52. Bram
brAM
The loft was filled with the smell of cooking turkey and sweet potatoes, yeasty rolls and freshly-baked pies as I made my way down the first-floor hall. Maeve had been at it for days in the kitchen, and I could hardly wait to dig into her delicious food.
I also couldn’t wait to dig into Maeve. I’d been fantasizing about licking cherry pie off her body for at least two days but she wouldn’t let me touch them until Thanksgiving.
“Bram!” Maeve called. “Did you pick up the wine?”
“Yep!” I called out. “Put the white in the fridge and the red on the table like you said.”
A year ago I wouldn’t have believed I’d be running Thanksgiving errands for Maeve — for anyone — but here I was, more than fucking happy to be Maeve’s errand boy just to know I was lightening her load.
And that wasn’t the only thing I wouldn’t have believed, because in less than an hour, Cassie was coming for Thanksgiving.
With the Hawks.
Even more shocking, I wasn’t totally dreading it.
But first, there was something I had to do.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor, and the music receded as I entered the room I shared with Maeve.
And okay, with Poe and Remy most of the time too.
Sometimes I felt selfish about my time with Maeve, but it was mostly okay to share her with the two men who were like my brothers.
We took care of her together. She deserved that.
I closed the door and walked to the desk on one wall, my eyes snagging on the picture of my parents with Cassie and me when we’d been kids. It had been one of the pictures from the storage unit, and it still did funny things to my chest to see it every day.
A year ago, I would have stored it away, avoided the feelings it brought up in me.
But Cassie had taught me that it was okay to feel sad. That feeling sad was as much a part of life as feeling happy. That when you pushed one away you pushed the other one away too.
I thought maybe I was finally ready for it all. Not just the anger and violence that had been the north star of my adult life, but the happiness and sadness too.
I pulled my gaze from the picture and opened my desk drawer, then pulled out the tiny portable drive I’d clipped from Dimitri’s nightstand the night we’d found Rain Adakai.
I stared at the single word written in marker across the drive: Shepherd.
I didn’t know what it meant. Didn’t want to know.
I put the drive in my desk and closed the drawer.
Once upon a time I would have felt like a coward for looking the other way. Now I had something to lose.
A lot in fact.
And I was done losing shit to the assholes who’d stolen girls from Blackwell Falls.
Were there more bad guys out there somewhere?
Definitely.
But I couldn’t stop them all.
I’d already made a copy of the drive and sent it to the FBI. I couldn’t risk Maeve’s and Cassie’s lives by sticking my nose in every bad thing that happened the world over.
I’d played my part, had taken out my share of the trash.
It would have to be enough.
I closed the drawer.