Chapter 23
Scarlett
Alexei sprinted from the edge of the woods to the shower, tearing off his clothes and flashing that sculpted ass of his without a care in the world.
Nudity is not an issue with him. He was naked before he hit the door to Bohnes’ room, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll burn the clothes when I get out. ”
Then he disappeared into a column of steam and I haven’t seen him since. The water has to have run cold by now, but he’s still in there, scrubbing that pearly white flesh of his to an angry red. I leave him be, nursing another cup of coffee at the table.
Ernest Bolin was useless. Completely and utterly useless.
Bohnes is a talented, um, interrogator and Alexei is pretty good himself.
We got nothing out of him. Nothing except for Alexei satisfying his urge for revenge.
Man, though, those tears he shed for his dad?
I knew he was still deep in mourning, mired in grief, but he hides it well.
Like me, eh? Yeah. Alexei and I are of a similar ilk.
My gaze drifts over to the box of Lemon’s ashes, perched on the hood of my Pantera.
It’s absurd to think that the high-spirited, boy-obsessed blond that used to lounge on that car in her short skirts and her platform shoes is now dust and bone fragments wrapped in cardboard.
I hate that. I hate knowing that the older sister I looked up to morphed into a snake and ended her life with a shotgun in hand and murder on the mind.
Yup. Alexei and me both, still grieving.
“The mayor is crawling all over Springfield and Eugene looking for us,” Bohnes remarks absently, studying his phone.
The depth of his intel is astounding. He knows everything because he knows everyone.
He has eyes on every block, from Prescott to Four Corners to the fancy ‘tree neighborhoods’ like Oak River Heights, Oak Park, and Oak Valley.
Rural ones, too. Mohawk Valley, Marcola.
Everything. “When we leave this house, we need to move with purpose.”
He looks up at me, hunched over his own coffee and wearing a long-sleeved shirt that reads The Morgue the Merrier.
God, I love him so much. Becoming his Nightmare is an honor for me.
Truly. After the torture sesh, he wiped himself down with some paper towels, smearing Ernest’s blood across his pale skin, and then just slipped into a fresh set of clothes.
No problem. Fresh dash of liner around the eyes.
Smudges of purple underneath to give him that undertaker look I like so much.
“Any news from the Crimson Crew?” he asks as Ash cleans the kitchen (weird-ass sight, I’ll tell ya that) and Widow lounges in the chair next to me, leg kicked out, feigning relaxation when he’s really tense as fuck.
I put my hand on his thigh and give it a squeeze, savoring the strength of his quad and the unconscious lean of his body toward mine.
“Nisha and Basti went to school as normal.” I pause and let my gaze narrow on Widow.
“Nobody parked in my fucking space.” Widow looks up at me, hair falling in his face as he smirks, same ol’ cocky prick he’s been since day one.
I wave my hand around. “Anyway, they spotted some goons lurking around the edges of the property but nothing happened. Yet.” I snap that last word off the end of my tongue.
Yet is operative. Yet is imperative.
“Yet?” Bohnes whispers back, menacingly, sinking into the shadows of his hoodie as he curls over his phone, tapping out messages to his scattered spy demons across the city.
“There will be no yet. We’re going to leverage the mob against the mayor.
When you’re outmatched and outclassed, you pit one Goliath against another. ”
“And how, uh, are we going to do that?” Widow asks, jumping when Ash approaches with a hot teapot, setting it in the center of the table on another pot holder. Poor Adrian Lawless, he’s giving Ash the most addled expression I have ever seen. “Are you getting off on this?”
“Getting off on what?” Ash asks quizzically, near to hysteria it seems. “Feeding you? Giving you coffee and tea?” He sets a couple of mugs on the table and then reaches into his pocket, drawing out a handful of tea bags.
These are strewn across the surface like an accusation.
“I’m just trying to keep it together. I was expecting to be dead or incarcerated by now.
I’m…” Ash hesitates, turning his gaze to me.
“Confused. I don’t know what else to do, so I’m doing things I’m not allowed to do at home. ”
“Nope.” I wag my finger at him. “Home is wherever I am. And you’re allowed to make weird gooey omelette things and serve tea.
” I lean forward and put my elbow on the table.
“For that matter, that’s all that you should be doing.
You are not in charge here, and you are not the sacrificial lamb.
Be yourself, Ash. Those are your orders. ”
I pause as Alexei emerges from the bedroom, wearing a towel around his hips and looking a bit like a pissed-off lobster. Well, a pissed-off lobster with abs and chiseled hip flexors and shapely calves. Ahem.
“Miss Force, if you’d give me some time to prepare, I’d like to have dinner with you this evening.
” Alexei closes his eyes and exhales, like he’s pushing the stress from his body.
He opens those soft marbled green eyes of his, forcing a smile onto a mouth that looks precariously close to breaking into a violent sneer.
I get it. His father’s murderer is out back, still alive when he should be six feet under.
“I understand we can’t leave the property, so I’ll improvise.
” He cants a look in Ash’s direction before turning to Bohnes who doesn’t return his stare whatsoever.
“I’ll be using the kitchen, if you don’t mind. ”
Bohnes scoffs, waving his hand around. The too-long sleeve of his white sweatshirt trails over his fingers like the strap of a white asylum coat, flopping with the motion.
“No need to ask. I’ll soon be a partial owner of that pretty little mansion of yours.” Bohnes finally lifts his head up and peers at Alexei with narrowed blue eyes. “I won’t be asking permission to do anything at all. So, yes, use my kitchen to cook dinner for my Nightmare. Ash can make my food.”
Ash tilts his head at Bohnes, blinking through a kaleidoscope of emotions. They stare at each other. Ash ends up nodding his agreement. He opens one of the tea bag packages, popping it in a mug and then pouring hot water over the top while Widow watches with an inscrutable facial expression.
“Excellent.” Alexei hesitates, working his jaw and fidgeting with his towel. This is not a man who fidgets. Ever. “May I ask after the items you packed in suitcases for Scarlett?”
Ash looks up from his tea (how the fuck does Bohnes have tea in his house?), dark hair feathering across his forehead.
“Are you perhaps in search of a white box with a gold dress?” he asks, a strained crack in his voice.
The rich boys stare each other down as Widow lets out a harsh laugh, putting both elbows on the table and resting his head in his hands.
My focus shifts to him and my lips tighten into a sharp line.
We need to talk, don’t we? Trish is out back in a different shipping container, voiceless from too much screaming.
That has to be weighing on him, the idea that she’s still breathing after the awful shit she’s done.
“How did you know?” Alexei retorts, dry and cool in tone but with a clenched jaw and an angry swipe of his tongue across his teeth.
“Found the box. Found the note.” Ash sighs and tugs the tea bag from his mug, setting it on a folded paper towel.
He doesn’t look at Alexei as he lifts the mug to his lips, blowing softly on the steam.
Bohnes ignores the three of them entirely.
“What I wanted to do was burn that dress with the rest of the house.”
Aw, fuck. That dress, the one that Alexei sent me to wear to Lemon’s engagement party at the art gallery, it belonged to his deceased mother. Yep. That mother. The one who passed away from pneumonia and sent him into a tailspin of germaphobia.
I stand up from the table, prepared to intervene in their inevitable fight.
“But I didn’t. I packed it safe and sound in one of the suitcases.
” Ash takes his tea over to the living room and settles down on the sofa as Alexei stares at him, recalculating his opinion.
Their violent animosity toward one another that day in the safehouse, when Ash walked in on us fucking, it’s dissipating like smoke.
“I assumed I was going to die and leave Scarlett in your care. I kept it for that reason.”
Alexei hesitates, pushing a bit of wet blond hair from his forehead.
“Thank you.” The words scrape past his teeth, but they don’t sound disingenuous. On the contrary, he means it or he wouldn’t have said it. Alexei casts his cavalier gaze over to mine and there’s a softening there that breaks my heart. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I know what’s coming.
I’m ready.
“Meet me under the moonlight?” he queries, and I almost smile. Would have if Widow didn’t look like he was about to transform into a wolfman and go on a rampage. “Eight o’clock in the old school bus?”
“Yeah, uh.” I scratch at the back of my head, trying not to panic.
Marriage freaks me out, won’t lie. In Prescott, marriage is a big steel trap designed to break your ankle and keep you hobbled in this horrible place.
It’s not like that, Scarlett. You have Bohnes.
You have Widow. You have Ash. Alexei has money.
Alexei…risked his life to save me in the river. “Yes. Eight.”
I flash him the biggest, brightest grin that I’m capable of, and then I reach out and snag Widow by the hand.
We end up in the Pantera, parked outside on the driveway with the engine running to keep us warm.