And, the top prize, The Bear.
“I’m going to Uncle Lawrence’s to check,” she calls, and doesn’t that snap me back to life.
“What?” I murmur, my mind playing catch-up. Going. Leaving. “Beau!” I yell, chasing after her. I’ll chain her to the frame in my bedroom if I have to. She’s not going anywhere.
I, however, have someone to kill.
63
BEAU
I smack the button of the elevator repeatedly, and as soon as the doors slide open, I walk in. I feel so calm. Resolute. Together. But as soon as I hit the button for the first floor, I’m dragged back out. “What are you doing?” I ask incredulously.
“Have you forgotten there’s an army of murderers out there that want us both dead?” He carries me to the kitchen, placing me on a stool.
“Have you forgotten that the army of murderers know where you live?” I retort, and he scowls at me but doesn’t come back with a counter. Because he doesn’t know what to say. He’s stumped. Doesn’t know what move to make next. To me, it’s easy. Go to Lawrence’s, find the Krug, find the key, find the deposit box, and burn the contents. Then we walk away. Why isn’t he seeing this? It’s all obvious to me, and what’s also obvious is the fact he’s being held back. Because of me. He won’t leave me, not now that his safe place has been compromised. Twice. I’m a problem, as well as a solution.
I look around his apartment, high and low. “Why all the glass?” I ask, settling my eyes back on him. I have so many questions, but this is the only one I know he’ll answer at this moment in time.
Slumping down on his stool, he rubs at his forehead. I hate the pain I see. It’s all over his face. “I was raised in a house with few windows, and what windows there were remained covered. My father worried about people seeing us. Knowing what we looked like.” He smiles, and it’s the saddest smile I’ve seen. “It was suffocating.” He blows out a breath. “And then when Otto hid me, he literally hid me. My whole family was dead. I was dead. And where we stayed, where I grieved and mourned and became angrier and angrier, it was damp. Cold. Lightless. I yearned for light. For windows to see the light. For things to be . . . clear.”
God damn my wobbly lip. I reach for his hand, and he turns his, clenching mine. “Let’s get out of here,” I plead. No more death. No more blood. No more darkness. I’m tired of hating. Seeking revenge is exhausting. Seeing this pain on James is crushing.
“I can’t.” He looks at me with a million apologies in his eyes. “Not until I find the man who killed my family.”
My shoulders drop. “And what if you never find him? What if Mom didn’t know who he is? Then what? I have to sit here waiting for you to finish the story?” I can’t do it. “Don’t make me walk away.”
“Walk away?” He looks offended, leaning in, making sure he gets as close as possible, perhaps so I can appreciate just how pissed off he is. “We are one now, Beau. Which means the target on my back spreads onto yours.” He slaps a palm down on the counter with force, and I flinch. “And that means I have to finish this.”
His expression, not the anger but the pain, has me comprehending with frightening clarity that he will never let this go. And, really, there’s no life for us constantly running. This has to end. “Then finish it,” I murmur, reluctant but accepting.
He swallows, nods, and rises to his full height, dropping his mouth into my hair. “I need to get out of these wet clothes.”
I get down off the stool, suddenly deplete of energy, knowing he’ll be going nowhere without me. He collects me and guides me up the stairs, and I yawn, not once, but three times on our way.
“Take a nap,” he orders, pulling back the sheets and physically placing me in the bed.
“And what are you going to do?”
He doesn’t answer. Just looks at me in the way he does that tells me more than my tired brain can cope with. He pulls the covers over me, collects an iPad off the nightstand, and goes to the bathroom, yanking at his wet tie.
I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to close my eyes. I don’t want to shut off from a world I need to remain alert in.
But my eyes are heavy.
And James is watching over me.
I come around to the sound of whispers. I feel around for my phone and look at the time. What? I sit up, looking out of the window, seeing the frosted glass glowing. The sun is out. A new day.
And still, whispers.
I look at the door. It’s no longer clear, and the low talking from beyond is sounding angry. I get up and creep over, coming to a stop and listening.
“That’s the plan,” James hisses. “The end.”
“It’s a fucking stupid plan,” Otto mutters.
And then, silence. No comeback from James. Why is it a stupid plan?
“I can hear you breathing, Beau,” James says clearly, and my nose wrinkles, my hand taking the door and pulling it open. They both step back.
“Don’t let me interrupt you,” I say, my eyes dropping down James’s semi-naked torso to the gun in his hand. “Did something happen?”
“Yes, someone thought of a stupid plan,” Otto mutters, stalking off, shaking his head in despair, which leaves me wondering what the hell this plan is.
James passes me, going to the dressing room, and I go after him, not liking the sense of foreboding I’m feeling. Otto doesn’t like the plan, and if Goldie was here, I bet she’d hate it too, which means I’m going to despise it.
“What’s the plan?” I ask, standing in the doorway while he pulls his jeans up his thighs, the gun still in his hand.
“The plan . . .” he says, buttoning his fly before snatching a T-shirt off the back of a chair and his boots off the floor. He drops a kiss on my cheek as he passes me back into the bedroom, “. . . is that Beau doesn’t know the plan.”
“What?” Is he out of his mind? “James,” I say, going after him, following him into the bathroom. He’s dumped his boots and T-shirt on the counter and is brushing his teeth. Still with the gun in his hand. “You can’t do this to me.”
“What?” he mumbles. “Protect you?”
“Yes. I mean, no,” I growl and push my fist into my temple as he spits into the sink. “Don’t do this. Don’t treat me like glass because I’m pregnant.”
“Whether you’re pregnant or not is a moot point.” He rinses his brush. “But you are pregnant.”
“I knew it. This isn’t only your war, James. I’m not—”
He’s across the room like a rocket, his palm over my mouth. “Yesterday, you asked me to walk away. You accepted I can’t.” His head tilts expectantly. I know where he’s going with this, and he can forget it.
“You don’t get to do this.” I remove his hand from my face, incensed. I will not be that woman. I refuse to be kept. Wrapped in cotton wool. “I don’t need protecting. I don’t need looking after.”
“Beau, come on. Be reasonable.”
“You wanted the real me. Now you have me, and you’re suppressing me.”