what you’re going with?”
“Who said anything about even?” he asks with a lazy smile, holding my gaze. “We’ve got you on our side.”
He’s just trying to reassure me… and it works.
A little.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, some of the tension leaking out of me. It is bad news, and I know I won’t be able to trust the Reapers once we find my sister, but right now I guess we really are all on the same side.
I nod to let Dante know I’m okay, and he drops his hand but stays close to me, his shoulder bumping into mine as the talk turns back to what I assume they were discussing before I walked in: the implications of what went down today.
“West Point is becoming more of a threat every time we turn around,” Maddoc says, his eyes catching mine as guilt stabs through me.
I shake it off, though. If they’d stuck to their word in the first place, Chloe never would have had to run, and recent events wouldn’t have happened.
Troy and Payton would still be alive.
“It’s not your fault,” Maddoc says, both the words and the hint of softness in his tone catching me off guard. Then his face tightens up again and there’s nothing soft about him at all as he continues. “This has escalated far beyond the shit they were pulling before, and we all know what will happen if they get a hold of Chloe.”
I don’t know… but I can imagine.
“It’ll be bad,” Dante says. “So let’s not let it come to that, yeah?”
Maddoc nods. “Now that McKenna knows how valuable she is, he’s going to make it personal. Especially after the shootout.”
My stomach twists. “But they won’t hurt her, right?”
“They’re not gonna be the ones who find her, princess.”
“Right.” I huff out a breath, telling myself I believe it. “But I’m just saying, if they’re after her money too, they’ll need her, um…”
“Alive,” Logan says flatly.
It’s what I meant, but it’s not reassuring. I already know Austin McKenna is a sadist, and given his history with Maddoc and the fact that Troy was technically still “alive” when West Point got done with him too, the idea that the West Point leader might try to find a way to have his cake and eat it too unnerves me.
“Is he going to retaliate for what happened today? Would he use my sister to send you another… message?”
Three sets of grim eyes meet mine, and my heart leaps up into my throat when, instead of an answer, a rapid, staccato knock sounds at the front door.
I jump, and all three men reach for the weapons they keep on themselves, swinging around to face the front of the house.
“Logan, Dante,” Maddoc says, exchanging loaded looks with his seconds. They all nod as if they’ve actually just had an entire conversation, and Dante takes my arm as Logan flanks me on the other side, all of us moving toward the door.
All three men keep their bodies angled in front of mine, and while none of them have actually drawn their weapons, it’s clear that they’re just as on edge as I am… and that for some reason, they’re acting protective of me.
Maddoc answers the door. A man I’ve never seen before waits on the other side, but apparently I’m the only one who doesn’t know who he is, because the tension in the room ratchets all the way up to the red zone.
The man doesn’t smile. “Mr. Gray,” he says, inclining his head slightly to Maddoc. “They sent me with a message for you.”
“West Point?” I blurt, even though this man isn’t wearing one of those gaudy gang rings and looks nothing like the goons Austin McKenna brought to my apartment when they took Chloe. This man looks more… polished.
He tilts his head to the side, looking me over with an assessing gaze. “And you are?”
“No one,” Maddoc growls as all three of the Reapers close ranks around me, their big bodies crowding me back so quickly that I almost feel claustrophobic. “Come inside. If you’ve got a message from The Six, it doesn’t need to be broadcast to the whole fucking neighborhood.”
“No,” the visitor says in a bland tone that still feels loaded with layers that I don’t understand. “It doesn’t. You know how little they care for public attention.”
The Six. I’ve heard the name referenced before, but I’ve got no idea who they are. All three Reapers obviously do, and the energy between them gets so strained when the man drops that comment that I’m surprised no one snaps.
They usher him inside without another word, and as soon as the door closes behind him, he gets down to business.
“The Six know what happened today.”
“The shootout,” Maddoc says grimly.
It’s not a question, but the man nods anyway. “It was very—”
“Messy,” Dante throws in.
The man blinks, his expression not changing in the face of the apologetic grin Dante throws in.
“Public,” he says after a moment. “It drew attention, and The Six aren’t happy about that.”
The way all three Reapers go unnaturally still at that makes me think it’s a threat, and I bristle.
My go-to response to being pissed off or scared is to snap someone’s fucking head off, but before I can, Logan and Dante both press their bodies against mine, sandwiching me between them, almost as if they could somehow tell I was about to let loose with a snarky reminder that obviously no one is happy about what happened today.
I take a breath and force myself to relax. Whatever’s going on here, it isn’t my fight. I’m not a Reaper, and obviously I’ve got no right—or any reason—to feel protective of the men who betrayed me.
No matter what my heart tries to tell me.
“There will be a meeting,” the guy representing The Six says, giving a time and a place. Tomorrow, somewhere I’ve never heard of downtown.
“Just us?” Maddoc asks, no emotion in his voice at all.
“West Point is being summoned as well.”
Maddoc nods. “We’ll be there.”
“Of course you will,” the visitor says with a cold smile, then he turns and lets himself out, and the tension snaps—along with any pretense of Maddoc being unaffected—with the string of low, vicious curses that Maddoc lets loose with as soon as the door closes behind him.