* * *
I carried the first-aid supplies with me as I went off looking for Riley, hoping he’d stayed close. I didn’t think he’d go off half-cocked on his bike, but I didn’t really know him at all anymore. I had no idea what kind of man he’d turned into over these past few years. Except it was clear, just based on his contact with Frankie at my house and the fight with Ghost, that he was a lot more hardened than the teenager I’d once known.
More hardened than the boy I’d once loved.
But then again, I’d lived a hundred lifetimes in the five years since I’d been gone, so if anyone could understand change, it was me.
My instincts had been right, and I came across him sitting on the front stoop of the apartment building, his back hunched as his forearms rested on his knees. Without saying anything, I sat down next to him and looked out at the early November morning, the wind blowing enough to send a waterfall of fire—orange and yellow and crimson leaves—raining from the trees. Riley didn’t make any movement, didn’t even look my way, just continued to stare straight ahead.
Clearing my throat, I racked my brain for something to say, finally settling on, “It looks like Ghost isn’t exactly the same guy I used to know. He’s been busy.”
Riley snorted, shaking his head and finally glancing over at me. “I haven’t even officially met his girlfriend yet. The first time she sees me, I’m whaling on Gage.”
“Gage? That’s new, too.”
“Yeah. He doesn’t like to be called Ghost anymore. Not since a few months ago. Not since Madison, actually.”
Madison must’ve been the girl inside the apartment, fawning all over Ghost—Gage. The one who’d stared at him like he was her whole world, the looks passing between them making me so uncomfortable, I’d finally excused myself to the bathroom.
I shifted on the cold concrete step, tucking my hands between my thighs. “So he’s out now?”
“Yep. Since March. He moved here over the summer. He’s taking art classes now, if you can believe it.”
I couldn’t, actually. The Ghost I’d known would never make a move like that. “Well, I never saw that day coming, to be honest. I thought your brother would be a lifer.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
He got quiet again, and after several moments of silence, I grabbed the wet washcloth I’d brought out and scooted closer to him. “Turn this way. I’ll get you cleaned up.”
Glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. His eyes spoke a hundred words between us, and I couldn’t stop the memories from assaulting me—of all the times I’d done this for him after we’d come from a job together. He had a short fuse back then, determined to prove his worth, and that ended in more bloody lips and black eyes than I could even recall.
But every time, I’d been there.
We’d go back to the apartment he shared with Gage, and I’d clean him up, tenderly looking after him even though I didn’t do anything tenderly in my life.
For years I’d tried to block those memories out. Anytime I was conscious, I refused to think of that time in my life, and that included Riley, believing it’d somehow be easier, this hollow feeling in my chest. But my subconscious made up for it a thousand times over in my dreams. Blocking him out there was a whole other battle. One I never won.
Riley always, always came to me in my dreams.
And now that those memories had worked their way into my mind, had crept in after I’d fought them for so long, I had to wonder … who’d cleaned him up since I’d been gone?
Tentatively, I reached up and pressed two fingers to his stubble-roughened chin, guiding his face toward mine. We were so close, I could feel the heat of his breath against my lips, and as much as I told myself not to react at the feel of him around me—his air in my lungs and the brush of his skin against mine—it didn’t matter. That hum of awareness I’d always felt in his presence was real and alive and all-consuming.
To distract myself, I darted my eyes around, taking stock of all his injuries, falling into a series of remembered movements, ingrained deeply from having done it more times than I could count. I tried to focus only on the cuts and bruises forming, only on the parts of his face I needed to clean up, but he made it damn difficult.
He’d always been something to look at, cute in a boyish way, but since then, he’d changed from a boy into a man, his jaw sharper, the contours to his face more defined. His eyes were just as mesmerizing as they had been so long ago. Framed in dark, thick lashes, they were as clear as the water right offshore, breathtaking and bottomless. Through the scruff blanketing his jaw, there was a cut at the corner of his mouth, just below his full lower lip. Before I could get too lost in what those lips had once done to me, I grabbed the washcloth and brushed it over the cut. Riley didn’t flinch, didn’t even move, and I had to remind myself to get it together. Five years was a long time. Who knew what had happened with him over that time, if he was involved with anyone now. Besides that, I was engaged, for fuck’s sake.
I was engaged.
My hand froze against Riley’s cheek as thoughts of what the hell I was going to tell Eric bombarded me. He’d never known about this part of my life. And he never would, if I could help it. I just didn’t know how I was going to get out of this—how I was going to get out of this with my life, and with the lives of those I cared about. Which, sadly enough, I could count on one hand and still have fingers left.
With Eric being in London till the end of the month, that would buy me some time. Though I knew it wouldn’t buy me forever, and sooner or later, Max was going to come to collect the one thing I’ve made sure to carry with me at all times since that day I fled. The one tiny little piece of technology that, ironically, could be my ticket to freedom as much as it was my death sentence.
RILEY
With her hand frozen on my jaw, Evie stared at me, though she wasn’t really looking at me. No, she was staring right through me. It was something she used to do all the time—get so lost in her thoughts, so focused, she’d block out everything around her.
I didn’t mind, though.
While she was staring through me, I stared at her. Looking at her now, it was hard to believe I’d ever doubted that it had been her in that picture in the newspaper. Yeah, her hair made her look different, but her face was just the same. Her skin was still pale, the bridge of her small, straight nose dotted with freckles, even more spilling onto her cheeks, which were splotched with color, no doubt from the chill in the air. Gray eyes stared unseeing toward my chin, her full lips parted and so fucking taunting.
Those lips, the lips of a woman—seductive and made for sin—didn’t belong with the rest of her face. She’d always looked so innocent, even with the rainbow array of hair colors she’d sported. That fresh-looking face was what had gotten her so far when she’d been working jobs for Max. She’d had this wide-eyed innocence to her that had allowed her to sucker more than one person. Now, though, with her long, fiery red hair, and a jaded, angry glint to her eyes, she hardly resembled that innocent teenager I’d known.
She blinked and, just like that, she snapped out of the trance she’d been in. She’d paused in her soft, brushing strokes with the washcloth against my skin when she’d zoned out, so she started up again, her eyes flicking up to mine once, then back down to her task.
Her voice was soft when she spoke again. “You remember when I always used to do this for you after one of our jobs? When you’d go off on someone for stepping even a bit out of line?” She glanced up at me, finding my eyes still locked on hers. Clearing her throat, she lowered her gaze again and said, “I always thought it was because you thought you had something to prove with me.”
It had never bothered me before to talk about how far I’d come in the past five years. I’d filled out, finally hit a growth spurt at nineteen and bulked up from working out, and people tended not to mess with me anymore—not that they had then, either, but still. Back then when I’d been scra
wnier than everyone else in the crew, smaller, I’d always thought I’d had something to prove. Especially with her. Though I’d never admit that to her in a million fucking years.
“A lot’s changed in five years,” I said. She lifted her eyes to mine, and I could see in her gaze, just as clear as I was sure she could see in mine, that the time away had changed her as well. “I’ve been cleaning up my own shit for a long time now.”
She nodded and lowered her head, setting aside the washcloth and focusing on prepping a cotton ball with some hydrogen peroxide. As she dabbed it on the cut, she asked, “So you’re in still? With the crew?”
She wouldn’t meet my eyes for more than a fleeting second, instead focusing on my mouth and the cut there. I wanted her to look at me so I could get a read on what she was really asking. Evie didn’t do small talk. She dug for information—she always had and always would. I just couldn’t tell if she was hoping my answer would be yes or no.
And I honestly didn’t know how to answer. As of twenty-four hours ago, I’d had a purpose within the crew. Vengeance and justice for the girl I’d loved. In the past few hours, all my reasons had been blown to dust. And the man I worked for, the one for whom I’d executed more jobs than I could count, was after her.
Instead of going into all that, rehashing the questions I hadn’t even begun to really delve into myself, I gave her the simplest answer, nodding stiffly when she finally glanced up at me. And if I hadn’t been studying her so intensely, looking specifically for any kind of reaction, I might’ve missed the brief flash of disappointment that was there in her eyes.
She grabbed a tube of ointment and put some on her finger, then reached up, stopping just before touching my skin and glancing up at me. And then her eyes were focused again on my cut, and the fingers of one hand steadied my chin while her others were brushing against me in a way they hadn’t in so long. It was too much and not enough, and I had to get out of here.
“Riley … I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’d like to tell you what—”
I turned away from her hand, letting it fall by my side. “Doesn’t matter. You did what you had to do. I don’t hold that against you.” I grabbed everything she’d brought out and stood from the stoop. “Let’s head in and talk to Gage, see what the plan is.”
And I hoped to God he had a plan, because I had nothing.
I had no idea what lay in front of us, why the guys in the crew—in my crew—were after her, but if I knew Max, he wasn’t going to stop just because I’d sent one of his guys back a little roughed up. If anything, that was only going to light a bigger fire under him.
Because of that, I knew with utmost certainty that our fight was just beginning.
Chapter Eight
After Evie and I had come in from outside, Madison had taken her to the bedroom to get set up for a bit so she could try and get some rest. I didn’t know when she had last slept, but I was coming up on almost thirty hours, and I was dead on my feet.
I couldn’t sleep yet, though—too much shit to deal with.
While Madison and Evie were in the other room, I sat down at the dining room table across from Gage. His forearms were resting on the battered wood, his head bowed toward the cup of coffee in front of him. He glanced up at me when I sat, and I got a good look at his face for the first time since the fight. He looked worse than I did, since he hadn’t fought back right away. A large, angry-looking purple bruise was blooming on his right cheek and another on his jaw, his bottom lip split near the corner.
I cringed and closed my eyes, rubbing my fingers over them. In all the years we’d been on our own, running the streets and being part of the crew, we’d never gotten into a fistfight. We had our issues, sure, but for the most part, we got along fairly well. He was the only person in my life who’d always been there for me, unconditionally.
Which was why his betrayal stung all the more.
“Sorry about your face,” I said.
Gage snorted and shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “Yeah, sorry about yours, too. I didn’t want to have to fight back, but Madison seems to like my mug how it is and you weren’t stopping, so…” He shrugged.
I reached for the cup in front of me, taking a drink of the still-steaming coffee. Even though the fight had allowed me to get my aggression out, I still had questions. “Why did you do it? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
He was quiet for a few moments, his fingers running along the handle of the coffee cup. Clearing his throat, he looked up at me. “Because I knew you’d go after her—hunt for her and not give up until you found her. And I thought it’d be safer for both of you—I thought it’d be safer for you if you didn’t have the choice.”
I shook my head and tugged at my hair, letting out a frustrated growl. Gage had always only seen me as his kid brother, even though I was only a year younger than him. “Fuck, man, you can’t do that shit. I’m not a little kid anymore. You can’t make decisions for me. It’s the same thing as when you tried to get me to stop running jobs a few months ago. I’m going to do them until I don’t want to do them anymore, period. I’ve been an adult for a long time—a lot longer than just the years since I turned eighteen. You know that better than anyone.”
Gage stared at me for a moment, then gave a short, sharp nod. I knew that’d be the only acknowledgment I’d get from him on it. And even having that didn’t mean that everything would be perfect immediately. But it meant he’d try.
After a couple minutes, he cleared his throat, then leaned toward me, his arms still braced on the table. “I was able to get you guys set up in a loft above a bar not too far from here. Luckily, I have a buddy who’s out in California for a couple weeks, said it’d be cool if you crashed there for the time being. It’s not big, but it’s furnished and it’ll be better than everyone staying here.”
Nodding, I said, “That’s good. We’ll head over there after sunset.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” He crossed his arms against his chest. “Listen, have you talked to her about any of this?” he asked, inclining his head toward where Evie and Madison were.
“No. She tried to tell me a bit outside, but I stopped her. Figured I didn’t need to know.” I didn’t think I needed to go into all the details with him of why I didn’t need to know—namely, so I could still keep my head in the fucking game. I didn’t need to give him any more reasons to see me as incompetent enough to warrant his babysitting.
Too bad Gage shot my reasoning all to hell.
“You need to know. You’re in this now, whether you like it or not. She never told me or Aaron the details of why she needed to disappear—we all thought it’d be better the less we knew. So I don’t know what she’s dealing with, what Max has on her, but you know if it was enough to send her running, it’s some serious shit. And you also know he’s not going to stop until he gets what he wants.” He fixed me with a hard stare, his eyes serious and grave. “Or until she’s dead.”
EVIE
We left Gage and Madison’s place under the cover of night, wanting whatever protection the darkness provided. Neither Gage nor Riley had reason to suspect anyone knew where they were—Aaron and Riley had been the only ones in the whole operation to know where Gage had gone to when he’d left after the situation with Madison—but we wanted to take all precautions.
The loft Gage had gotten for us was above a dive bar in an area that I would guess passed as their downtown, three parallel streets full of rows of brick and plaster buildings all lined up together. A couple bars and restaurants, a drugstore, a few boutiques, and a used bookstore among the mix.
We rumbled to a stop on Riley’s bike around the back of the building in a little alley. It was nothing like the alleys back home—home being Chicago or Minneapolis. It was dark back here, shadows breeding in every corner and behind the groupings of trash bins lined up along the walls, but it didn’t feel seedy or ominous.
It had been easy enough to transport the couple bags we’d
gotten earlier in the day, Gage and Madison having gone out to get some necessities for us, since Riley had left with nothing, and I hadn’t brought much more than him.
Riley used the key Gage had given him to unlock the back door, which opened immediately to a looming staircase that allowed us to avoid the bar completely and go straight into the apartment. At the top of the stairs, Riley slid the key into the lock on another door, then pushed it open and held it for me, gesturing for me to go in ahead of him.
He was silent, just as he’d been much of the day. We’d spent most of it resting, me in Madison and Gage’s bedroom and Riley on the couch in their living room. I didn’t know how much sleep he’d been able to get, but I hadn’t gotten any, because whenever I’d closed my eyes, dozens of images flew at me—so many different memories from the past five years bombarding me, flashes and snippets of a life that didn’t feel like mine, but was.
A year or so after I moved to Minneapolis, I’d allowed myself to be lulled into a false sense of security. It had been long enough away from all the horror I’d faced in Chicago that I’d let myself relax. I’d been browsing at a used bookstore close to campus during a break between classes. A man had stood outside, pacing in front of the large window, shooting glances over his shoulder into the store. It’d felt like he was staring right at me. Right through me. I could still remember details about him—the bulk of his shoulders and the color of his shirt, the cut of his hair and how it shone under the sun, the sunglasses that had hidden his eyes from me.
Watching him watch me, I’d been certain that was it. Genevieve was no longer, and someone had finally come for Evie. I was going to go down amid dusty books and cracked spines. A cold sweat had broken out as I’d checked for any other exits, as I’d tried to find a way out, realizing I’d somehow let down my guard enough to be unaware there was no other exit. That if I wanted out, I’d have to walk right past this man whose gaze was boring right through me.
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