She stared down at the piece, then at me. That’s it Boo-Boo. See me.
“Freddie.” Her fingers tightened under mine but I didn’t let her go. I cut a glance to the orderlies and watchers. No one looked this way yet. “You’re here.”
“Yep,” I said almost out of the corner of my mouth. “Nowhere else I’d rather be, Boo-Boo.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes.
She was killing me.
“Puzzle pieces, Boo-Boo. I need you to work on the puzzle. Can you do that for me?”
It took her a moment, she turned the puzzle piece over in her hand and another chair yanked out from the table and I jerked at the sudden arrival of Bodhi.
“I like puzzles,” he said as he took a seat then he looked at Chester and finally Boo-Boo. Looking at me, he grinned. “Wanna hear how I’m gonna kill the staff?”
You know… I kind of did.
“Later,” I said, then nodded to Boo-Boo. Her hand still trembled under mine. “Puzzle first.”
Bodhi didn’t say anything, but Boo-Boo licked her lips and then she moved the piece she had to the one next to me. The one I knew matched. She put them together.
Another smile graced her lips. “This is a bad idea.”
“Maybe.” I told her. “But we’ll have it together and you won’t be alone.”
“Cool,” Bodhi said as he began to snap pieces together. “I like this group better.”
Me too, man. Me too.
CHAPTER 21
JASPER
“You're an asshole!” floated up the hallway from the direction of Milo’s suite. Leaning back on the sofa in the sitting room of the clubhouse, I shook my head and snuffed out the cigarette.
“Maybe what you need more of in your life is an asshole,” Milo retaliated, the growl in his voice punching it up a notch. If I didn't know better, I’d swear the man was enjoying it. Then again, I didn’t really give a damn if he was enjoying it or not. I did have a problem with the fact that she was Emersyn’s friend. A friend he seemed well acquainted with, or at least seemed to know exactly who she was before she got here. But…
But Emersyn wasn't here. Her friend was. Milo was taking it personally.
Weren't we all?
"Do you know how many assholes I already had in my life? I don't need you or yours!" The sound of a slamming door punctuated the end of that sentence. I was hard-pressed not to laugh my ass off at both of them. God, she could get under Milo’s skin. It was almost as much fun as watching Emersyn make him dance.
Kellan walked out from the kitchen with a beer in hand and stared at me. I lifted my shoulders. We were stuck and there wasn’t a fucking thing we could do until we either got word on the next shipment, or word on Freddie. And I was doing my absolute damnedest to not focus on the fact that Freddie was in that place with Emersyn. It was bad enough she was there. Now Freddie.
Fucking Freddie.
Making my life hell even when he was miles away.
He’d like that. Another half-laugh escaped me.
He’d really fucking like it.
Neither Kellan or I said anything, as Milo descended the steps and stalked across the room towards the kitchen, where he vanished. I was pretty sure he hadn’t even noticed us. The rattle of bottles clinking as the fridge door opened suggested that like Kellan and me, Milo needed a beer. Kellan tracked the motion and then looked back at me. I shrugged again. For once, I didn’t have any answers. Or even a guess really.
Milo was in his own goddamn world. I hated every fucking minute he spent in prison.
Hated it.
Hated the why behind it and the necessity of it.
I'd wanted my brother back. I'd wanted him back from the moment he left.
But the Raptor who came back? He looked like Milo. He talked like Milo—sometimes. Every once in a while, I saw Milo in his eyes. But this Raptor wasn't our Milo anymore. I had no fucking clue what to do with that. The last few discussions we’d had over fists hadn’t gotten us anywhere. Except we’d graduated more to icy silences and dark looks.
Without a doubt, he’d take a bullet for me and I’d happily intercept one for him. But the distance dug out between us when he went to prison, just seemed to grow deeper and wider with every passing day. Try as he might, it didn’t all start and end with Emersyn. Honestly, that left me with even less to work with, especially with her gone.
Gone.
Stupid fucking word.
"What's the report?" Milo asked as he emerged from the kitchen with a bottle of beer in his hand and a handful of aspirin in his palm. Aspirin he downed with the beer. When I raised my eyebrows, he just shook his head. "I want to hear the latest. I don't want to hear about Lainey. I don't want to hear about what she is doing here. What I want is something specifically to do with the hijackings, Juan Ricardo, or Ivy.”
Shit, that was right. I forgot we weren’t allowed to have opinions. Before I could respond, however, Kellan locked his gaze on Milo, while squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin.
"Last time I checked this wasn't a dictatorship. We work together," Kellan said, carefully enunciating every single word. "What you're doing right now…this crap? That's not you being a part of the team or working with us. That's you dictating what you will and won't hear. It doesn't work like that here and it never fucking has."
Holy shit. Kellan really had had enough. He was just done with this whole scenario.
Milo studied Kellan, running the beer bottle gently against the top of his lip before he took another drink. "I can't do much of anything right now," Milo admitted and saying it aloud cost him, I swear the taxes from it came off my soul as well as his. "Ivy’s trapped in some fucking hellhole for rich people. Apparently, a place they’ve made reservations for her before, and whatever the hell they do screws with her memory.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw.
"If I think about that too long, I am going to lose my mind, or I'm actually gonna go murder someone and commit more crimes than they tried to pin on me when they stuck my ass in jail.”
Kellan raked a hand through his hair then shook his head. "Would you like me to get you a Stradivarius or just a standard violin?"
My intention might have been to dig into the conversation, but Kellan’s response stopped me dead. That level of biting sarcasm usually came from me. Or Liam. I could admit that. Kellan? Not so much.
What the fuck?
"This pity party you’re throwing for yourself," Kellan pressed on, not taking his gaze off Milo. "That's a table for one, right? Because no one else here actually gives a damn what happens to Emersyn? To my sparrow? Vaughn’s Dove? Liam’s Hellspawn?” At which point, Kellan just shook his head. Not that I blamed him. What the hell kind of nickname was Hellspawn? Then again…I couldn’t fault the name choice, either. I adored Emersyn, but the label fit.
"Oh, that's right," Kellan continued as if he hadn't even interrupted himself. "It's all about you. It's been about you since this began your plan. Your goals. Your choice to sacrifice yourself, which for the record, I would like to remind you that you just fucking did. You didn’t talk to any of us beforehand, you just took that deal like fait accompli and fuck the rest of us.”