Chapter 31
EVE
After the run in with Abraham, who I hoped was still alive but wouldn’t mourn if he’d met his damn end in that fucking alley, Brodie decided it wasn’t safe to be outside of Meadowridge any longer.
He got us on the first private plane he could commandeer, which, to no coincidence, happened to belong to Andrew, or his mother anyway.
I barely noticed the luxury, spending most of the time with my face buried in Brodie’s chest, while he crooned soothing words and stroked my back. We looked like we’d just stepped out of a prom slasher flick, since there’d been no time to grab our clothes before we got the hell out of there.
When the car dropped us in front of Bluebell House, I wasn’t surprised to find four men standing out front waiting for us, expressions sober. I was surprised by the fifth though, and even in my exhausted state I was aware enough to know that there was a new danger in my life.
One in the form of Vinnie Sullivan.
The gangster boss stood apart from the others, wearing a full suit like he was about to go into the office.
For all I knew, he was a businessman and had a plethora of legit businesses that he was out there running, while keeping his criminal enterprise in the shadows.
Ethan and Connor spoke very little about their father and the life they’d led before Meadowridge, and I wondered if I should ask them if the expectations were that they’d fully join that world once they were done with college.
Ethan was maybe already involved, but he certainly didn’t spend a lot of time there. All he appeared to do was feed his father information. Was that his only role these days? Would he have more responsibilities in the future?
Brodie opened my door and wrapped his hand around mine, lifting me slightly from the car, since this dress didn’t allow for an easy range of movement. “Don’t stress, Evie babe,” he whispered as he pulled me into his side. “We would never allow him to hurt you.”
I laughed in a dry rasp. “Should we bring the Oscar just in case?”
For that, I got a broad smile, and I knew this golden boy wasn’t losing any sleep over using his trophy as a weapon. With Vinnie, it was hard to know what would happen, and I didn’t want to ask his sons to stand against their father over me. Especially if that put a target on their backs.
Too tired to be dealing with this shit, I straightened my spine and trudged barefoot along the cool path, the sides of my dress trailing in the dirt. Not that I had to worry about destroying it.
That had well and truly been taken care of last night.
“Well, well,” Vinnie said, inspecting me from head to toe. “Looks like you’ve had a rough night.”
I paused, forcing a smile on my face. “What? No, this is how we were styled. It’s fashion, Vinnie. The theme was dark romance.”
Yep, I’d definitely cracked my last inch of sanity if I was just spouting off sarcastically to the man who’d suggested killing me the last time he’d seen me. But fucking hell, I did not have the energy for this shit.
Thankfully, he didn’t show any outward sign of offense, chuckling loudly like I’d made a hilarious quip. “Ah, yes, I’m very old and unfashionable these days. I will defer to you on the fashion of blood spatters.”
Connor’s laugh was dark and not particularly amused. “Fashion or not, you know your blood, old man. Now, are you going to tell us why the hell you’re here? Quite the coincidence that you’d appear not more than a minute before Eve and Brodie.”
The cool morning air disappeared when I was surrounded by my guys, the five of them all but cocooning me in the center of their big bodies. For a moment, I couldn’t even see Vinnie, which bothered me, so I gently shouldered Connor and Ethan aside. Those two had taken point at the front.
“Ah, there’s your pretty face,” Vinnie said, and I shivered, unease trickling down my spine.
“Now, I’m here to find out why my son’s sidepiece, who’s supposedly pregnant with his child, is out at the Oscars with Brodie Kellar.
That feels disrespectful, and you know how I feel about disrespecting the Sullivan name. ”
Ethan’s voice was somehow burning and laced in ice at the same time.
“You cheated on Connor’s mother for years before you eventually married her, even when you promised my mom you were going to save her from her life of poverty.
” Clearly that hadn’t happened, as Ethan was the illegitimate part of their world.
“I don’t think you give a single fuck about disrespecting the Sullivan name.
Vinnie’s expression hardened. “I took you in, son. I trained you, paid for your education, and ensured you had everything you needed to succeed. Don’t ever fucking forget that. Even with your mother nothing more than a cleaner who brought little to our world. You got to be part of it.”
“I’d rather have not been,” Ethan said flatly, and Vinnie nodded.
“Yes, you have made that abundantly clear,” he said, “as you’ve barely visited since you started teaching here. Are you even still feeding me pertinent information that comes across your desk?”
From where I stood, I saw the way Ethan clenched his fists at his side, but there was no anger in his voice. “Yes, if it’s pertinent. You won’t get more than that from me though.”
Vinnie shrugged, and I couldn’t tell if that was a gesture of indifference or more along the lines of we’ll see about that. Either way, I wished that two of the men I was in love with didn’t have this psychopath as a father.
“Anyway,” Vinnie continued, back to sounding chipper and affable, “let’s return to my curiosity. Connor, care to explain to me why you would allow your woman to parade around on the arm of this fancy, famous fucker.”
Brodie squeezed my hand but remained silent.
I could feel the rumble in Haze’s chest, which indicated his patience was running thin.
He didn’t have an issue touching me these days, but he was pressed fairly closely to Connor at the moment too, and I had no doubt that would be bothering him. Among other things.
“Evie isn’t pregnant,” Connor said. His tone was so even that it took me a second to register the statement.
“And she’s not just mine. She belongs to all of us, and we don’t take lightly to her being threatened.
So I’d think very strongly about what your next move is, old man.
I can either work with you or against you, and I know which I’d prefer. What about you?”
The silence that followed was so heavy that I wasn’t the only one half-hyperventilating.
Okay, I couldn’t hear any of the guys breathing erratically, but they had to be panicking on the inside, right?
Or was this just a regular Tuesday for them?
Threatening a gangster who had men at his disposal and somehow controlled the police in this state.
Fuck my life.
When Vinnie started laughing, I almost peed myself in shock, and I shook my head like I’d hallucinated that response.
Only, he didn’t stop for a full minute, before he finally wiped at his eyes.
“I tell you what,” he managed to say around a few more chuckles, “that was not what I expected to come out of your mouth. Son, usually you’re about as useful and intelligent as a bag of rocks, though that statement fits in that regard. ”
Ethan bristled on my right. “Connor has a 4.0 average, which you’d know if you gave a single fuck about him outside of grooming him to take over as your right-hand thug. He could run your damn empire with his eyes closed and both hands tied behind his back. You don’t give him enough credit.”
Connor was staring at Ethan like he’d never seen him before, and I looked between them, seeing that despite all their bickering and animosity, there was a real brotherly bond there, one that just needed a little prodding in the right direction.
I was the woman for that job—just not now, when we were still in the middle of this bullshit.
“Yes, yes,” Vinnie said, waving Ethan off like he was an annoying fly. “You two have always had each other’s backs. No matter how many times I tried to pit you against each other. In a form of character building, of course.”
It was growing obvious that Vinnie enjoyed playing games with the people in his life and that had me saying, “You knew I wasn’t pregnant from the start, didn’t you?”
His intense, unnerving stare landed right back on me.
“It appears Connor isn’t the only one hiding some brains.
Yes, I knew. You think my sons live in a house with a strange woman and I don’t know everything about you?
I know exactly who you are, Evelyn Cromwell, and I know what my sons and their friends have been protecting you from. ”
I pushed forward, but Haze lifted me off my feet and deposited me as far from Vinnie as he could get, using his huge body as a shield. “No,” I snapped, nudging my elbow into his side. “You aren’t my damn human shield. I need to know what Vinnie knows.”
“And you shall, but it’s not much more than I’m sure you all know,” he said, and I was confused about how calm and unbothered he appeared to be.
What was his endgame in coming here?
“What is your game?” Connor asked, echoing that thought. “Why accept the lie?”
“It was better to save face in front of our men,” Vinnie said, dusting some nonexistent lint from the breast of his pristine suit jacket.
“So they would accept the end of your engagement to Lacey and also acknowledge Eve was now off limits. I will not be informing them that she lost the baby until all the trouble in her life is cleared up. The last thing we or Abraham need is anyone else thinking they can use Eve as leverage.”
For the first time, Andrew spoke up, his refined voice clipped, “You know Abraham too?”