Vic was loading a gun, while adding to the list of do’s and don’ts: “You just need to stay out of the way. If she notices you, it’s over. She needs to think there’s no hope if you want this to look authentic to the Clave. I’ll be the one they ask to analyze any evidence.”
I wasn’t loading anything. I didn’t even need my gun. I just needed to accept their help, however haphazard it would be.
“I’ll stay out of the way long enough to make this work. You just make sure she doesn’t get hurt.”
Khaos’s hand clamped over my shoulder. “Baby mom now; she’s untouchable. Well, I’m gonna touch her a little, but only to scare her. Don’t worry. It’ll only turn Bo on a little.”
Bo was notorious for liking his women; taking a personal interest in the trafficking the Clave had a hand in wasn’t by chance.
Walking past the guys, I left them in the garage to having a smoke, which I don’t normally allow myself until after a mission. It was the same concept as needing a cigarette after sex. A kind of climax that needed you to introduce a downer, only this climax wasn’t shrouded in friction or flesh on flesh.
This kind of climax was all agony.
Vic had the bandana covering his face and a backwards cap on when he appeared by my side. “Really fucked up this time, huh?”
“I don’t need your shit right now,” I said, flicking the cigarette butt into the bushes. Littering my own life.
“I think you do if this is the kind of shit you’re dragging us into. You couldn’t just fuck her, like a normal person?”
Facing him, I fisted his shirt, but he didn’t flinch. “Don’t fucking degrade her down to a one night stand, like you’re used to. She’s more than that. She’s the catalyst we needed to take our power back.”
He chuckled in my face, and I could see the spark in his eye trying to make me feel inferior. “Our power back? We work for the Clave. The Clave owns us, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Your life is fucking fine. You’re a Rothschild; accept it, instead of playing victim all the time.”
I looked at him, so closely I could feel our differences coming to a head and clashing right in front of my eyes.
“Are you fucking kidding me? My last name isn’t salvation. We’re a fucking product they’re gonna use until it doesn’t serve them anymore. It’s not about victim or survivor; it’s control and power.”
“You have no control, and all you do is piss on your power!” Vic shouted into my face, and it almost felt like blows.
Almost.
I couldn’t argue with him. Everything he said was right.
I tried to control every aspect of my life so obsessively that my grip on it all crushed it into pieces, leaving so little control left for me to even hold in my palm.
And all the power I didn’t know we had until Khaos’s confession meant I was pissing all over it.
Bo’s arms were folded, giving our clash of differences some space to breathe. “Is there a problem?”
He was the gatekeeper of violence. Fucking creep.
I heard Khaos mumble an “oh, shit” under his breath, clearly the neutral one.
The four of us hadn’t been on the same page, in the same book, on the same shelf, in a long-ass time.
Abigail wasn’t just a catalyst. She was forcing us to get on the same page, or we’d lose the control and power we all lusted for.
Turning my back on Vic and his assumptions, I pulled on the car door handle and demanded Khaos slip into his driver’s seat. I was too angry to drive or even focus on what was coming next.
Best friend.
Fellow horsemen.
And now the enemy spewing his perspective on me like I didn’t know how fucked up our lives were?
Letting himself fall down into his seat and pushing the start button, he avoided making eye contact. “You good?”
“Just drive. Venice,” I demanded.
The drive to Venice was silent, and my eyes were stuck to the side mirror, watching Vic’s car follow closely behind.
When we got closer to Venice, I had to direct him down every side street until we were in the parking lot of her yellow condo.
“It’s gonna work, bro. She’ll have your bloodline running through her veins after a blood oath. It’s the solution.”
I heard him, but I didn’t care. All I could think about was Abigail and protecting her and our baby.
Only being at her place a few times didn’t change how aware I was. I saw the double French doors that led to a small patio off Abigail’s room—the way Oscar got in and now the same way we would get in.
Huddling up to the guys between our cars, I said, “There’s a side entrance. We’ll use that.”
Without waiting for any commentary, I led the way around the building in search of Abigail’s room. None of us even knew if Jus was here, but I guess it didn’t matter at this point. It was too late to care now.
Vic’s hand clamped down on my shoulder, forcing me out of his way so he could manipulate the doors open with some sharp movements with the door handles. Standing close by, I shoulder checked him out of my way so I could be the first person inside.
I needed to see Abigail first.
Inside her room, inside her air and space, I already felt the exhale I was looking for. The kind of Xanax feeling only she gave me.
The guys followed me inside with their masks in place to cover who they were, like she wasn’t smart enough to figure out who would be in her room. Abigail was the smartest and strongest woman I knew, who let her monster fall in love with mine.
Bo stood in front of me pushing me into the shadows, while Abigail slept peacefully.
I was forced to trust the other horsemen to do this right… for me, for her, for my unborn baby.
Khaos jumped on her bed, ripping her from her sleep with a jolt. I watched his dirty fucking Vans on her warm white duvet with a phone in his hands shoved into her face. I pushed into Bo’s back, silently demanding he move when he twisted around, giving me the harshest case of side-eye, pinning me to where I stood.
“We need proof of her being scared. Stand down,” Vic said in a hushed tone, frowned out by Khaos.
Khaos was standing over her, with his phone still in her face, and giving her directions to show him more fright, more scared, like he was directing the latest independent film starring Abigail.
“She’s definitely a model not an actress, this one.” He jumped off the bed and continued to film her confused and her now overworking mind that could have been seen as scared, but I knew better. I could tell she recognized Khaos’s voice.
I didn’t see Vic take out the gun, and I didn’t even add up his commitment when he aimed the gun at her bed. He hit my panic button when I fought with the space, the shadows, to get to him. Bo stood strong, bracing me back, when I heard the sharp sound cut through the air and the bullet was already leaving the chamber.
Nothing could describe the kind of horror I felt. I knew this was a bad idea. I knew none of us could see eye to eye in a way that brought us back together. Hell, I even knew if I gave Vic the chance he would push me right off my high horse just to prove I could fall too.
There was no scream.
There was no speaking.
The minutes turned to hours in the heavy air of tension when I slid down the wall, too afraid to look at what Vic had done. My breath was ragged and short, so it shook all of me.