Chapter 30 #2
“Is that your way of thanking me?” I love fucking with her and watching her blush. I love a lot of things about her. Her body is just one of many items on a list.
“I’m grabbing a shower.” She rolls off the bed with a groan. “Damn, I’m beat now.”
“Want me to join you?”
“Why else do you think I said it?” she asks on her way to the door. There’s that sass again.
My phone is in my pocket, buzzing against my thigh. Motherfucker. I’m torn between pretending it doesn’t exist and answering it to get whoever it is off my back.
She’s already crossing the hall to her own room when I pull the phone free, following.
Calder. Dammit.
She peels off her clothes in front of me before heading for her bathroom.
I answer with a sigh. “This better be good.” I can’t take my eyes off those hips and that ass. I’m barely soft, and I already want her again. I can’t get enough. Forget whiskey, forget every other vice. She’s my drug of choice.
“We might have a problem.”
I can barely bring myself to care as I watch through the doorway while she turns the shower on. “What else is new?”
“Sawyer was in town and heard a rumor that was confirmed over at the sheriff’s office.” He lets out a frustrated breath. “Those Utah assholes. They’re dead. Their licenses were still in their wallets.”
Somehow, the announcement cuts through my distracted thoughts. “Oh?”
“They were found in the woods by a couple of kids on a hike. Bodies frozen, no idea how long they were out there.” Another breath. “It looks like execution style. Bullets to the back of the head for both of them.”
“I hope nobody expects us to send flowers to the funeral.”
“Be serious for a minute.” He asks the question I know is weighing on his mind. “Did you do it?”
“I have other things going on.” I hear her humming in there. She’s happy. She’d better be after coming as hard as she did. “Better things.”
“Well, somebody wanted them eliminated. I doubt it was Lowry, so who else do we think would’ve done it?”
All I can do is remember Emma’s fury when I found those footprints. Would she? Could she? “How would I know?”
“You’re sure you didn’t do a favor for your new family?”
I don’t know what pisses me off more. The insinuation that I’ve changed teams or the balls it took to ask. “Can you do me a favor and not sound so much like a sanctimonious prick?”
“Do you know you always get defensive when you’re guilty of something?”
“Watch your mouth.”
“You should watch yours. I didn’t call to start shit with you.” All I can do is scoff at that. Am I supposed to believe it? “It’s more of a warning. If you didn’t do it, and you don’t think Emma is behind it, then there’s somebody else out there.”
It was probably Emma, of course. All it took was finding out her little girl could’ve been killed to bring out the ferocious beast inside. She had to have it in her—something attracted her to Roman in the first place.
“She’s probably behind it,” I murmur, stepping out into the hall, looking in both directions in case someone is listening nearby. It doesn’t seem that way. “That’s her business.”
“Just watch your back in case you’re wrong,” Calder warns.
“Got it. And thanks for your confidence in me. It always means so much.”
“Fuck off,” he says with a sigh before three beeps signal the end of the call.
Perfect timing, since Allie calls out, “Are you coming in, or what?”
Right. I have somebody waiting for me. Strange, even unthinkable, but I’m not in the mood anymore. Calder has me wondering. Does Emma have it in her to put a hit out?
Instead of yelling back so the housekeeper might hear, I step into the bathroom and close the door behind me. She’s shampooing her hair, tits swaying, looking like temptation personified. Why did he have to call when he did?
“That was Calder. There’s a rumor around town that a pair of men were found dead in the woods.” Pausing, I add, “Calder found out it’s the two guys from Utah. Lowry’s men.”
She spins around so fast, suds fly from the ends of her hair. “What? They were murdered?”
“It looks that way.”
She lowers her arms and stares at me through the glass for a beat or two before backing up under the water and letting it run over her hair. “Did you do it?”
The way she says it, all calm and matter-of-fact, makes me laugh. And almost proud. “Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know. Who else would have?”
It’s her casual tone. Like she expected this, or at least isn’t surprised. Either way, I bristle at the question. “Wait a minute. Let’s get this straight. My family isn’t the only one with resources.”
She opens her eyes, blinking water away. “You’re not serious. You think Mom…”
“Yeah, that’s what I think.”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“She just wouldn’t.” Allie turns off the water and opens the door, reaching for the towel hanging on the other side. “That’s just not her.”
“You can’t be that naive.” After everything that’s happened, she can’t let go of her childish ideas. “You saw the way she was on the phone the night I found the footprints out there. She was ready to rip somebody’s head off if it meant protecting you.”
“No way.” It’s not so much that she wants to defend her mom. I can understand that. It’s how disgusted she sounds at the idea. Like she’s above that kind of thing when we both know she isn’t.
She steps out of the shower, a towel wrapped around her chest, beads of water rolling down her skin.
It’s the kind of thing that would make me bend her over if I was in a different mood.
A better mood. Now, with my blood starting to pump faster, I hardly notice.
“So you would rather it was me who did it than your mom? Is that what you’re saying? ”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say that.”
“No, but it’s what you mean. It’s fine to keep me around like your little guard dog, looking after you. But let your mom make a phone call, and it’s the end of the world. You can’t accept it.”
“It’s just that I know she wouldn’t.”
“But I would? It would be that easy for me?”
“Get real.” She has the nerve to laugh, and the sound echoes, stabbing my eardrums. “I’m not trying to be insulting, but we both know…
” Her face falls. She knows she’s said too much.
Too late for that now. My blood’s already pumping faster.
Hotter. The night she told me we had to end things and everything that happened after comes rushing back.
All the resentment. It wasn’t gone—it never went anywhere.
I only locked it away and pretended it never existed.
“What do we both know?” I can’t believe I’m hearing this, and I guess that’s on me. I should know better.
Her cheeks go as red as her hair, though her clear, green eyes hold my gaze without blinking. “Don’t make me say it.”
“I want to hear it. What are you thinking? What do you think I’m capable of?”
“No. You will goad me into a fight about this. I… I need to think.” She pushes her way past me into the bedroom and throws open her closet door.
Coward. “Don’t walk away from me,” I warn, following her.
“I’m getting dressed, not walking away from you.” She won’t look at me, though, will she? Hiding her face in a rack of shirts.
“I think I’m starting to understand,” I tell her, blocking the doorway so she can’t get around me this time. “You can fuck me, but you still think you’re better than me. Do I have to remind you of what you’re capable of?”
“Don’t do this,” she whispers. Her fists tighten around the sleeves of two sweaters.
“When it came down to it, Allie, you were just as vicious and deadly as any Bishop has ever been. So don’t act all high and mighty now, like your hands are clean.
They are just as dirty as mine have ever been.
And if you think Emma would never do something like that,” I add, “I think you need to wake the fuck up. She was going to sell you to the highest bidder.”
“You’re not going to turn this around on me.” She whirls around, red-faced, eyes watery, and jabs a finger into my chest. “You’re not going to make her sound like—” She cuts herself off, mouth hanging open.
My chin lifts. “What? Go ahead. What were you going to say? Who did I make her sound like? A Bishop?” I whisper, watching her flinch. “A filthy, murdering Bishop? They’re good enough to fuck, but not good enough to trust?”
“That is not what I said! Stop putting words into my mouth.”
“It’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? You’re still better than us. Better than me.” I don’t know where all this comes from, but it spews up, and I can feel it melting all the goodwill I’ve earned with her lately.
I know when she snarls that something broke between us. I don’t think it can be fixed. Right now, I don’t care, either. Not when we never had anything real. How could we? How could she care when she can’t accept who I am?
“You wanna hear what I’m really thinking?” she snaps. “What I’ve been wondering about all this time?”
“Let me have it.”
“How the hell could I have brought that lamp down on his head, hard enough to kill him, when I was lying pinned under him? How about that? And how the hell did you just happen to be there when I woke up? Why don’t I remember doing it?”
“Obviously, you have an idea about it.”
She’s trembling. Her whole body is flushed when she barks, “You’re fucking right I do! I think you did it.”
She finally said it. I wish I could say I’m surprised. “It wouldn’t be the first thing you’ve ever been wrong about.”
“Wrong? I’m starting to wonder. Don’t act like everything you’ve done has been for me, either,” she whispers fiercely, almost spitting the words out in my face.
“Who walks in on a situation like that and immediately thinks about how he can use it for himself? Only you would do that. Right away, you figured you would use it as leverage. So now, I’m supposed to believe you wouldn’t have those guys killed to make sure we knew how much we need you? ”
“Why wouldn’t I tell you if I did?”
“Maybe for the same reason you won’t admit you killed Jackson.”
Unbelievable. She is still this fucking deluded. “You know what? If that’s what you need to tell yourself, go right ahead. I killed him. I’m the reason for all of this. Because that’s what Bishops do, right? Murder comes naturally to us.”
I need to stop. Need to stop this now. But I’m too pissed to think straight.
“Because you’re still so fucking high and mighty, you think you’re above all that,” I snarl close enough to her face that she has to lean back.
“I hate to burst your bubble, but you aren’t.
And let’s face it. You love rolling around in the dirt with me when it’s fun for you.
But as soon as shit gets real, you make sure I know we aren’t the same.
And you know what? You’re fucking right, we’re not. ”
I need to get out of here. Now. How could I have been so fucking stupid all over again? Who am I trying to kid? I’ve always known what she thought about me, what she really felt, and I tried to make myself believe something different. This time, I have nobody to blame but myself.
“Where are you going?” She follows me across the hall, stomping her bare feet.
“Better be careful,” I warn as I shove things into my bag. “Somebody might hear us up here. You wouldn’t want Mommy to know you have anything to do with an evil Bishop.”
“Stop acting like you have the first idea of what I’m thinking or feeling.”
“As soon as you stop insulting my intelligence and wasting my time.” I wasn’t good enough. I’ll never be good enough. “Congratulations. You can have Mommy all to yourself again. I won’t get in the way.”
“Grow up!” she shouts.
I can only laugh. “That’s funny, coming from you. You can’t bring yourself to accept what you did. All this time, you depended on me. To save you and to take the blame.” What an unforgivable idiot I’ve been. Everything Dad always accused me of being.
Once I’m packed, I force myself to look at her. There are tears in her eyes. I’m not falling for them this time. “The cops can take care of you now. I’m finished.”
“What am I supposed to tell Mom?”
“Ask me if I fucking care.” That’s the problem. I’ve already cared too much for too long. That’s over. It’s all over.
I don’t need any of this. Not her, not Emma, not this fucking house or the ranch. I don’t need anyone but myself.
Good thing, since that’s all I have as I march down the stairs with my bag in hand into the gathering dusk.
That and the sense of losing something I never had in the first place… but wanted. I wanted it so much, I hate myself for it.
Not as much as I hate her.
And my father, for shaping me into something that will never be good enough. For leaving his bloody fingerprints all over my life. For staining me to the point where nothing will ever make me clean.