Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
ANDIE
Sitting at Max’s grandiose desk with my feet propped up and ankles crossed, I survey his office with new eyes. He was such a pretentious asshole. A glutton for power and respect. He was also a tacky decorator. The room is all dark brown furniture, leather chairs, and deep red upholstery. It’s what I’d expect the waiting room for a sleazy gentlemen’s club to look like. Max never allowed me inside this room, so I’d always been curious about it. Seeing it now, I’m completely underwhelmed.
I pick up the solid gold letter opener and begin carving a message into the woodgrain of the desk, just like my name was carved into the flesh of Max’s chest. When it doesn’t mark the wood like I want, I bend down and pull the hem of my leggings up. I take out Jax’s knife and continue, while simultaneously dialing Tessa’s number.
“He still hasn’t woken up,” she answers, knowing exactly why I’m calling.
I stab the knife down into the desk and stare at it. The red handle glints in the dim lighting, sending disjointed flashes of me shoving the knife deep into the neck of Alejandro’s man. Funny how killing someone warps time. It happened a handful of hours ago but feels like a lifetime.
“I told you that I’d call if anything changed. Have you told Jax your plan yet?” She’s eager to know what he thinks about using drones as remote-controlled assassins. I swear, I think she has a crush on him. Too bad that he’s mine.
“Not yet, but soon. Have you tracked down Rita yet?”
I’m sure the guys still think she’s at Domenico’s safehouse, but after finding out she’s been secretly meeting with Julio, I highly doubt she’d remain there. My cousin was always a clever, duplicitous bitch.
“Pearson sent a couple of men to go check the place out. Said it was quiet as a mouse and dark as midnight.”
I pretty much figured that’d be the case. I really do need to meet this Pearson guy. The man did buy me clothes. But so far, our paths haven’t crossed, which is weird, seeing how much he’s mentioned in my presence by everyone else.
“Has anything popped up regarding Julio or Alejandro?” Tessa has been searching for their whereabouts using her software.
“If I said not yet, are you going to kung-fu me?”
“I’m not Neo from The Matrix .”
“Could’ve fooled me.” Her light chuckle puts a small smile on my face.
“Could you do me a favor?” I ask her.
The clicking sound of her fingers tapping away at the keys of her laptop is heard over the phone. “Shoot. And I didn’t mean that literally.”
I roll my eyes, even though she can’t see me.
“I heard that,” she quips, and I laugh.
The sound feels so foreign. When was the last time I truly laughed? Like an honest-to-goodness belly laugh that crinkles your eyes and makes your stomach hurt in a good way. I’m floored when I realize that it had been with Rafe, the week before everything with us went to shit and I was sent away to Switzerland.
It was such a stupid thing too, come to think of it. We had met each other around one in the morning at the park we liked to go to. That night, Rafe had asked me to dance with him under the full moon. I was a horrible dancer with two left feet, but he didn’t seem to mind. Every time I would accidentally step on his foot, he would howl up at the moon. Like I said, it was so stupid, but he had me hysterically laughing the entire time. I even started intentionally missing the dance steps, just so I could hear him howl.
“You’re not even paying attention, are you?”
“Huh?”
“What favor did you want to ask?”
I dislodge Jax’s knife and put it back inside its holster. “Could you set up a phone or something next to Rafe’s bed and have it play music?”
The keyboard tapping stops. “Anything specific?” she asks, but her dreamy sigh comes through loud and clear. Tessa was always a hopeless romantic.
“You can loop ‘From This Moment’ by Shania Twain, ‘This Kiss’ by Faith Hill, and ‘Love Story’ by?—”
“I knew you’d be dropping Taylor in there!” she exclaims. “How many times did we karaoke that song?”
Too many. And I blame tequila.
I jump in my seat when Keane says, “Do tell?” He’s standing on the other side of the desk, his mouth twitching when he sees my face blush hot knowing he heard everything she said. Well, shit.
“Was she any good?” he asks Tessa, who is more than happy to spill my secrets.
“She can sing Taylor under the table and does an awesome rendition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’ Just don’t make her hit a high D like Mariah. It’ll crack Jax’s glasses.”
“Shut it, Tess!”
Giggling, she singsongs, “Hanging up now.”
Keane sits on the edge of the desk and looks down at what I carved. “See you’ve been redecorating.”
“This place should be demolished, and a golf course put in.”
I follow his finger as it traces over the letters of KARMA IS A BITCH NAMED ANDIE, wanting more than anything for that finger to be doing the same thing over my naked flesh.
“How’s our boy?” He tries to make asking about Rafe sound nonchalant, but he can’t hide his concern.
I lean forward and touch his hand. The difference between them is striking. His skin is lighter than Rafe’s, callused, and scarred like Jax’s. But unlike Jax, Keane’s fingers aren’t tattooed. In comparison, my skin tone is paler and my hands unblemished. But I see the blood of the two men I have killed covering them. I’m the only one who does. Nothing will be able to wash that away.
“It’s okay to be worried about him.” I lift my gaze to his. “It’s okay to still love him.” Fuck knows, I still do.
Keane flips his hand over to link our fingers together. “Rafe is too stubborn to die.”
“Kellan was stubborn, too,” I remind him. Stubbornness won’t stop bullets.
I miss my brother, but I also hate him right now, if that makes sense.
Keane leans forward, resting our joined hands on his thigh. “Jax told me what you said. I swear to you, Andie, we thought Kellan had gotten out.”
“We were under heavy fire. We circled around and were coming back when we were told Kellan had been extracted and was being taken to Hollis.”
“Who told you that?”
Jax’s full lips thin to a grim line. “Your father.”
Jax swaggers in and comes around the desk. He lifts me with ease and collapses into Max’s chair with me in his lap. “Thought we were meeting downstairs,” he says, moving his hands up my chest and cupping my breasts. It would be a waste of breath to tell him to stop, so I lean back and enjoy how his fingers swirl around my areolas.
“Jax,” Keane warns him as he watches my reaction to what Jax is doing.
“Fuck off. Finders, keepers.”
Jesus .
“Where’s Liam?” I ask Jax, trying not to moan like a hussy when he pinches both nipples.
He peeks over my shoulder at the desk and whistles through his teeth. “Want some gasoline and a match?”
“Actually—”
“Hell, no,” Keane quickly interjects. “I’m already half afraid she’s going to burn the entire house down. Don’t encourage her.”
I try to keep a straight face when I reply, “But then, you guys could come live with me at Declan’s.” I burst out laughing at the horrified expression on Keane’s face.
Sobering, I reluctantly remove Jax’s hands from under my shirt and stand up. “Seriously, where’s Liam?”
Jax combs his hands through his hair, locking his fingers at the nape of his neck, his elbows bent on either side of his blond head. “Left him with Dante downstairs.”
I bend down and kiss the tip of his nose, then readjust his glasses. “Go get him, please.”
When I walk out of the office, I turn left instead of heading for the stairs. Jax’s comment about gasoline and a match have me heading for my old bedroom. The door is closed but I can see everything perfectly. Every night Max came to my room. Every punch of his fist. Every lash of his belt. All the tears I cried that no one saw. All my screams, begging him to stop, that were never heard.
I turn around to face the door to Kellan’s room. It’s been fixed since I kicked it in and tore it off its hinges. Taking a chance, I turn the handle and the door opens easily.
“I remembered something when I was talking to Kellan,” I tell Keane, who’s been quietly standing several feet away. Liam is the only one I’ve actually told about talking to Kellan’s ghost, so Keane probably has no clue what the heck I’m referring to.
During the last conversation with my dead brother I had at Rafe’s bedside, as I pleaded with God, Fate, and whatever higher powers that may exist to save his life, a faded memory popped into my head. Kellan used to keep a journal. One night, after I’d snuck into his room and hidden inside his closet, I’d watched him hide a black leather journal under a loose floorboard next to his bed. I’d completely forgotten about it because later that night, Max found me asleep on the floor in my hiding place and locked me in the cage in the basement as punishment for not being in my room when he came for me. I cried out for Kellan to help me, but he was no longer there.
“Give me a sec,” I say to Keane and walk inside.
I’m met with the same eerie feeling as last time, like I’m being watched by shadows along the walls. Not wanting to stay in here any longer than I have to, I duck down on the other side of the bed, getting on my hands and knees.
Raking my nails along the floorboards, I try to find which one is loose. When that doesn’t work, I use the backs of my knuckles to knock on the wood while listening for a hollow sound.
“I’d ask, but…” Keane says, lowering to his haunches beside me. Somehow, he seems to quickly figure out what I’m up to.
He taps near the foot of the bed, and I become hyper-focused when the empty sound I’ve been searching for resonates in the room.
Keane and I work together, picking at the cracks between the floorboards until one loosens enough for me to slide Jax’s knife underneath and pull it up.
“Huh.” Keane grunts when he sees the tattered and worn leather journal I carefully remove from its hiding place.
Blowing off the thick layer of dust that coats the musty book, I unknot the thin leather band that’s securing it. “You never had a secret place where you’d stash stuff?” I ask him, pulling my legs in front of me so I can sit in a crisscross position.
“Just for my weed.”
I hold my elbow up and sneeze into it, the dust getting to me. “I thought only Jax smoked.”
Giving me one of his panty-melting grins, he replies, “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, princess.”
“Ditto.”
“Touché.”
Once I get the knot undone, I open the journal, my eagerness to finally see its contents too much for me to wait. Keane slides closer to my side, our heads almost touching, as he peruses along with me.
I flip the page. Then another, and another, as confusion wrinkles my brow. It’s all numbers, dollar signs, and coded messages. Keane starts mumbling curses under his breath.
“Do you have any idea what all this means?”
He takes the journal from my hand and closes it. “Unfortunately, yeah.” Keane looks around the room as if searching for something. “Kellan, you motherfucker.”
“Keane, what?”
He stands up, taking my hand to help me stand as well. “We need to burn this.”
I try to snatch the journal back, but he keeps it just out of reach. “The fuck you will. Give it to me. Now.”
“Andie, you don’t understand.”
My hands slam to my hips in exasperation. “Then explain.”
The anger and worry I sense spiraling off Keane put me on edge. Why do I have a feeling that Kellan’s journal contains more secrets that I’m not going to like?
“I want Jax to look at it first.”
“No, you’re going to tell me what you saw.”
My mouth gapes open when Keane blatantly ignores me and heads out of the bedroom. What the hell?