“It’s. Against. The. Law.”
“Which would be a huge fucking deal if I thought we’d get caught, but we won’t. I know my brothers. I know what they’re capable of and so do they. If we didn’t think we could handle it, we’d deal a different way.”
“Then find a different way. You’re making a huge deal out of nothing.”
“You getting hurt isn’t nothing. Or have you forgotten your run-in with their henchman? A little bit deeper of a wound and your ribs could’ve punctured your lungs. What if you hadn’t had your phone with you?”
“You’re blowing it out of proportion.”
“Really? What about your neighbors? What if I hadn’t woken up when I did the night of the fire? Or hadn’t been able to get in Mr. Yates’s house? He wouldn’t be kicked back in a retirement community waiting for his house to be rebuilt, he’d be in a casket. How much more unsafe does this situation need to be?”
Her lips clamped up tight, but her chest huffed up and down as if she’d sprinted a mile. “I believed in you. I told myself the fact that you had your own private emergency room was just me not being in touch with the real world. That you were being a good guy taking care of not-so-good people despite how they got hurt. I rationalized my boyfriend getting out of bed at two o’clock in the morning to meet his friends was completely understandable. That I just didn’t know how friendships worked because I’d never had any. I even went so far as to twist up a man being able to hack into my personal accounts on a whim as a benefit instead of something terrifying. But that was complete shit, right? This is your world. You guys do this kind of crap all the time. It’s not a one-time deal, it’s a way of life.”
“You’re right.” He stood and seized her with one hand behind her neck, his face nearly nose to nose with hers. “My brothers and I grew up in a different world. A rough one. But we grew up right. We know right from wrong. We have honor. Our code might not live up to your letter of the law, but it is always honorable. More than that, we protect the people we love. And you are most definitely loved. So much sometimes it hurts. I’ve said it before, but apparently it didn’t register, so I’ll say it more clearly. Like it or not, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, I won’t do for you. Especially if it means keeping you safe.”
Her voice dropped to a scary pitch and her body shook. “Get out and stay away from my brother.”
His fingers clenched, muscles straining beneath a flood of adrenaline so powerful his veins burned. He should have kept quiet. Should have sucked it up and waited. Earned her trust over the long haul instead of throwing her in the deep end. “Your brother’s a grown man. What he chooses to do is on him. As for me, I told you I loved you. That comes without conditions. Exactly as you are. You said you love me. I trusted that. Hoped you’d take me the same way. Either you don’t have a fucking clue what love is, or you’re just too scared to face it and you’re using the first excuse to hightail it to safe ground.”
He let her go, her startled gasp ringing in his ears. Fastening his jeans, he snatched his shoes and T-shirt off the floor. Christ, what a clusterfuck. He’d never be able to focus tonight. Not with this shit hanging over his head.
“This isn’t an excuse. I trusted you.”
“To what? Stay inside the lines so I didn’t rock your tidy world?” He tugged his shirt down and sat on the side of the bed, jamming on his boots. “Life is messy, Gabe. People are imperfect. But you know what you can count on one hundred percent? Me. I’m not your mother. I’m not the narcissistic assholes you went to school with. I’m the man who loves you. Who’s doing his damnedest to keep you safe.” He stood and ambled so he towered over her. For the first time since he’d met her, the angry twitch he’d wrestled his whole life was back and flailing him with a razor-edged whip. “You may not agree with me, but I’m asking you to support me.”
“You want me to pat you on the back and say this is a great idea?”
“No, I want you to tell me what you think, take the fucking time to see it from my angle and back my play no matter what. It’s what I’d do for you.” He gave into temptation and gripped both sides of her face. “You get tonight. Then I’m back here in the morning and we’re talking this shit out.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Oh, yeah we are.” He grinned, a perverse and twisted part of him loving the throw down even if it did mean tomorrow could end up screwing his world thirty different ways. “You might be willing to run at the first sign of trouble, but I’m not.” He kissed her hard and fast before he turned for the door. “That’s a fact you can bank on.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
For the fifth time in under ten minutes, Gabe made another pass through the pictures she’d taken the past week and wiggled in her rickety pub chair. Comfort-wise it was probably the worst seating choice at the Gypsy Coffee House, but its dim lighting and corner location made the inconvenience worth it.
She swiped her phone’s home screen with her thumb and a lakeside landscape slid into place.
Too bland. Swipe.
An urban bridge.
Too dull. Swipe.
The new family Lake Center.
Too much color. Swipe.
The nighttime skyline outside Zeke’s town house filled the screen.
Perfect.
But too painful.
Yeah? But who gave you the phone to take that picture with? And the computer that went with it?
She dropped the phone to the tabletop and pinched the bridge of her nose. God, it was like a free-for-all in her head. Ever since Zeke had stomped out, she’d had enough back-and-forth, nonstop arguing to make her wonder if she should add multiple personality disorder to her social anxiety hang-up.
The muted strains of acoustic guitar from the main room died away and a round of semienthusiastic applause billowed up in its place. Surely, April would be here soon.
She flipped the phone back over and punched the button on the front. The fingerprint sensor unlocked the screen so fast she barely registered 8:12 p.m. on the lock screen before it redirected her to her photo app. Her favorite picture of her and Zeke together stared back at her.
God, she loved that shot. He’d taken her to a hole-in-the-wall diner for breakfast the morning after he’d told her he loved her and asked the waitress to take the picture. The accommodating older woman had taken a ton of them, eager to get the shot just right.
There wasn’t a bad one in the bunch. Yeah, the lighting was off in a few and she could have framed them better, but with Zeke in them, they were perfect. His arm looked natural around her, his smile wide and easy and his gaze focused on her instead of the camera.
But he was a criminal. Maybe not a convicted one. Not yet. But he would be if he got caught. And if he was willing to break into a major corporation, no matter what his reasoning was for doing it, what else would he be capable of? For all she knew, the things she’d pieced together were just the tip of the iceberg.
April’s perky, no-holds-barred voice cut the dark corner’s quiet. “Hey, what’s up?”
Gabe punched the off button on her phone and stood for that still-awkward hey-how-are-ya moment she’d yet to master. The first time they’d met for coffee she hadn’t known whether to fake one of those BFF hugs she’d seen other girls give each other, or shake hands. Thankfully, April had stepped right in and offered one of those casual half-hugs. “I didn’t get you in trouble at work, did I?”
“With the phone call?” April waved the concern off and hung her purse on the back of her chair. Like always, she was dressed mostly in black, her wide magenta belt the only color accenting her simple cotton tunic, leggings and combat boots. “Nah, I had it on silent and was working the floor. No one noticed. Sorry I couldn’t get out sooner, though. You sounded pretty worked up.”
Worked up was putting it mildly. The first hour after
Zeke had left she’d been so wound up with her internal debate, it was a wonder she hadn’t hyperventilated. Calling Danny hadn’t been an option. Between the way he’d acted the past few days and the things Zeke had told her, he was clearly on Zeke’s side of the fence. The guys in the shop gave her funny looks if she talked about anything but sports or cars, so they were out. That had left April. And while they’d gotten to know each other a little the past few weeks, dialing her number had been one of the single hardest things she’d done in a while.
“Yeah, I...” She fiddled with her phone. “Something happened.”
“At work?”
“No, with Zeke.”
April slumped and rerouted the coffee she’d been about to take a sip of back to the table. “Ugh. Please say he’s not a cheater. Cheaters are the worst.”
Despite her foul mood, Gabe managed a weak chuckle. Leave it to April to lay things right out in the open and give it an extra kick at the same time. “No. He’s not a cheater. I’m just not sure it’s smart to keep things going with him.”
“Why? Last I heard he was twenty kinds of awesome.”
“He is. He was. I mean...” Shit. How the heck was she supposed to sum all this up and not sound like a loon? She worried her fingers along the weathered groves on the dark stained table. She might not agree with what Zeke and her brother were doing, but she didn’t want to get them in trouble either. “There’s this thing going on. A situation in my neighborhood.”
April leaned in and crossed her arms on the table, clearly warming up to the story.
“My brother and Zeke think a group of people are up to something bad. Something that needs to be stopped. But instead of telling the police about it, they want to take care of it themselves.”
“Okay?” She lifted her eyebrows as if to say, “And what’s the rest of it?”
“What they want to do is illegal.”
April frowned. “Illegal as in they plan to hurt someone?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, he said they planned to turn things over to the cops after they figured out what was going on, so no.”
“So, they’re gathering evidence or something?”
“Something like that. But it’s dangerous. I mean, if these people are capable of doing what Zeke and Danny think they’re doing, they could get hurt.”
April sat back in her chair, shoulders slumping. “I still don’t get it.”
“What’s not to get? They’re doing something wrong, and it could get one or both of them hurt.”
“Did they say why they were doing things the way they want to do them?”
“Zeke says turning things over to the cops right now would give the bad guys time to hide evidence and disappear. That the police have to follow certain procedures.”
“So, it’s not necessarily that they have anything against the cops, it’s just they don’t want the bad guys to get away with anything, or hightail it before they can get caught.” Taking a slow sip of her usual to-go cafe mocha, April studied her over the plastic top, then carefully set her drink on the table and crossed her legs. “So, the nuts and bolts are you’ve got a protective brother and boyfriend who’re trying to do the right thing big picture—wise, but aren’t going about it in a way you’re too excited about.”
Thank God, someone actually understood. She nodded, so freaking relieved to know she wasn’t a complete nutcase that she let out a heavy exhale with it.
April cocked her head. “And you told him how you felt about it?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s still doing it anyway?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s why you’re upset? Because he’s not changing his mind?”
Gabe opened her mouth to throw out another yes, but snapped it shut instead. Was that why she was mad? Surely not. “No, I’m upset with him because what he’s doing is wrong.”
“Looking out for you is wrong? I mean, I get it’s not on the up-and-up, but it’s not like he’s out to hurt anyone, right? He’s just getting what’s needed to protect you. And the only ones at risk are him and his friends. Not you.”
So much for finding someone who related. Gabe grabbed the straw out of her untouched water and poked the ice floating on the surface. “Breaking the law isn’t a gray area. If everyone tried to use that kind of justification and did what they wanted, the world would be a nightmare.”
“The world already is a nightmare.” April studied her for long seconds, slowly pivoting her coffee between her fingers and thumb. “Are you really considering walking away from a guy that had you on cloud nine twenty-four hours ago?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Um, no.” She snatched the straw out from between Gabe’s fingers, tossed it to the table and grabbed Gabe’s hand, giving it an encouraging squeeze. “You’re absolutely right. Breaking the law is usually a black-and-white situation, but people are all different shades of gray. You can’t fit anyone into a perfect tidy box because we’re human. Fallible. Every man, no matter how hot, smart or attentive, is going to fall short somewhere. If I had a guy who fell short tiptoeing into gray matter trying to take care of me, I’d tally that up under the I-can-deal-with-it column.”
Gabe tugged her hand free, tempted to make some lame excuse and leave. She’d thought for sure April could help her. Yeah, the woman had a rebel image, but in the few weeks Gabe had known her, she’d been super straitlaced and just as OCD as Gabe. She actually put towels on her floor mats in her car to keep them from getting dirty. You didn’t get more uptight than that.
“I don’t get it,” April said.
“Don’t get what?”
April shook her head. “You’ve got your neat-and-tidy quirk and are as shy as they come, but you accepted me right off the bat even with all my weird bullshit.”
“So?”
“So, what makes a mostly easygoing woman who thumbs her nose at all things girly get so rigid with law and order? It’s completely out of character with the rest of you. What gives?”
People were everywhere. Cops and tenants from other apartments standing around gawking while they hauled her mother away in handcuffs. Police cars lined the front of the building, the blue-and-red lights swirling so fast they made her nauseous. For ten minutes, one of the cops had held her hand and stood beside her until her dad and Danny had shown up.
“I could have stopped her.” Her own, distracted voice startled her out of her memories.
Across the table, April watched her with the same kind of shrewdness she’d come to expect from Zeke. “Could have stopped who?”
For years she’d kept her past buried, yet here they were fighting their way out from the darkness. “My mom.”
“Stopped her from what?”
Gabe hung her head, tears blurring her clenched hands in her lap and acid filling her gut. Years she’d kept the story to herself. Beyond the police, her dad and a visit to a shrink five years later, she’d never rehashed it. Never wanted to. But all of a sudden the memories were right there in front of her, tangled with all the fear and confusion she’d wrestled since her fight with Zeke. “When I was eight, my mom was arrested. Possession with intent to distribute.”
That night still registered as clear as if it happened yesterday. The apartment reeked like the bottom of Toothless’s litter box, and the place was so cluttered and dirty there hadn’t been a single place she’d felt comfortable sitting down. “She used to take me with her. She said we were going out to have fun with her friends, but she always put little baggies in her purse before we left. I thought about saying something to Danny or Dad, but I didn’t want to make her mad. She and Dad fought all the time back then, and the only time she was really nice to me was when we went out.”
“She took you with her?”
Gabe nodded, her shoulders sagging. “I guess she f
igured taking me was better than leaving me at home.”
“That’s whacked.”
Gabe shrugged. “It only happened a few times. The last time she sold to an undercover cop. Turned out her friends were really guys she was sleeping with behind Dad’s back. They needed a flunky willing to front for sales, and she needed men who made her feel young again. The trade didn’t work out so well for her in the end.”
“How in the world do you think you could’ve stopped that? You were eight.”
“I told you. I saw the baggies in her purse. I saw her walking up to people outside in the parking lot while I waited in the apartment. I was little, but I wasn’t stupid. All I had to do was tell my dad. Or even Danny. They’d have done something, and I wouldn’t have lost my mom.”
“Lost her how? She got jail time?”
Gabe shook her head. “No. Although, I bet she wishes it would have been that simple. She copped a plea and turned over her friends to the cops in exchange for probation. By the time she got home, Dad had hauled her stuff off and had filed for divorce. He spent every dime in savings on attorney fees, but got full custody of me and Danny.”
“And you think if you’d have done the right thing your life would have ended up with some fairy-tale ending?”
“Well, at least I would’ve had a mom. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Danny and Dad gave me a really good life. A solid one. But it’s not easy growing up in a house with only men. It’s...awkward.”
“And smelly.”
Gabe smiled at that. She couldn’t help it. April always managed to lift her up. And surprisingly, she felt a lot lighter having shared. Clearer than she’d felt in a long time.
“Gabe, I don’t know how to tell you this, but there’s no guarantee you blowing the whistle on your mom would have changed anything.”
“There’s no guarantee, no. But I’d have at least had a chance.”
“Tell me something.” April folded her hands on top of each other on the table. “When’s the last time you saw your mom?”
Wild & Sweet (The Haven Brotherhood) Page 28