“You need to keep an eye on that dog,” Andi demanded, looking at Niro. “She won’t be able to walk, she’ll get so tubby.”
I could hear Niro promising to do just that as he led her over toward his bike.
“Ready?” Cary asked, opening the door behind me.
“I feel a little off-kilter,” I admitted. “That just all went so seamlessly.”
“Guess Andi, Niro, Fallon, and Danny were right about A,” Cary said, slamming my door, then getting in his side. “But don’t get it confused, he is absolutely a terrifying guy. And no one fully knows where his loyalties lie in this town. It’s not like with the Mallick or the Grassi Family.”
“Don’t get too friendly with the nice, cartel leader. Got it,” I said, letting out a laugh when Cary playfully tugged a bit of my hair.
It was a couple hours later, after we both supervised Dezi in the pet store because Andi sent Cary a frantic text to make sure he got the right things, not just food, Cary and I both dropped down onto the bed fully clothed, exhausted more mentally and emotionally than physically.
“What do you think about a gray for the living room?” I asked. “Not all the way up. I was thinking maybe like board and batten? The whole wall would make it too dark, I think.”
“Whatever you want, love,” Cary said, slipping an arm under my head.
“But I want… I want you to feel comfortable here too,” I said. Because it was as close to the whole truth as I was willing to get.
That I wanted him around.
That I could see a future with him.
That I wanted him to see himself in the apartment too.
Under me, Cary’s arm curled, pulling me up and onto his chest so he could lean down to press a kiss to the top of my head.
“I like gray,” he said as his arm gave me a tight squeeze.
Unfortunately, the gray would only be up for a few days before it needed to be changed.
On the account of all the blood.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Abigail
The apartment was really coming together.
It had been three days since the meeting with A. Too soon for Cary or his friends to work out a concrete plan, but long enough that things were starting to get in motion.
That was a fact that had this permanent knot in my stomach. Which I tried to ignore by throwing myself into sprucing up our new home.
See, the problem was, spackling and sanding and washing and painting, it was all long, tedious work. Work that didn’t really require a whole lot of brainpower. So my mind wandered as I worked, imagining Cary and Dezi and whoever else they might bring along, going down to Raúl’s neck of the woods, of them possibly trusting the wrong people, or making the wrong move.
What then?
They all died?
Because of me?
And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, then Raúl would know that Henchmen had been a part of the assassination attempt. They would come up to Navesink Bank, then wipe out the whole club.
All those lives lost.
For little old me.
All the wives and children left to mourn.
Because I hadn’t just kept running, because I’d gotten them and their families involved in my mess.
“I’m no expert,” a voice said from my side. “But I don’t think you’re supposed to water down the paint,” he added, making me aware that a couple helpless tears had fallen down my cheeks.
It wasn’t Cary or even Dezi.
This was a new guard for me.
Seth, he’d been introduced as.
If I flipped through my little mental Rolodex, he was one of the Legacy members. The one who could shoot really well. Like his father.
“Sorry,” I said, shaking my head.
“I’m supposed to get an apology when a girl cries in front of me? I gotta tell all my cousins they owe me then.”
“Yeah,” another voice said. “Do that. But give me a heads up first, so I can film them whopping your ass.”
That was Finn, another Legacy. If I had the family tree straight, he was the brother of Fallon, the current president, and son of the former president, Reign.
They’d shown up as a pair since it was the one day that both Cary and Dezi were needed at the club.
“Ha-ha,” Seth said, shaking his head. “You’re just pissy because you’re thinking about all those women you’ve left tearfully unsatisfied after taking them home.”
“As much as I would love to see you two go a couple rounds,” Louana, the new prospect, someone who’d been dragged along for manual labor because—apparently—that was part of the prospecting process, said as she stood up from lining the window in painters’ tape, “the walls are wet, and I don’t think Abigail wants your ugly mugs pressed into the final product.”
Seth’s hand flew to his chest, mock hurt, as Finn let out a laugh.
“You talk a lot of shit for someone who is beneath us in rank,” Finn said.
“Oh, what are you going to do? Tell Brooks on me?” she asked, smirking at them.
“Maybe we could tell Valen that we caught you peeking in on him when he was in the shower,” Seth said, clearly trying to be teasing, but overstepping a line.
Because Louana went from laid-back and playful to dark and scary in a single blink.
“Listen here, you fuck,” she said, charging at Seth, and grabbing the front of his shirt. “My dad might be retired from the family business, but make no mistake. He taught me the skills. I know where the tools are. And nobody would find a single strand of your fucking DNA. Remember that when you think about telling lies about me.”
Seth’s hands raised. “Was just fucking with you, Louie,” he said, shrugging. “That’s what we do around here.”
“I hate being called that,” Louana said, releasing him, and making her way back toward the window.
“Well, we can’t call you Lou. We have an aunt with that name already. And Ana doesn’t seem to fit you.”
“How about just using my name?”
“It doesn’t have a, you know, biker ring to it,” Seth insisted.
“Right. Because ‘Seth’ is such a hardcore name. Or ‘Finn’ for that matter. There’s a guy in the club that goes by the name Virgin for fuck’s sake.”
“It’s his street name. Because he doesn’t give a fuck. Maybe that’s what you need. A street name,” Seth mused.
“Or, what was it that I heard Valen call you?” Finn asked, and I could tell from the way Louana was stiffening that Finn really needed to shut the hell up. But, of course, he didn’t. “Lulu, I think it was.”
“Call me that again and you’ll be eating through a straw,” Louana said, dropping the tape, then making her way to the door. “I’m going to get coffee,” she declared before disappearing.
“Might want to ease up,” Seth said, looking contrite. “She’s a fucking lunatic. You’re gonna wake up on fire some night.”
Finn must have agreed with that assessment because he quieted down for the next hour or so while we all worked on our respective projects.
I’d insisted several times that they didn’t have to work, but they’d been just as insistent that they’d be too bored just sitting around and watching me work. And, honestly, I was thankful for the hands. Because painting board and batten was even more tedious than painting a plain wall.