Cocky son of a bitch.
The only plus for us was Zachary had left those other men in the room when he’d grabbed Sutton.
Men Kieran and Maverick went to “talk” to while I’d waited for Sutton to wake.
It hadn’t taken much for the two men to spill everything from the first meeting with Garret and Zachary to hacking ARCK’s servers. They told them about going with Zachary, Jason, Garret, and Aaron to North Carolina to help set up Einstein’s “game” and how they hid out with Garret and Zachary in the Larson’s bunker until they realized we were coming for them.
Zachary was there for obvious reasons, but Garret was there because Zachary didn’t trust him not to go after Sutton. And because the men were Garret’s employees and he had provided the bugs and tracking devices.
Zachary had planted a few of those bugs in Sutton’s and my clothes when they had been sent out to be cleaned. They had also implanted a tracking device in her diamond-encrusted heels before she’d ever been moved to the first motel.
Heels Zachary knew she wouldn’t go anywhere without because they were her favorite.
Those goddamn shoes.
They had also figured we would be monitoring Tennessee Gentlemen security footage, so they’d had the same two days playing over and over again, that way we would never know when people were coming or going from houses or businesses.
Like when Zachary moved from his bunker.
Or when the ambushes were set up at the nine houses.
Zachary, Garret, and his employees had waited out the entire thing from a house across the street. The men we’d killed in the ambush? They were the ones stacked like grotesque logs in the master bedroom.
All the men could tell Kieran and Maverick was they’d been ordered to wait outside afterward and that Garret and Zachary had been arguing about Sutton.
When Zachary had come out of the house nearly an hour later, he was alone and freshly showered.
We’d seen the master bedroom, we knew what he’d done.
In exchange for letting the two men go with their lives, Kieran and Maverick demanded they figure out a way to set up a meeting with the rest of the core Tennessee Gentlemen tonight.
They had.
Then Kieran had slit their throats.
After all, Aaron’s idea or not, Einstein’s game had only been possible because of them.
Voices echoed down the hallway leading to the Tennessee Gentlemen’s meeting hall.
I thumbed the safety on my gun off before setting it onto the table and pulling the bandana up over the lower half of my face.
Maverick followed.
Just before the door opened, we settled back in our seats and waited.
I had to give the men credit—there were hesitations and missteps, but each held his head high and continued stiffly into the room, watching us carefully.
Then again, they must have known we were in town if nearly half of them had nine men guarding their houses from us less than twenty-four hours before.
Once the men were in and standing behind the chairs of the large table, situated so they were facing us, I said, “Clearly, we aren’t any of your sons, and they won’t be joining us.” A rumble moved through the room, so I waited, allowing it to calm on its own before I continued. “It’s pretty clear what you think of your women, which is why we’re involved at all. See, we help women who need it, and a few of your sons weren’t . . . appreciative of our help. They decided to act against us, kidnapping one of our own and leaving her for dead.” I locked eyes with Sutton’s dad, my jaw clenching. “And when one of your daughters was being raped and drugged and told it was normal, we were, once again, attacked for trying to help her.”
The fact that not one of them seemed shocked or infuriated only fueled my own rage.
“To put it simply, we don’t take well to being attacked. Bodies pile up when we are, and they aren’t ours. We were told you do things a certain way, so we left you your sons’ bodies for you to deal with.”
At that, accusations and denials flew across the room and at me.
When the roar grew louder and the men started crowding closer, Maverick and I reached for our guns.
The room fell silent immediately.
Another similarity in our old lives and how the Tennessee Gentlemen ran their cartel: meetings were weapon free.
It was smarter that way.
Tensions and tempers flared all too easily.
Except, we weren’t a part of the Tennessee Gentlemen, so we didn’t have to play by their rules.
“Here’s how it’s going to be,” I began. “You’re no longer unknowns—hell, I’m not sure you ever really were, but that isn’t my fucking problem to work out for you. Leave us alone, and we’ll do the same. Come after any one of us ever again, we won’t stop until every last one of you is in the ground—and trust that we know every person connected to the Tennessee Gentlemen by blood and marriage and payoff. And the guy next to you? You’ll never see him coming.”
A low laugh came from Maverick when sounds of surprise and shock went through the men when they noticed Kieran standing in the middle of them. Still as stone, arms folded over his chest, multiple blades resting against his arm and side.
Looking every inch the notorious assassin he was.
The men closest to where he stood began jumping away, pushing each other to get farther.
I set my gun onto the table and sat back in the chair. “We’ll give you three minutes to leave. If anyone is left lingering, it will be considered an invitation for open war on your already crumbling empire.” I paused to glance at the watch that wasn’t on my wrist, and said, “Beginning now.”
“This is our hall,” one of the men yelled in animosity.
Maverick lifted his phone. “Two minutes and fifty-five seconds. Two minutes and fifty-two seconds. Two—”
A few of the men took off running before the rest began scrambling and shoving each other away to get out the door.
Kieran stalked toward us, looking more irritated than lethal. “Someone pissed themselves.”
Maverick didn’t try to conceal his laugh as he stood and slipped his phone into his pocket. He’d never even turned it on.
“This fucking day.” He sighed and tugged his bandana down. “Let’s go. I want a normal night with Einstein. All the other bullshit can be dealt with tomorrow.”
I followed them through the back door and to where Maverick’s car waited.
A normal night sounded like fucking heaven after the last ten days.
But my normal had shifted, only to be ripped away.
She was safe, and she was there, but Sutton and I had never felt further apart.
And everything about that was wrong.
Sutton
Lexi bounced around next to the couch, a plea already in her eyes before her mouth ever opened. “Can I eat with my Diggs? Please, please, please.”
“You have to be gentle.” It had only been a few days since he’d been hurt, which was something she kept forgetting.
She squealed excitedly before racing off toward his room.
“Gentle, Alexis,” I called out, watching her closely as she continued running.
Ever since I’d woken in the resort suite, she had been splitting her time between Diggs and me. Even though she hadn’t known any details of what had happened with Zachary, I knew she could sense the severity of it. She stayed close to my side, as if she knew I needed her near. She would be there for hours, but then, as if a switch were flipped, she’d get all amped up and begin bouncing around, saying Diggs needed company.
Her Diggs.
The man whose personality couldn’t be slowed down, even by some bullets and shrapnel. But as much as he wanted to pretend he was fine, they could slow him down.
He was the reason we were still here.
This suite held memories I wanted to flee from, but he wasn’t able to be moved yet. So, here we stayed.
The only difference from before was the atmosph
ere.
It was calmer. The heavy tension and arguments were missing, not that I was sad to see them go. Kieran had even made Lexi laugh. Granted, he’d been playing with knives . . .
I blinked quickly when Einstein sat at the opposite end of the couch, set her tablet on her lap, and said, “We need to talk.”
That was one of the only things that had stayed mostly unchanged.
The tension was gone, but that was only because she hardly spoke to me.
When she did, it was clear her distrust had been replaced with dislike, and she was only speaking to me because she had to.
“Okay . . .”
“Do you have a preference in names, or can I get creative?”
The wicked smirk tugging at her mouth told me that, even if I’d known what she was talking about, I wouldn’t want to let her get creative.
“What do you mean preference in names?”
She shot me a look from under her eyelashes before setting her attention on her tablet again. “Despite Zachary no longer existing and a handful of the cartel being scared for the moment, they might decide they want vengeance later. Relocation is still the best option for you. So, name changes for you and Lexi. I’m getting all the paperwork and IDs ready so I can create everything as soon as I get home. Then we’ll get the two of you on your way.”
In a few sentences, she’d torn away the future I’d started to see. Taken even the possibility of it and crushed it.
I glanced to the side, to the spot against the wall Conor had claimed as his post.
Always nearby, interacting with everyone and polite to me but not the same Conor.
There was a sadness that hung around him that made me ache, and it bled from him as he processed what Einstein was asking me.
He looked ready to object, but then his mouth formed a firm line and his expression went void of emotion.
I wanted to beg him to say he didn’t want me to go.
I wanted to go back and do everything differently. Tell him from the beginning about the plan to get Vero back. Not attempt to leave, even though I still knew in my soul it was what was best for him. Not break his heart . . .
Then it would still be Conor and me. Then the plan would still be the three of us together at the end of this.
Not Lexi and me with different names in an unknown location without him.
“I don’t know.” My lips parted as I tried to come up with names, but the only thoughts in my mind were of Conor.
How he had inserted himself into our lives so quickly and had shown me what it truly meant to be loved and cherished and adored.
How he’d shown me that it was okay to be myself and drop the mask my mother forced me to wear.
How wrong a life without him would be.
“I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” I whispered, my voice thick.
“So, I’m allowed creative liberties,” Einstein said excitedly.
“No, I don’t want this,” I snapped. “This isn’t how—” I looked to Conor, choking back the rest of the words.
This isn’t how this is supposed to end.
He was staring at me, but all I could see were flashes of him.
When he broke into the motel room that first morning.
That smirk on his face when he watched me fail during our training sessions.
The way he looked when I irritated him.
The fierce possessiveness when he made me his own.
The devastation on his face when he realized I was trying to leave with Lexi, and the nothingness that preceded the days of civil, but withdrawn smiles.
“Do whatever you want,” I finally said as I pushed from the couch. “It doesn’t matter.”
I walked to my bedroom, unable to be near them any longer, and didn’t realize until she started speaking that the door had shut on a delay.
“Doesn’t look or sound like it doesn’t matter.”
My body tensed at Jess’s unexpected arrival, but I continued toward the bed.
“What I want doesn’t matter,” I replied lamely.
For long moments, I lay there staring at the ceiling, but then Jess climbed onto the bed and sat with her legs crossed so she could look at me.
“Okay, I’m no Einstein, so I might get confused if we keep going in this direction.” She grabbed a small section of my hair and began braiding it, her eyes focused on that as she said, “I will tell you that Kieran and I were under the impression you and Lexi would be coming to North Carolina . . . for good.”
A pang hit my chest, and I fought the urge to rub it. “Yeah, I think you missed some things.”
“I haven’t missed a thing except you deciding to still be relocated.”
I didn’t say that I didn’t want to.
I didn’t say that what I wanted more than anything was to be where Conor was—no matter the location.
I just lay there, trying to accept the hand I had dealt.
“It’s for the best,” I said minutes later. “Everything kept tearing us apart. The situation, our personalities, his friends, my secrets. Constant push and pull, fighting and clashing back together, like a brutal storm. But all storms die, so it was inevitable we would too.”
“Is that really what you believe?”
“It’s what I’m trying to convince myself of,” I breathed. “It will make this easier if I do.”
“I’ll say this and then let you be alone,” she said carefully. “Kieran told me why you were leaving the other morning. He also told Conor. I get it, I do. I’m pretty sure it’s a female thing. The mob raises a special kind of breed. They are fierce and loyal, but they don’t work the way we do. Conor doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t matter what you or Kieran say, he doesn’t see you leaving as something that would benefit him, he sees it as you running from him and your relationship.”
I drove my fingers into my hair and fought back the knot of emotion in my throat. “After everything we went through to get to the point we were at, he had to know that wasn’t what I was doing.”
Her head shook faintly. “Men like Conor will fight and fight and fight for you because he knows he can protect you and that he is who’s best for you. Damn everything else. They won’t walk away unless they’ve been betrayed. And then, despite whatever they feel, they’ll keep a distance to protect themselves.” She leaned closer and gave me a knowing look. “But if you don’t fight for them, they’ll stay away. Trust me, Sutton. I’m married to one.”
She twisted on the bed and slid off it, looking graceful and sultry in a way only Jess could pull off, and then she walked away.
When she opened the door, she turned to glance at me, eyebrow raised in question and challenge.
Her mouth twitched into a grin when I climbed from the bed and started in her direction, my steps coming faster and faster until I was rushing through the suite to where Conor was talking with Kieran and Einstein.
Conor turned when I neared him, but I didn’t stop or slow or think. I just jumped into his arms and crushed my mouth to his.
All I could comprehend was that I needed him. That I hadn’t lost him yet, but the possibility could become a reality at any moment.
He caught me as if he’d been doing it his entire life. After a brief hesitation, his lips responded to mine, moving and searing and branding in a kiss to erase all others. And then he was moving, taking long, fast strides through the suite until we were back in the room and he was lowering me to the bed.
“Wait.” I wove my fingers through his hair, holding him away. “This isn’t how I should be doing this. I wanted to talk to you, but then I was running because I had this overwhelming fear that the next second would be the one I lost you, and I can’t lose you.”
His eyes searched mine as his thumb brushed across my cheek. “Nothing’s coming for us. We’re safe.”
My head moved in a faint shake as I laid myself bare. “You shatter my defenses and encourage me to be who I truly am instead of an acceptable version you want to create and hinder. You call
me out and push me harder and test my limits. You stole my heart when I least expected to fall in love—Conor, that is what I can’t lose.”
“I’m right here.” He slanted his mouth over mine, capturing my lips in a soul-shaking kind of kiss while effortlessly rolling us so I was on top of him. One of his hands pushed on my back, pressing us closer together. His other hand cradled my face gently, guiding and deepening the kiss.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed when the kiss slowed. “I’m sorry for Diggs and for Einstein. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for everything I kept from you. I’m sorry for trying to leave . . . I thought it was for the best.” I sat back and pressed a hand to my chest when my voice came out strained. “People were getting hurt, and your relationships with your family were stressed and breaking because of me.”
“They’re family, Sutton,” he said deliberately. “We’re going to fight. They’ll be there no matter what we go through. But I can’t stop you from taking yourself from me. I can’t hold on to you if you’ve already decided to walk.”
“It was the last thing I wanted,” I admitted. “I was only able to because I knew it was best for you.”
“That isn’t how this works,” he said immediately, confirming what Jess said earlier. “You need a minute before you’re ready to argue with me? That’s when you walk away, but not out the door—especially with Lexi and a bag. That’s a hard limit for me.”
I curled in on myself, pressing my forehead to his chest as his emotions from that morning flashed through my mind. “I’m so sorry.”
His large hand made lazy passes up and down my spine. When he spoke, his voice was gentle but firm. “You walk out, it means you’re done with me or you can’t handle my life anymore. Understand?”
I nodded slowly and let him lift my head so he could search my eyes. “How do we get past this?”
“You tell me what you want,” he said easily, as if it were as simple as that.
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