Stacks of cash.
Same bag I’d brought to pay her off a few weeks before.
Yeah. That didn’t look so good, either.
Because of it, Espinoza had warned I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Charges still might be brought against me. He’d instructed me to hang tight and lie low.
What he didn’t realize was I was standing lost in a forest where the demons prowled through the trees.
What’d I expect? That I could get away with turning my back on my sins? Bury my transgressions? Just walk away and act like my fucked-up past didn’t exist?
Go on like I deserved to be free?
Find love?
Happiness?
Nah. Karma wasn’t a bitch.
She was just.
Only she wasn’t always swift.
She had bided her time until I’d almost hoped to believe that I could be something better.
I’d known better.
I’d known better.
I’d had one fuckin’ reason, and I’d lost sight of what that was. Got distracted. Got greedy. Wanted for myself what I had no right to claim.
And it ached.
Fuck, it ached.
All of it.
So fucking bad it nearly dropped me to my knees.
Jud squeezed tighter. “Come on, man, let’s get you home. Gage has been asking for you nonstop. We keep tellin’ him you’re working, but he knows something is up.”
My chest tightened.
Kid was smart as a whip. Full of life and light. No way he’d be immune to the darkness that had descended.
I climbed into the front seat of Jud’s truck, and he took to the two-lane road and headed back toward Redemption Hills.
While I was slammed with a million thoughts. Endless questions.
“Harmony. Eden’s sister.” It fell from my tongue like a whispered confession.
Harmony was Eden’s sister.
Eden.
Sweet fucking Eden who just kept getting in the middle of this.
“She loves you,” Jud said.
Tension bound the cab, and I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.”
A scoff flew from Jud’s mouth. “Doesn’t matter? Don’t fucking do this, Trent. Know you’re getting ready to run. Can feel it.”
I glanced at my brother from the side. “Don’t see much of another option, do you? Someone’s out there, Jud. Someone who has no qualms with shedding blood.”
Someone seeking retribution.
Revenge.
Retaliation.
I should have known it in Juna’s voice when she’d called. The way it’d shaken. Whoever it’d been? I’d bet my life they’d been there when she’d made that call. Most likely with a gun to her head forcing her to make the call, coaxing her with what to say.
Yeah, I’d spent a lot of years despising Juna Lamb. But I’d heard the desperation. Should have heard the warning, too.
Frustration rippled from Jud. “You want us to pack up and leave? Tuck tail? We all have lives, man. Lives we like. Homes. And so do you.”
Swallowing felt impossible, the way my heart had taken up residence at the base of my throat. This thud, thud, thud that suffocated.
Snuffing out hope.
Snuffing out life.
“You think I’m going to stay there? Put my son in danger?”
Air huffed from my brother’s nose. “No. We figure this out. Together. But you’ve got to be tired of running. Of always looking over your shoulder. God knows I am.”
I fidgeted with the outside seam of my jeans, gaze tossed out the passenger window at the scene that passed in a blur of browns and greens and yellows.
Like those autumn eyes were watching me.
I forced out the words. “I have to go, Jud. At least until I know it’s safe for my son. I won’t take that chance.”
My cell started to ring.
Eden’s name lit up the screen.
My chest felt like it was gonna blow.
Girl had to hate me. Had every right.
Her sister…was gone.
And fuck…that sister was Gage’s mother.
The truth of it twisted through my insides until nothing worked quite right.
This fuckery that distorted and destroyed.
This messed-up life bending and bending until it broke.
I let it ring, didn’t answer, couldn’t bring myself to talk to her.
“Harmony brought you to her, man.” Jud’s voice had softened.
Harmony.
Wanted to rip my goddamn hair out. Instead, I scoffed out a sickened laugh. “I’m pretty sure she didn’t mean for it to go down like that.”
No doubt, she hadn’t meant for me to fall for her sister.
Fucking fall fast and hard.
My phone beeped with a message, and I was the masochistic fuck who lifted it and listened, put the girl’s voice to my ear.
Little Temptress.
“Trent…” She choked over a sob. “I…I don’t even know how to navigate this. What to say. The only thing that makes sense right now is…I need you. God…I need you.”
Misery thundered through my veins. Poison as potent as her sweet words.
Because I needed her, too, and the only thing that had done was get her wound up in a perversion she didn’t deserve.
I tapped out a message, losing life as I did.
Me: Warned you I would taint you. Ruin you. I’m sorry, Eden. Fucking sorry for who I am.
She had to see it now. See me for the monster that I was. For what I’d done.