by Nina Levine
Zane nodded. “Yeah. It’s possible.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. Johnny might have been a fed, but he didn’t have the equipment and skills Zane did. There was a reason Zane was in high demand since he’d left the military.
I stood as I saw Devil enter the bar. “Keep me updated.” Leaving them, I met Devil as he found somewhere to sit. “How’d you go?”
Exhaustion lined his face. Fuck, it lined all our faces. “Her sister is still in a coma.”
“And Lily?” My gut knotted. She’d invaded my head since I’d walked away from her. I couldn’t escape her.
“She’s at the hospital. The kids are at her mother’s with their father. The boys have reported there’s been no suspicious behaviour at the house. They’re safe, King.”
“Talk to her neighbours tomorrow. Get me a description of anyone they saw at the house that day.” I wasn’t leaving it to the police to bring justice for Lily’s sister. I would deliver that myself. By my own fucking hand.
I headed back to my office, ready to finish that bottle of whisky. I hadn’t made it to the office when a text came through that made me sit the fuck up and pay attention.
Unknown Number: Sara needs to see you.
Jesus, what the fuck was Bronze doing?
Me: You’re in Sydney?
Bronze: Yes
Me: When?
Bronze: Now
Me: Give me 30
I stalked out of the clubhouse. Bronze was about to incur some of my wrath. I hadn’t set him up just so he could come back and fuck himself in the ass.
“You should be a million fucking miles from here, Bronze.” I’d arrived at the café before him and had sat for the past five minutes growing increasingly pissed off. “This was not the fucking plan.”
He returned my scowl as he sat across from me. “You know me better than that, King. I did exactly what you would have done in the same situation.”
I ground my teeth together as I ran my gaze over his face. “You look like shit.” He looked a hell of a lot worse than shit. It had been ten days since I’d seen him, but it looked like he hadn’t slept in a month.
“Yeah, you too, asshole.”
I leaned back in my seat, trying to shake the wild energy coursing through me. I was fucking hyped up from everything going on and everything I still had to get done. It was a high I would crash and burn from eventually. Usually I’d screw my way through it, but the only warmth I craved was the one I wouldn’t seek.
Huffing out a breath, I demanded, “So, what gives?”
“I’ve been doing some digging on Romano and his crew. One of his guys seems to be his main choice for getting shit done, so I dug deeper on him than the others. Turns out he changed his name years ago, and when I followed that, I found his history of violent crime including multiple counts of murder. I figure he’s probably the guy Tony sent to take care of Jen—”
“Romano’s crew has been taken care of, Bronze. This information isn’t useful anymore.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “When? Because I had a buddy track this guy’s credit cards, and he used one a few hours ago.”
I frowned. “Where?”
“Here. Sydney.” When I didn’t respond, he asked, “You found Romano yet?”
I shook my head.
He slid a piece of paper across the table. “We find this guy, he might lead us to him.”
I glanced down at the paper.
Fuck.
Brant.
“He’s in Sydney?”
“Yeah.”
“Fucking hell.”
We’d taken him off our radar after Romano was arrested.
And we’d bought into the story he’d fed us about why he’d shown up on our doorstep.
For Ivy.
I yanked my phone out as a thought slammed into my head. To Bronze, I said, “What else do you know about this guy?”
“Not much, but it seems he’s a loner with a taste for stalking women. He fixates on them until they become an obsession. Two of them took restraining orders out on him. One of them ended up dead three months later. I talked to the first one, and she gave me a rundown of his history with this. Turns out he’s done it a few times. Somehow he escaped a murder charge and later, changed his name.”
When Axe picked up, I said, “Pull Zane off tracking Romano. I need him to find Brant.”
“Why?”
I gripped the phone harder. “I think he has Ivy.” I paused. “And I think he’s a sick fuck who will do God knows what to her.”
With everything going on, we’d been distracted and taken our eyes off the motherfucking ball.
Ending the call, I said to Bronze, “You hear that Ryland’s off the case now?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck, Bronze, you trust whoever’s giving you information? That their goal isn’t to draw you in so they can arrest you?”
“I’m taking precautions.”
I leant forward. “Why? Why would you risk everything to help us? Your debt to me was repaid a long fucking time ago.”
He stared at me for a long time. Silent. Like he was trying to figure that shit out, too. “For Hailee. You guys go down, she goes down, and I refuse to let that happen.”
I didn’t buy that for one moment.
Not fully.
Bronze had crossed a line somewhere along the way. A line in his soul. I’d watched it happen. He’d let stuff slide, had turned away when he’d seen me get my hands dirty. He may have given the impression he wasn’t on board with a lot of my shit, but not once had he truly challenged me.
Bronze was caught between worlds, and his actions told me he had more than one foot in mine.
I stood. “You got somewhere safe to stay?”
His mouth curled at the ends. “Why? You gonna put me up at your place?”
My brows lifted, waiting for an answer.
He jerked his chin at the door. “I’m good, King. Go take care of business.”
3
Lily
“I can pick the kids up from school this afternoon,” Linc said, distracting me from staring out the kitchen window. From thinking about Brynn.
“Huh?” I’d heard him, but for the life of me, I couldn’t connect dots in my head. Why’s he offering to pick the kids up?
He moved close to me, concern in his eyes. “Did you get any sleep last night, baby?” He stroked my hair, and I let him. I knew I shouldn’t. God, I was letting him do a lot of things I knew I shouldn’t, but my sister had been shot three days ago and I had no idea if she’d ever wake up from the coma she was in, so all the right things had flown out the window.
And the one man I wanted to do the right things for me? He’d walked out of my life without a backwards glance.
I shivered as I remembered the way he’d looked at me before he left. Cold. Colder than I’d ever had anyone look at me.
He’d told me we didn’t belong in the same worlds.
Told me we were done.
We’d made no promises to each other, but I hadn’t expected him to cut and run in my hour of need.
That was cruel.
Heartless.
“Lil,” Linc said, his hands curling around my biceps. “Did you hear me?”
I blinked and pushed my thoughts of King away. They weren’t productive. I was best to forget him as fast as he had me. “I got a couple of hours of sleep.” A slight exaggeration. Either way, it didn’t make much difference whether it was one hour or two. It didn’t change the fact my sister was in a coma.
He placed a kiss on my forehead and let me go. “Sit. I’ll make coffee.”
He shouldn’t kiss you.
You should tell him not to kiss you.
Before I could respond, Holly and Mum wandered into the kitchen. Exhaustion and sadness hugged them, too. How long would this nightmare haunt us?
I reached for Holly as she walked past, my hand sliding down her arm as she continued towards the fridge. “You okay, Hols?”
> She wasn’t okay. None of us were. But what else did you ask in a situation like this?
She nodded but didn’t say anything. Her nod was all I needed.
Mum moved past me, barely registering my presence, and joined Linc near the kettle. We didn’t need words to know how the other was. Because neither of us will ever be okay again if Brynn dies.
Linc told Mum to sit down, he’d make her a tea. She told him she could make her own. I tuned out as they argued over it, and left the kitchen.
I needed to be alone.
I had nothing to give any of them.
Not even my kids.
Not today.
Today Linc could step up again, like he had the last few days.
I shut myself in the bathroom, stripped, and stood under the shower. Closing my eyes, I let the water cascade down my face. It soothed me a little. A momentary reprieve. No thoughts. Just me and the water and silence.
I don’t know how long I stood there. It wasn’t until Linc came in, held out my towel, and said, “Lil, you’ve been in here long enough. The kids need the bathroom,” that I joined the world again.
He should not be in here.
I turned off the shower and stepped out, ignoring the way his gaze dropped to my naked body.
I allowed him to dry me off and wrap the towel around me.
I let him comb my hair.
All the wrong things.
I didn’t have the energy to argue over any of it.
My mind drifted to King again.
I’d known the man just shy of three weeks. He should not have been a thought I so easily chased. Memories of his face, his eyes, his hands… they should not have crashed into me so effortlessly.
And yet, they did.
They pummelled me.
I wanted him to make me coffee. Argue with my mother over her tea. Tell me I’d been in the shower too long. I wanted his hands drying me off. Wrapping the towel around me.
I wanted King to be the one who was here for me.
But he wasn’t.
And I didn’t have Brynny to help me through this.
All I had was Linc.
So I let him do all those wrong things.
And avoided thinking about the way he looked at me. Because when the only energy I had was barely enough to get me through moment to moment, I had none to think about the fact my ex was likely misreading everything and making plans to move back into my life.
Linc dropped Mum and me off at the hospital after he took the kids to school, on his way to work. If I wasn’t so wrapped up in myself, I would have cheered over the fact he’d found a steady job. As it was, I only just noticed a car that pulled out of a parking spot abruptly, almost knocking me over. Everything happened in a blur. Mum pulled me towards the footpath, away from the car before I was hurt. After, we stood in shock staring at each other until she wrapped her arms around me and cried.
We stayed like that for a long few minutes, shedding tears we didn’t know we still had in us. It seemed tears lived deep inside, in limitless quantities.
By the time we stepped off the lift near the intensive care unit, Mum’s face showed how close she was to shattering. I wasn’t convinced she’d be able to sit here for another day, watching tubes and machines and doctors and nurses helping my sister fight for her life. Two days of this had revealed the desperation that long days filled with nothing but silence and beeps from those machines caused. I’d sat by Brynn’s side, teeth chattering from the frigid air, heart aching with pain from sadness and uncertainty, and I’d prayed like I’d never prayed even though I didn’t believe in praying anymore. I’d made God promises I wasn’t sure I could keep. And even when there were no tears streaming down my face, they drowned my soul.
I can’t lose her.
A new wave of agony washed over me as we approached the unit. It knocked the breath from me, and I grabbed at the railing on the wall to hold myself up. The world spun, and black dots stole my vision.
I can’t do this.
I can’t do life without her.
Oh God.
I can’t breathe.
I hunched over and tried like hell to suck air deep into my lungs. I felt like wire had wrapped itself tightly around my chest, suffocating the life from me.
Just as my knees buckled and I started to go down, strong arms circled me, and a deep voice sounded at my ear, “I’ve got you.”
Devil.
He stopped my fall and held me until I breathed, “Thank you.” I turned and frowned. “Why are you here?”
A look crossed his face that I couldn’t quite place. Regret, maybe. “I wanted to check in on your sister. And on you.”
“Why?” Devil seemed like a good guy, but it wasn’t like we were friends. I was missing something here.
His forehead crinkled as he hesitated to answer my question. Finally, he said, “Just making sure you guys are okay.”
The puzzle fell together. “Did King send you?”
More hesitation. “We want to—”
I cut him off. “No. King made it clear what he wants, and it’s not making sure I’m okay. Tell him I don’t need you guys checking on me. And tell him to take his men off watch duty, too. The police have a lead they’re following up, and they think it was a random robbery gone wrong. Whoever did it isn’t coming back, so we’re safe.”
“He’s not going to listen to anything I have to say, Lily.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. Was he trying to insinuate this would have to come from me? There was no way I’d be calling King to say any of this to him. I didn’t have that in me today. “You need to make him listen, Devil. Please.”
He exhaled sharply before jerking his chin towards the intensive care unit. “How’s your sister doing? And that’s not for King. I want to know.”
Tears filled my eyes. I didn’t even try to stop them falling. Before Brynn was shot, I tried to never cry in front of people. Now I wore my tears like a second skin.
Swallowing my fear, I said, “The doctors don’t know. She’s still attached to the machines.”
The regret I thought I’d seen on his face before was now clear as day. “Fuck, I’m sorry, Lily.”
I nodded. There wasn’t anything else to say so I left him and walked towards the unit where my sister lay battling for her life.
Will our lives ever go back to normal or will there be a new normal now?
“I’m just saying, I have to hand this assignment in by Thursday, so we need to either buy a printer for here or go home and use ours,” Holly said that night, her voice a harsh tone I’d never heard her take.
Linc took one look at me and stepped in between us. Holly and I had been going back and forth over this damn assignment for the last fifteen minutes and weren’t getting anywhere. She’d pounced on me after dinner and wasn’t letting it go. I wasn’t up for this discussion; I had a headache from hell and craved a bath and some silence.
Brynn’s still in a coma and I’m standing here arguing over a damn printer.
Surreal.
“Hols, I’ll call your teacher and organise an extension. The school won’t expect you to get this in on time. Not with what’s going on,” Linc said.
“No!” Holly exploded, her anger crashing into me, startling me from my thoughts. “I’m handing it in on time.”
I stared at her, confused by her behaviour. She’d visited the hospital twice since Brynn was shot and avoided talking about her aunt. Anyone who didn’t know us, wouldn’t realise she was going through something as devastating as she was. I knew everyone experienced hard situations and worry differently, but this seemed extreme.
I touched her arm. “Baby, don’t do this,” I said softly.
She frowned, pulling her arm away. “What?”
The hole in my heart grew a little bigger as I watched my daughter struggling. “Don’t shut down on what’s happening.”
Her face pulled into a scowl. “I’m not shutting down, Mum. Some of us just have stuff we still
have to do. If I fall behind on school, it’ll only be harder to catch up after this is all over.”
I didn’t understand what she meant by that. “You mean after Brynn comes home?”
Her eyes stayed locked to mine while she remained silent. I knew by her refusal to answer my question that she didn’t have faith she’d ever see her aunt again.
Oh God.
Pain sliced me.
I have to keep the faith.
She looked at Linc. “Can we just go buy a printer?” Harsh again. Bleak. My poor baby. But I couldn’t reach her. God, I could hardly reach myself.
Linc nodded and they left me alone with my thoughts. Mum had refused dinner and had locked herself in her bedroom. Zara and Robbie were also in their rooms. Thank goodness my mother had a big house. Beds for all of us, even Linc who had taken it upon himself to move in and help us through this.
The police had given us the go-ahead this afternoon to move back home, so Linc had spent a few hours there cleaning up after he collected the kids from school. He’d had to get the key off me, and that had brought King front and centre in my mind again. The man was such a strong presence even when I tried to push him to the side.
And now I was thinking about him again.
Ugh.
I stalked to the kitchen to grab a smoke. My attempt at quitting had flown out the window completely. Everything had flown out the damn window.
Once I’d located a cigarette, I headed out the front door to check the mailbox. Linc may have already checked it, but I wasn’t sure. As I bent over to check the box, a car pulled up down the street. Straightening, I narrowed my eyes to watch it. A guy got out and walked to another car that was parked in front of him. King’s men. I watched them have a conversation, anger rising in me. It struck suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, but I knew it had to be a reaction to everything I was dealing with. And yet, even though I realised that, I channelled every ounce of that anger towards King as I stomped down the street towards his men.
It was irrational.
It was ungrateful.
But I was pissed at the world, and I couldn’t stop myself.