Chapter Thirty-Four
Helios
Coming up on my six, Ares grabbed a piece of framing I’d already cut to size.
“Didn’t ask for your fucking help.” I knew I was being an asshole. Had been for a long damn time, but I was officially past giving a fuck.
Ignoring my shit, a fucking panacea he’d been adopting more and more, Ares started nailing in the new framing around Haven’s door. “Did you ask her what happened today?”
“What the fuck do you think?”
“Specifically ask her,” he amended, like I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.
“No, I just kicked her motherfucking door in for sport.”
“She went out early this morning.”
“No fucking shit.” I’d already been up and in the gym when I’d heard her ass take off in that old truck she still fucking kept.
Damn thing was too ancient to have any integrated location services, and every time I put a fucking tracker on it, she found it and dumped it.
Said she didn’t need me stalking her vehicles when I already had tracking access to her cell.
Except the maddening woman turned her cell off all the goddamn time.
I gave her shit each time she did it, but I also knew her patterns.
She only disabled all her shit when she either took off with her camera, went to see Raine, or went to the farmer’s market to shoot pics for the clients she did product photography for.
“Where’d she go?”
“Don’t fucking know,” I ground out, already seeing where this was going, which was fucking bullshit. Ares knew damn well she’d turned off her cell this morning. I’d bitched to him about it when I’d tried to track her.
“That’d be a good starting point—finding out.”
Dropping my hammer into my tool belt, I turned on him.
“You were in my fucking room, keeping her up when she needed to sleep it off.” Fucking talking to her when she wouldn’t goddamn talk to me.
“And now you’re gonna pull this bullshit?
” Fuck him. “You got something to say, you have actionable intel, then fucking download. Otherwise, fuck off.”
“Engaging with me every time she doesn’t behave how you want won’t solve anything.”
Scanning his face, knowing I should feel guilty for hitting him, I didn’t feel shit except anger. He’d been playing this game for years. “You don’t want to get fucked up, then fight back.” This wasn’t only about Haven, and he knew it.
“I’m not fighting you, Helios.”
“No, you’re just gonna do the same goddamn thing as her.” I turned my back on him, and that shit hit my conscience harder than my fist in his face.
Fucker was silent, but he didn’t leave.
“Don’t know what you’re hanging around for. Don’t need you breathing down my six to shut me out, motherfucker.”
“I’m not shutting you out.”
I pivoted. “That’s exactly what you’re doing.
When’s the last time we rode? Went to the range?
Had a fucking meal?” Anger spiked with every question because the only time he engaged anymore was when we took bullshit assignments for Nix.
“I’m not the goddamn problem here. You’re doing exactly what she’s doing.
You just don’t stay in one place long enough for me to kick your motherfucking door in.
So yeah, I fucking fought you. I am goddamn fighting—for both of you.
But I’m seriously starting to question why the hell I bother.
” Unbuckling my damn tool belt, I dropped it.
“Finish the door. Or don’t. I don’t fucking care.
” Shoving past him, half expecting him to say shit, to be the brother I used to know, I aimed for the garage.
Ares didn’t say shit.
His silence followed me all the way to my Ducati. It stuck like stink as I threw my leg over the Panigale V4 R. It clung as I started the engine. It fucking grew as I revved the two-hundred-and-eighteen-horsepower engine, and it goddamn chased me all the way to the highway.
Then I was doing a hundred and twenty, and I no longer gave a fuck.