Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
SEAMUS
It’s dark outside when I wake up, disoriented and with a headache. I reach for her, but she’s not there, and panic flares inside of me.
Not again.
My mind plays catch-up, and I try to remember everything that happened before I fell asleep. Emma coming over. Emma kissing me, thank fuck. Emma asking me about what I’d done.
A sinking feeling fills my gut even as alarm pounds through my veins. She knows, and it sent her running, same as I thought it would. Only this time she’s going to fucking stay away. That’s the typical reaction people have to finding out someone they’re sleeping with is a killer.
I can’t blame her, and it was probably inevitable, the second I gave in to what I was feeling for her. But it hurts like hell.
I sit up in bed, groaning, because I’ve added a hangover to my list of discomforts. Someone—Emma, must have been—put a glass of water beside the bed, so I down it and then head into the en-suite bathroom to take a piss and brush my teeth.
I feel like a crumpled dollar bill in the lint tray of someone’s drier. I’m tempted to crawl back into bed, but even if Emma left, and I got fired by the most unprofessional woman in the world for being unprofessional, I’m not done. I’m going to find a way to help them take Jeffrey down. I need to do it for her, even if she doesn’t want my help anymore.
So I leave my room and nearly trip over my own feet.
There’s a new rabbit habitat in the living room—a real one—and all of Chuck’s things have been put away. Carrot is chewing on something, but he hops toward the wire side of his enclosure when he notices me.
She took care of him.
She took care of him because I like the stubborn bastard, I know that as clearly as I know my own name. My gaze moves to the kitchen table. To her, owning the room like a damn goddess, sitting in front of a cup of coffee. There’s another cup in front of the empty seat across from her.
My heart lifts in my chest.
“You’re here,” I say, my voice hoarse.
“I wasn’t about to leave you after what happened yesterday. I heard you stirring in the other room, so I made us some coffee.”
“Yesterday?” I ask, glancing at the clock mounted over the stove. Five-thirty.
Her brow creases. “Seamus, you slept for nearly a whole day. I was getting worried, but Chuck knows someone on the second floor who’s been a nurse for years. She took a look at you. She said you were breathing normally and basically implied that you needed it. You woke up when I shook you hard enough, but you went right back to sleep.”
I groan and lower into the chair across from her, running my hands through my hair. What the fuck have I missed?
I glance up. “Have you talked to Rosie?”
She nods. “And your brother. They were worried about you. Chuck and I have been keeping them updated.”
“Where is he?”
“With my mother.”
“Watching Mary Tyler Moore ?”
She grimaces. “I’d prefer not to speculate. I caught her shopping for some lingerie this morning. Lingerie that Ellie talked about on Instagram. That’s about all we’ve found on the phone. Nicole has been giving Ellie and Jeffrey the runaround, but who knows how long they’ll stick with it. They’re barely even pretending to get along.” Her mouth tips into a nearly there smile. “You know, they hired that kid Otis to be Ellie’s new personal assistant.”
“No, shit,” I say, thinking of Sophie and her aunt. They were probably glad to get him out of the house, and God knows the kid is a yes man, especially where Ellie is concerned. He’ll do fine as a PA.
“Yeah, I suggested it to Nicole. She says it’s a better personnel fit. The poor kid shaved a wart off Jeffrey’s foot this morning.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be tormenting them?”
She raises her eyebrows. “There’s been some of that. Nicole brought them to an interpretive dance. But she’s going easier on them, because she was worried Jeffrey might be on to us. She wants to lull them into a false sense of security.”
That’s my fault, obviously. I sigh and rub my forehead, willing the pain away, then notice the painkiller she set out for me beside the coffee. Not the prescribed type, but an over-the-counter brand. “Thank you,” I say, then down it with the coffee.
It feels strange to be sitting here like this, as if everything is normal, when I know what I told her. I can still feel the words leaving my mouth.
“What did Rosie and Declan say?”
“Not much,” she says, giving me a pointed glance over her coffee cup. I can already tell this isn’t my Emma—the woman who curled up next to me in bed last night, or the Emma who sat on my face the night before. This is lawyer Emma. But is she my lawyer or here for the prosecution?
She sets down her cup. “I wanted to hear it from you.”
I scrub my hands over my face. “I need a drink.”
“No alcohol right now,” she says firmly, no hint of give in her voice.
“You sound like Rosie.”
One of her dark eyebrows rises, her expression wry. “Thank you. Rosie’s a smart woman.”
“All the women in my life are.” I take a gulp of the coffee. “All right. You know who my uncle was. You know he died in an accident at home.” There’s more to that story, involving my brother, but that’s his story, and she’s here for mine.
She nods.
“After he died, we knew there’d be trouble. A power vacuum. Declan wanted to leave, to change our names and get the fuck away. Off the radar. I suggested that maybe we should be the ones to step into the vacuum. Do things differently than he did.” I pause, swallow. “I should have known better. I told you. I only lasted a week working for him.”
“But you wanted to impress that woman.”
“Sort of. I mostly didn’t want to leave my home. I never told Declan this, but I’d rented out a space to open my own auto body shop. But that wasn’t the only reason. My uncle had this guy working for him. Tom. He was violent, and he’d been wanting to take things in a different direction for a while. More shakedowns, harder drugs, that kind of thing. There were whispers about human trafficking. Really bleak shit. Seemed like he’d be the one to walk into that vacuum if we didn’t.”
“So you had good intentions.”
I run my hands through my hair again, trying to put myself back in my shoes at the time. I want to be honest with her. I don’t want to sugarcoat anything. She deserves more than that.
“Good and bad, sure. But my brother didn’t go for it, and after we talked it over to death, I agreed with him. We both wanted to get Rosie away from that shit, and neither of us trusted Tom. I didn’t like leaving everything behind, not when it had finally felt like I was getting somewhere, but there wasn’t much choice.”
She doesn’t say anything or urge me to continue spouting shit. All she does is watch me from across the table.
“So we got new IDs and we left. Dec came here, and Rosie and I went to New York.”
I fall silent, drawn back into that time. The confusion of it. The frustration of having to start over again, when I’d been doing okay back home.
Emma shocks me by reaching across the table and taking my hand. I turn it and weave my fingers through hers, feeling strong enough to keep going. “So you can imagine how surprised I was when someone from home stopped by the apartment.”
“Tom?” she asks.
I shake my head, feeling the past push up and try to suck me back into the muck. But I push back. I’ve got to tell her first. Not telling her is no longer an option, and I realize I actually want her to know everything. “No, it was this guy Jimmy. He was the other person who wanted in on that vacuum. He told me he’d found us by following Tom’s footsteps. Tom was looking for us, wanting to either work with us or kill us. Jimmy knew we didn’t want anything to do with that world anymore. So he made me an offer. If I took care of Tom, he’d give us his protection. We wouldn’t be running scared, looking over our shoulders all the time.”
She lifts her eyebrows, indicating she knows there’s more to the story.
I shrug, feeling the pressure of getting close to the end, knowing there’s a very good chance she’s going to walk out of here forever. “I didn’t tell Declan or Rosie. I called Tom. I told myself I could talk him around. Convince him we weren’t any kind of threat, but I didn’t really believe it would work. I set up a meeting at an abandoned cabin I’d found outside of town.” I wrap my hand around the warm mug of coffee, needing the heat to leach into my skin. “He….he’d known our uncle, so he trusted me. He didn’t bring his muscle. When he got there, he asked if we’d back him. I said we wouldn’t. He told me what would happen to us if we didn’t. I said not if I took care of him first. He got out his gun, but I managed to disarm him. I couldn’t just shoot him, though. I couldn’t do that. I told him we’d see who’d come out ahead man to man. Knife to knife. I knew my family was in danger—that he’d kill them if he won—but it felt like the only fair way to decide it.”
She sucks in a breath and draws her hand back. “He’s the one who stabbed you.”
I nod slowly, feeling cast down by it. Overwhelmed. “Jimmy stitched me up himself. I don’t know how Nicole found out. Maybe she doesn’t know as much as she pretends to. All these injuries over the last few days…it’s kind of made me feel like karma was finally getting its piece, but that doesn’t explain you. Because all the bad luck in the world doesn’t outweigh you.”
She’s watching me with those serious eyes, and I know in the pit of my stomach that it’s too much for her.
“Are you going to turn me in, Emma?” I ask, turning the mug around with the tips of my fingers. “Is that what karma wants from me?”
She shakes her head, but her mouth is a firm line, her expression unreadable. This is what she’d look like in court, delivering a guilty man to his doom. “You could have made a different choice.”
I nod, knowing it down to my bones. “No doubt. It would have been easier to live with. But I made a promise to whatever’s out there, if there’s anything, that I wouldn’t ever get mixed up in that shit again. I meant it. I’ve been doing the steady thing, walking the line. When I found out the guys from the garage I was working at in New York were going on the take, I quit and didn’t look back. But being around that man yesterday, I realized I'm still capable of violence, even if I don’t like doling it out. I wanted to hurt him. I still do.”
Her lips part. She flattens them again.
Look at me, making women speechless. I’m a real charmer.
I rub my forehead. “Look, it’s okay if you want to leave. You probably should. I wanted to help you, but I fucked everything up so badly a kid with two braincells had to come to the rescue. I should stick to cars. They’re the only broken things I’ve ever been good at fixing.”
She shocks me by reaching for my hand again. I’d be a putz not to give it to her. I wrap my fingers around hers, wondering if it’ll be the last time.
Looking at me, her eyes full of swimming emotions now, she says, “Seamus, I care about you. A lot. But I need time to process this. I don’t know—”
Her voice catches, and regret swells in my chest. I wanted to be the man who stepped up for her, and here I am making her sad. Putting her career in jeopardy, if we manage to tug it back. I pull my hand from hers and reach up to cup her face, rubbing my finger over her cheekbone.
“You do whatever you have to do, Emma. Don’t worry about me. I’ve made it thirty years on my own. You only worry about yourself. You deserve to have whatever you want. I would like to be part of what you want, but even if I’m not, I’m damn well going to do everything I can to see you happy.”
Her lips part, and she’s so gorgeous it hurts to look at her. She’s such an intoxicating blend of hard angles and soft curves. Of vindictiveness and kindness. Of intelligence and warmth, for the people who are wise enough to deserve it from her. After my screwup with Lia, I never thought I’d meet the woman who’d make me want to try again, but here she is, and I ruined it for myself.
“I need time…”
I touch her cheekbone again, letting my fingers kiss over the skin.
“Of course you do. It’s not every day you start fucking your brother-in-law, and he tells you he’s a murderer.”
She shakes her head softly, a slight smile gracing her lips for half a second—and at least I was able to give her that half second. My hand falls away, and I just look at her, soaking her in while I can.
“Not a murderer. It was at least partially self-defense.”
I shrug, happy for her to think so. It’s true, but I was the one who’d set up that meeting. I was the one who’d decided I could do it if it would mean keeping what was left of my family safe.
“I don’t want to leave you alone,” she says softly, her voice shaking slightly.
Guilt throbs in my chest. I should have left her alone. I should have let her keep that flask and walked in the other direction. I would have thought of that flask fondly, tucked away in her underwear drawer with all of her lacy things some other man would have the pleasure of stripping away. It would have sucked, but it wouldn’t have been as painful as it will be now.
“I’m not alone,” I tell her with a smile. “I have Thumper over there. And maybe you’ll take pity on me and bring Shadow over for a visit.”
“I thought about bringing her over yesterday, but I was worried they wouldn’t get along,” she says. “Shadow has poor personal space boundaries. She likes to wake me up by batting my face.”
“Anyone with sense would want to wake up with you.”
Her lips part again with some half-formed thought.
“Sorry,” I say. “Maybe I have poor boundaries too.”
“You definitely have poor boundaries.”
“So do you, you little thief.”
She smiles at me, sadly, and says, “I’ll bring your flask back, and your lighter.”
I swear prolifically inside my head. If she’s going to return them, it sounds like she’s already decided, or is teetering on the edge of that decision. It’s not looking good for me.
“No need,” I say, playing with the mug again for something to do with my hands. “You keep them. People keep telling me I should drink less.”
“What about smoking less?”
I shake my head. “I keep telling you that I quit.”
Her eyes go wide, and at least I’ve managed to shock her in a good way this time.
“I thought you were messing with me.”
“I tried to quit after New Year’s,” I admit. “After you told me I tasted like an ashtray. But I had a few relapses. I had a cigarette before I came over to your house on Wednesday. I knew I shouldn’t go but I wanted to see you so bad. I haven’t had one since.”
“You did it because of what I said?” she asks in a tone of astonishment.
I lift my shoulders in a shrug that probably doesn’t come off as casual as I’d like. “I didn’t want that to be your takeaway from our first kiss.”
“You thought of it as our first kiss?”
“One was enough to make me want more.”
She looks stricken. “You said I tasted like booze.”
“You did. But I like booze. You don’t like cigarettes.”
She pushes back in her chair, and I know I’ve lost her, at least for today. Getting to her feet, she says, “I’ve…you’ve given me a lot to think about.”
“Is that what you’d tell the opposing counsel?”
She ignores the question. “My mother will pay you for the time you put in, of course.”
Fuck, that hurts. “I don’t want your money. I’ve never wanted your money. I told you I’ve got that job lined up.”
“You said…”
“I know what I said. I came here for you.”
Her eyes fill with tears, but I knew her better than to think she’ll let them fall. Part of me wishes she would, the rest is relieved I don’t have to watch her cry.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” she says, her voice shaking. “Don’t drink. Don’t internet gamble. For the love of God, don’t drive fast on mountain roads.”
“You’re just giving me ideas now,” I quip. “You’ve been talking to Rosie, I take it?
Her expression flattens. “This is no joking matter. I’m sending Chuck home.”
I have to laugh at that. “I get a babysitter now?”
She was about to go to the door, to leave me, but she pauses. “Yes, dammit. I care about you.”
I want to say something unfair, like if she cared so damn much, she wouldn’t leave. But I know who I am. I know what I’ve done. All of that probably isn’t acceptable to her, especially since we were already pushing the line.
“Goodbye, Seamus,” she says, her voice quavering again. And I have to watch her turn and walk out the door, shutting it firmly behind her beautiful ass.
I know, in my heart, that she might have walked out on me for good. My Emma might be a thing of the past.
And if that’s true, then I really am karma’s bitch.