40
SEBASTION
SHE LOSES EITHER WAY
Lincoln:
I’m heading to my meet in twenty minutes. Mills agreed to meet us there. I’ll let you know what’s up once it’s done.
Where’s my fucking sister? I promised her an update, but I’ve called three times this morning already. She’s not answering.
Istand on crackling grass in softly falling snow, surrounded by just a dozen men, because the rest are busy in the woods bordering our property, exactly where I put them since our security sensors fritzed out overnight.
Forty-seven alerts in less than an hour, because the snow is messing with our technology and wild animals are on the move as they search for somewhere safe to spend the winter.
I bring my eyes up and make sure Scarlett is exactly where I left her.
In my window, hugging her knees and mutilating her poor thumbnail.
She hates this place so much that she’s ignoring her brother, and not even her notebooks provide a distraction anymore.
I wear a radio on my shoulder that crackles with information from everyone else sharing the same channel—seventeen sensors have been fixed, rewired, or replaced completely. Fifty-three remaining—then I bring my focus back down to my phone before Linc loses his patience.
Me:
She’s in my room.
Lincoln:
With you? You have eyes on her right now?
Me:
I’m outside, but I see her in the window. I have eyes on her.
I fill my lungs and ignore Mav’s curious side-eye from twenty feet away.
Me:
When you’re here, I need to talk to you about some shit.
Lincoln:
What shit? Talk to me now.
My phone rings before I have time to reply and tell him no.
His name flashes across my screen. Just like Scarlett said at dinner, Lincoln Castro is cold and calculating, logical and formidable…
unless we’re discussing his sister. When she’s involved, all bets are off, and the control he carries like armor basically dissipates into thin air.
Shaking my head, I answer and press the phone to my ear. “You need to calm the fuck down, stupid. You have a job, remember?”
“What shit do you need to talk about?” he barks right back. He’s on the road, the hum of his tires buzzing along the line. “Tell me now so I can focus.”
“Focus on what you’re doing.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and exhale a groaning sigh. “We need to put this to bed, because she’s losing her mind over here. She’s so fucking unhappy at my house, it’s making me sick. The faster you work, the better this will go for her.”
“The faster I work, the sooner you get rid of her?” He growls in the back of his throat. “You had your fun and now you’re bored, Jameson? You’re pushing my sister out the fucking door?”
“No! If I had it my way, I’d keep her here forever. But this isn’t where she wants to be, and if we’re not careful, she might start chewing through the fuckin’ walls to escape. She needs you like she needs air.”
Like I need her.
“Just hurry up and deal with this mess. If you can do it without shattering her heart, that’d be an extra bonus.”
A deep grunt reverberates from his end of the line. Rage and dread. The truth of what we know, and the secrets he thinks he’s figured out… but hopes he’s wrong. “She loses, no matter what.”
I drop my chin to my chest. “Yep.”
“That keeps happening to my sister, Jameson. She’s a good girl, but for some reason, the world keeps smacking her down. It’s pissing me off.”
“We don’t know that Mills is our guy yet. We think,” I add before he can argue. “All arrows point back to that motherfucker. But until we know…”
“I’ve found money landing in his bank account every single month, Jameson! The same amount, on the same day, every month since she first made a report about Roy hurting her.”
“Which doesn’t look great, but—”
“And those deposits stopped at exactly the same time you put a bullet between Richard’s eyes! That’s not circumstantial. It’s pretty fuckin’ solid.”
“Just finish it out.” I wander a few feet closer to the house, because on the other side of the window, Scarlett receives a text message.
I know, because my phone buzzes, too.
While she reads her messages, I jump screens and do the same.
“He’s texting her right now.” Shaking my head, I bring the phone back to my ear. “Says his daughter’s having contractions and probably gonna have a baby in the next few days.”
“So he’s pretending everything is fine and normal. Or, we’re completely off base and it’s time I consider a whole new career. Since I got this one really wrong.”
“I don’t think you’re wrong. But I think you need to see it through to make sure.
If we’re right, Scarlett will feel that betrayal all the way down to her soul, because she trusts this fucker.
She counts on him to be one of the good guys.
If we’re wrong, she’ll feel betrayed by us, for suspecting her friend is a piece of shit. ”
And then there’s what I have to confess to her soon.
Perhaps the biggest betrayal of them all.
“Just go to the meet, ask him the question, and see how he responds. Then get on a plane and head this way. We’ll deal with the rest when you get here.”
“Fine,” he huffs. “You got eyes on her right now?”
He’s as bad as she is. Obsessed with her just as much as she’s obsessed with him.
Bringing my eyes back to the window, momentary fear hits like electricity in my veins, because she’s not where she’s supposed to be, and the last time that happened, I found my mom at her door.
But then she sits again, no phone in her hand, and picks up a Sharpie instead.
Rather than drawing in her book, she works patterns into her arm instead.
“I have eyes on her. She’s safe and secure.
You have my word. Where’s Nova? You got eyes on her? ”
He barks out a tight, tense laugh and noisily scratches his stubble. “Yeah, I have eyes on her. Your code keeper is safe, you have my word.”
“Good.” For the first time since dinner last night, I drop my gaze and smile. “It’s still a fair trade, then. You keep my code safe, I’ll keep your sister safe.”
He scoffs. Fuck knows I can’t see them, but for reasons I’ll never be able to explain, I picture him reaching across and taking her hand.
“I asked Nova to marry me.”
“No shit?” I swing my eyes up again and look for Scarlett. I want to share this good news with her. I want to hold her while she finds out. But our eyes meet, and hers are… a little dead inside.
Just hold on a little longer, Princess. I’m begging you.
“Congratulations,” I croak out, my smile falling away to be replaced by a frown. “I’ll keep the secret so you can tell your sister yourself.”
“We didn’t plan it this way,” he mutters anxiously.
“Like, I know we’re here looking for this prick, but we’re near my mom and dad, too, and we can’t be working twenty-four hours a day.
My folks found out we were in town, so they invited us over for dinner.
It went really well. And Scarlett loves her.
It just…” He exhales a shuddering breath.
“I fuckin’ love her, Jameson. The moment felt right, so I just… ”
He trails off.
“You asked. Because it felt right. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I feel guilty, because the world is still sinking its boots into Scar’s ribs, and she’s trusting me to help her. Asking Nova to marry me—”
“Will always be something your sister celebrates.”
“But—”
“Don’t diminish Nova’s exciting news just because you and Scarlett are weirdly codependent,” I tease.
Yeah, yuck it up, dickhead. Joke about his familial relationships being the reason his romantic relationships are doomed. You’d know all about that.
“Nova deserves to be excited about this. You deserve to be excited. And if Scarlett found out you were hiding your happiness to spare her feelings, I reckon she’d punch you in the nuts for it.”
He laughs, crackling and weary. “Yeah… you’re probably right.”
“I’m always right, bitch. How long until you and Mills meet?”
“Ahh…” He silences for a moment. “I’m pulling in now, and Mills should be here in ten. I wanted to get a lay of the land before we talk to him.”
“Good.” I bring my focus back to the window and watch Scarlett draw an intricate design into her forearm.
Distance makes it impossible for me to see the finer details.
I can’t even tell if she’s using one of those glitter pens she enjoys so much, or a plain, boring, blue BIC. “Get it done. Don’t die.”
“Why? Would you miss me, Sebastion?”
“Don’t call me Sebastion, you fuckin’ bitch. And no. I wouldn’t miss you.”
But Scarlett would.
In fact, I’m not sure she’d survive losing you.
“Just don’t do anything dumb. Call me when you’re finished. Make it swift, make it clean, and if you have to, make it permanent.”
He balks, choking on plain air. “You want me to delete a cop? I prove he’s our problem, so then I kill him and walk away?”
“If you don’t, I will.”
The crackle of my radio scratches against my brain.
Nineteen sensors have been fixed, rewired, or replaced completely.
Fifty-one remaining. But Lincoln says nothing, and Scarlett doesn’t smile when our eyes meet.
She doesn’t tell me she loves me, except that one time last night, and Mav…
? Well, that motherfucker’s ready to take my seat the instant Scarlett kicks me out.
“I’m down to nine minutes,” Linc grits out. Because he refuses to audibly acknowledge my threat on a cop’s life. “Catch you on the other side.”
“Yup.” I bring the phone away from my ear and jump across to my texts, but where Detective Mills told Scarlett about his daughter and the baby that may arrive today, I see no responses.
When he texted earlier and asked how she was doing, she didn’t reply.
When Linc tried to call his sister three times, and then resorted to texting a pointed what the fuck? She never replied to that one either.
Nothing.
Narrowing my eyes, I drop my hands into my pockets and wander across the crackling grass until I come up on Mav’s left. “I’m not getting her text replies anymore.”
Confused, he meets my eyes, then shoots a lock across to the window. “What?”
“She’s receiving texts. And phone calls. But she’s not answering the calls and not replying to the texts. Or…” I drag my phone out of my pocket and offer it. “She is replying, but I’m not seeing them.”
Taking it, he unlocks it with a simple swipe of his thumb and navigates to my inbox.
“Is it possible she kicked us out?”
He snorts. “No. It’s much more likely she just doesn’t wanna talk to anyone.
” He plays around in my settings and rolls his bottom lip while he works, but coming up empty, he locks the phone again and hands it back.
“You’re still seeing her incomings, which proves you’re not kicked out.
I’d say she’s just sick to death of people.
” He flashes a bright grin and folds his arms. “I get like that often. And let’s not ignore the fact that you only reply to one out of every five messages I send. ”
“Cause you’re always sending dumb puppy videos.”
“Puppies are cute!” Laughing, he reaches up to the radio on his shoulder and turns the crackling volume down a fraction. “Puppies are fuckin’ adorable, man. You don’t even deserve those videos.”
Probably don’t deserve the girl either. But that won’t stop me from wanting her.
“Stay sharp today while the sensors are glitchy,” I grumble. “Dad’s working with the guys on the perimeter, La Bruja and Adelita are both here, and I’ve gotta head out in a little while.”
“Out?” Stunned surprise sends his brows shooting high. “You’re leaving the property?”
“Yeah. I’ve gotta head into town for something, which means you’ll be the big dog on campus till I return.” I slam my shoulder against his and start toward the house. “Or until Koda shows his face again. Then you’re back on the bottom.”
His playful laughter pulses in the air, and the two middle fingers I don’t see, but I feel, prickle against my back. “Fuck you, Bas. Fuck you two times.”
“Pass.” I lift my hand in farewell, then trudging across the yard and onto the salted walkways, I push through the security-locked back door and into the warmth inside.
I wanna see Scarlett again.
But closer.
I wanna hear her voice, and if I’m lucky, she might say something happy.