Chapter 24 Gable
Gable
Once Ella’s car is out of view, I wait. I want to sprint over there, but I stop myself. I’ve waited six months; I can wait a little while longer.
Monty sits beside me on the bench. I was out of sight but watched the two women talking, making sure that Monty wouldn’t rescind on her promise, but in my heart, I knew she wouldn’t.
I’ve never trusted Monty. She’s sneaky, always putting herself first, but when I finally managed to get in touch with her a few months ago and told her Asher had died, I’d heard the pain in her voice.
She hadn’t believed me at first. She’d said it was a trick, a lousy dirty trick, to get revenge on her for what she’d almost done to Ella.
When I’d finally convinced her, she’d hung up the phone. She called me back a week later. I wondered what she’d done in that time. Had she cried? I couldn’t imagine her feeling anything other than anger or complete indifference. Regardless, she called me back to ask me one question.
“What do you need me to do?”
For six months I’ve kept my distance from Ella.
Six months I’ve kept her safe. Seventeen attempts on her life, two of which had nearly ended my own, but I kept her alive, even though I’m barely surviving myself.
Losing Asher broke me. For weeks I grieved, losing myself at the bottom of a bottle, unable to cry, unable to let out my pain through anything except violence.
I couldn’t accept any jobs because people still want my head, the bounty increasing with every month that I remain alive.
Instead, I threw myself into protecting Ella. It was the only thing that kept me focused and stopped me from spiraling too hard, but now staying on the sidelines isn’t enough.
The four brothers, who very pathetically named themselves the Four Horsemen, total fucking losers, had accepted Ella’s bounty. They only took jobs at half a million or more, so the moment it hit that, they came for her.
I called Monty for help because I couldn’t kill them alone. It was strange, working with someone who wasn’t Asher, especially when Monty is used to working solo and doesn’t take orders well, but over the space of five days, we killed each of the Horsemen. Another threat removed.
But more people will crawl out of retirement for a chance at the kind of money these people are offering, so now I can’t stand by.
“How is she?” I ask.
“As annoying as you said.” Monty dusts off her jacket as if she can brush away remnants of Ella Gibson. “She hugged me. Did you see that? Ugh.”
“Sounds like her,” I say, resting my arm on the back of the bench. “Did you give her the note?”
“Yes.” She hisses out the word. “It’s in her pocket. She’s not very careful, is she? I could have mugged her, and she wouldn’t have noticed. Ridiculous woman.”
I know this isn’t easy for her. Monty loved Asher more than life.
It’s one thing to absorb his death; it’s another to protect the woman Asher had loved.
She’d also been discovered by the police in Barnaby Fisher’s apartment, drugged up to the eyeballs by her own needle that I had used on her.
Her unconscious state had worked in her favor, though.
She claimed she had no idea what I was, and because she’d never left a scrap of evidence behind from any of her kills, her fingerprints, DNA and photograph brought up nothing suspicious.
She was let go and even got a hug from a detective who felt sorry for her.
The woman is manipulative wizard.
“Thank you,” I say. “I mean it.”
“Well, you know the deal. If anyone asks, I killed the horsemen alone. With pizzazz. You don’t take a single bit of credit.”
“It’s all yours.”
She exhales, her green gaze straying back to the headstone. “I still thought maybe you were lying.” She plays with a button on her coat. “I thought maybe this was all a way for him to disappear, like he always wanted.”
In some of my drunken stupors, I thought the same thing. Until I broke into the morgue and stared at my brother’s dead body on a cold slab, eyes closed, two holes in his chest.
Monty stands. “Okay, I’m going on vacation. If you need any more help with Lady Vanilla, do not call me.” She pauses. “Unless you absolutely have to.”
Monty leaves, and I take a deep breath before heading over to Asher’s headstone for the first time.
Despite being close by every time Ella visits, I’ve yet to find the courage to walk over. But this will be my last time in San Francisco for a while, so I have to. At least once.
It’s just marble and a name. Not Asher.
What do people even do at cemeteries? I’ve watched Ella talking to herself, laughing sometimes, and I don’t know if I should be doing the same thing.
How do you have a conversation with the dead?
I can’t do it. It isn’t in me. So, I reach forward and touch the same spot Ella did.
And then I leave.
I wait until nightfall. I’m in my usual spot in Ella’s yard, hidden by the trees, watching her move through the house. I don’t know whether she’s found the note, so my appearance tonight might scare her, but I’ve waited long enough.
My biggest fear is that she’ll be angry with me.
She’s my last tie to Asher, and the thought of her blaming me for my brother’s death haunts me. I’d understand if she did. I shouldn’t have left Asher alone that night. I’d gone to get the car, told him I’d be a few minutes, told him I’d be back …
I pinch the bridge of my nose, remembering Asher’s face.
“She hates me,” he’d said.
I hadn’t known how to respond, so I’d squeezed my brother's shoulder and said we could talk about it in the car. When I came back, Asher was on the ground, Ella by his side.
If we’d stuck together, none of this would have happened. I was supposed to protect him. I was supposed to keep him safe.
The glow of the kitchen light illuminates Ella as she makes dinner. I’m not even sure how I’m supposed to suddenly reveal myself. Do I knock on the door? Throw a stone at her damn window? How do you reappear after being gone for so long?
The back door opens.
“Come on, Motordog,” she says, and I move further back into the trees. “Five minutes of fresh air, then it’s time for bed.”
Motor wanders onto the porch and sits, huffing. I smile. I miss my dog so fucking much. I can’t wait to snuggle that massive furball.
“Come on, Motor,” Ella says, crouching by him. “You like the yard. It’s got grass.” She scratches his head. “Come on, baby boy, be a good boy.”
I scowl and whisper, “That fucking baby voice.”
Motor’s head whips around and focuses on me. Fuck. I did the same thing last night and almost gave myself away.
I very nearly walked out into the garden that night, especially when I heard Ella talk to Asher and start to cry.
It pulled at my chest, and it had taken all my strength not to talk to her.
I don’t know why I suddenly can’t stand the idea of her in pain.
It’s like all the protectiveness and care I had for Asher transferred to her, and hearing her sob last night … it felt like losing him all over again.
Motor stands and wags his tail. Ella is looking in the direction that the dog is.
And maybe it’s the wrong way to do this, but I move out of the shadows. At first, Ella doesn’t move. She stays crouched by Motor, unblinking, eyes fixed on me.
I can’t breathe. Six months of watching her, of needing someone to talk to, to even touch, hits me all at once. The only other person in the world who cared for Asher as much as me has been within arm’s reach for so long, and now she’s finally looking at me, and I have no oxygen left.
Every muscle in me is taut with terror. Fear for myself had always been reserved for losing Asher, of having to exist in this world without my brother by my side, but now it’s all for her.
Motor bounds forward happily, and I fuss the dog, pressing my face into his fur, my heart healing a little.
“Hey, boy,” I whisper. “How you been?”
When I look at Ella again, she’s making her way down the porch steps.
“Is this real?” she asks quietly.
I nod. And I brace myself. For the yelling. The crying.
Ella runs to me and throws herself into my arms. She wraps her legs around my waist and clings to me, shaking with sobs, and I squeeze my eyes closed, circling my arms around her and holding her tight to me.
“Where have you been, you asshole?” she mumbles into my shoulder, still crying.
Something in my chest loosens. My shoulders dip, and for the first time in months, this static in my mind, the constant screaming reminders that Asher’s death is all my fault—it stops.
It quiets. I squeeze her, breathing her in, gripping the back of her T-shirt like holding onto her might turn back time. “Close.”
She pulls back, but I don’t let her go.
“You’ve been close this whole time?” I nod, and she punches my chest.
“Ow!”
“You couldn’t say hi? Asshole!” She hugs me again. “You stupid prick.”
“This is not a nice welcome back.”
“What did you expect?” she grumbles into my shoulder, and she’s right.
What did I expect? Even the best-case scenario would lead to some verbal abuse from Ella. This is how it always was with us and always will be.
She unwraps her legs, and I place her on her feet. She stays close, reaching up to tug on my hair gently.
“You grew your hair.”
“Not by choice,” I say. “Hard to go for a trim when you’re on the run.”
She runs her fingers through it. “I can do it.”
I snort. “Not a chance. You and scissors?”
“I can cut hair!”
“Not mine, you can’t.”
Ten minutes later, I reluctantly sit in a kitchen chair as Ella cuts my hair. I complain the entire time that I don’t trust her, and she snaps at me that she’ll bury the scissors in my neck if I complain once more, only finally keeping me quiet by shoving a box of Oreos in my hands.
It feels strangely normal. Like we’ve rewound time and we’re back in the city, arguing over pointless stuff. I expect Asher to walk in any minute.
“Don’t kill each other, okay?”
“You’ve really been close the whole time?” Ella asks from behind me.
“Yeah.” I shove another Oreo in my mouth. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’ve been fine,” she says, her fingers still in my hair. “Nothing has happened since …” She pauses. “Since I last saw you. I guess they lost interest.”
My bruised ribs and the knife wound that still hasn’t healed say the opposite, but I’ll wait before I tell her about that. I don’t want to scare her—not unless I have to.
“I saw Monty today,” she says.
“I know.”
She pauses. “You were there?” I nod, and she seizes my head. “Don’t move your head, numb nuts!”
I huff. “Yes. I was there. I’ve been everywhere you have for the last six months; I told you.”
“Everywhere?”
“Yes. You have a coffee addiction.”
“Says the man who has almost polished off a family pack of Oreos.” She snatches the box and takes one. “You’re supposed to share.”
My mouth is full. “I don't share.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she says, her mouth sounding equally full. “Okay, done.” She leans on my shoulders and holds out a hand mirror to show me. “See? Told you I could cut hair.”
I look almost like my old self. It’s weird. She turns the mirror to face her and grins, Oreos in her teeth.
“You are such a pig,” I say.
She laughs and wraps her arms around my shoulders. “I’ve missed arguing with you.”
“That makes one of us.”
“Come on,” she says, grabbing my hand and pulling me up.
Ella drags me upstairs and into her room, closing the blinds and sitting me on the bed. She talks nonstop, telling me things I already know—what she’s been up to, how little she’s been writing, how she moved home and hasn’t been back to the apartment, how her friend Matilda is back.
“Oh,” I said. “She’s hot, by the way. Is she single?”
She punches my arm. “She lives in France.”
“And? I can get on board with a transatlantic booty call.”
Motor hops onto the bed, his breath hot in my face. I grin and wiggle his ears.
Ella watches me. “Will you stay here? For tonight?”
“That’s not smart.”
“Probably not,” she says. “But at least you know no one will look here.”
That is true. It takes hiding in plain sight to a whole new level. Even if someone had spotted me in the city or close to here, they’d never dream that I’d be under the chief’s roof.
And now I’m here, I don’t want to go.
“Do you want a shower?” she asks. “I can make you some food and get you a drink. I can make sandwiches, or there’s pasta, maybe something warm? And you can stay here.” She smiles and pats the bed. “We can talk.”
“God, I forgot how annoying you are.”
She smiles brightly. “How could you forget that?”