I couldn’t let losing Tanner put the rest of my life on hold. I had responsibilities, people who relied on me to do my share. But mostly, I wanted to find every last Santino family member and exact justice for my brother. I couldn’t do that locked in this room with Rory.
“Please be careful, Matt. I-I just got you back, dammit. I don’t want to lose you again. I can’t.”
I pulled her head down onto my chest and buried my face in her sweet-smelling hair. My body came awake from having her in my arms, but I reined in my reaction, wanting to savor just holding her. “I’m not going anywhere—ever—without you,” I breathed close to her ear. “You’re mine, Rory, and I’m not letting anyone take you from me ever again. Or me from you.”
I held her for a few more minutes, gave her one last deep kiss that left us both wanting more, and then forced myself to climb out of bed. She stretched out on the bed, watching me while I pulled on a shirt and grabbed my keys and wallet.
“Do you have money?” She’d told me she’d left all the stuff attached to her father’s name behind, which meant her credit cards too.
She narrowed her eyes on me. “I’m not taking your money.”
“It’s our money, Rory. You’re mine, and that means I take care of you.” I pulled out all the cash I had, which was close to two hundred dollars, but she was already shaking her head, glaring up at me. “Take it, so I know if you need or want something, you can get it.”
“I’m going to find a job, so I don’t need this money,” she argued, which only pissed me off.
“You’re not getting a damn job. You’re going to finish school, and I don’t want you to have to work yourself to death with your course load and work too.”
“Matt, stop, okay? I can’t afford school right now, and honestly, I hate the classes I’m in.” She stood, the look on her face so stubborn it made me want to spank her beautiful ass.
“I can afford it, Rory. You know I fucking can. And what’s mine is yours.”
She let out a frustrated breath and shook her head. “Look, the past three years, I’ve been doing nothing but complying with what my father wanted from me, all because I thought I had to in order to keep you out of prison. Ever since I came back and you told me jail wasn’t a possibility, all I’ve been thinking about is those damn classes I’ve taken over the years to make him happy. My entire college experience has been to please him, not myself. I don’t even know what classes I would actually want to take, but the ones I’m in right now aren’t among them.”
When I looked at it from that point of view, I had to agree with her. I wanted her to be happy, wanted her to have a life she wouldn’t look back on and regret ten, twenty, even fifty years down the road. I didn’t want to stand in her way, but at the same time, I wanted to make sure she made the right choices for herself. “What’s the plan, then?”
She put her hand to the middle of my chest and gave me the barest hint of a smile. “The plan is to love you forever and take life one day at a time, because as long as I have you, everything else can go to hell for all I care.”
***
I walked Rory to the kitchen before heading up to see what Bash wanted. I hoped he had something for me to do because even with Rory around, I was going fucking crazy thinking about what had happened to Tanner. I owed it to my brother to kill the bastards who had cut his life far too short.
As I turned away from the kitchen door, Jenkins was coming toward me. “Sorry for your loss, boy.”
I grimaced and nodded, unable to do more as my throat tightened.
The lawyer cleared his throat. “I heard Aurora Michaels is here. You mind if I talk to her?”
I stiffened, the lump in my throat dissolving instantly. “If you’re going to try to talk her into going back to her father’s house, you can go fuck yourself. She’s not going anywhere.”
“That’s not what I need to speak to her about. I just want to ask her to come down to my office in the next few days. Her twenty-first birthday is next week, and her mother charged me with handling the contents of her will. Aurora gets her inheritance when she turns twenty-one.”
“Fine. Ask her what day suits her best, and I’ll bring her in to see you. Anything else?” He shook his graying head, and I stepped around him. “Then we’re done here.”
Upstairs, there were two brothers outside my cousin’s closed office door. Brody, a skinny guy with his blond hair pulled back into a low ponytail, stepped forward and gave me a bear hug. “You need anything, you just say the word, brother. You hear me?”
I clenched my jaw and nodded. “Yeah, B. I hear you.”
He stepped back and opened Bash’s door. As I entered the office, I wasn’t surprised to see all four Hannigan brothers and Spider. The tension in the room didn’t even surprise me. We were all hyped up after the explosion.
What surprised me was the way Spider was holding on to Colt’s shoulders, as if to hold him back from something.
“Colt decide to kill Raider after all for knocking up Quinn?” I was only half joking. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Colt actually had changed his mind. Even I knew that Quinn was special to the youngest Hannigan brother, and we were all watching and waiting for Raider to fuck up.
The door was shut behind me, and Bash motioned me forward. “I don’t want this getting back to anyone else, so whatever is said in this room stays here. Understand?”
I stood a little taller, my fingers automatically cracking the knuckles on my uninjured hand. I’d tossed the cast, but my hand was still aching after the beating I’d given the walls down in my room earlier. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“We don’t know one hundred percent, but it has been brought to my attention that we could possibly have someone feeding the mayor and DA information.”