Bythetimeweget back home, I can’t feel below my knee—the tourniquet made out of my shirt strangles my circulation, but I guess it beats bleeding to death. Roman is picking up Donna, while Finn drives my motorcycle home. Lochlan drives me and Harlow home in his car.
I understand why she did what she did. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like a bitch that she immediately thought the worst of me when she found that necklace. And what she did to the Den…fuck with me is one thing, fuck with family is another. But still, all I could think about on the drive home wasthe desolate look in her eyes when she asked if I was going to kill her. Like I could ever sever a piece of my own heart.
Dr. Romero is already set up in my bedroom. His traveling OR is a tent of plastic with sterilized equipment and nurses in surgical gowns and sleeves, ready to go inside.
My arm is slung over Lochlan’s shoulders as I limp into the room. I feel Harlow behind us, her anxious energy coming off in waves. My mind is torn, wanting to comfort her but also wanting to scream that this is all her fault, how dare she act like the wounded one. I grit my teeth to hold back the words.
Finn is already in my room and stops her in the doorway. “This is far enough.”
I look behind me, and she pleads with me with her gaze. I shove down the pain the look in her eyes causes me. “He’s right. Wait in your own room until I’m done.” I can’t deny the small ping of gratification I get at the dejection on her face.
I’m lucky Harlow didn’t hit any major arteries. Dr. Romero cleans and stitches the wound but insists it isn’t more than muscle damage. With local anesthetic still in my system, I use crutches to hobble to the living room, virtually pain free. I knock on Harlow’s door on my way but don’t bother waiting for her. A little more cold shoulder won’t hurt.
Donna is sitting on the couch with Roman standing next to her, hand on his gun. She’s clearly been crying—her eyes are red and puffy—and she’s in the pajamas she must have been wearing when Roman pulled her out of bed.
“Do I need to tell you why you’re here, Donna?” I lower myself into the armchair across from her, trying not to collapse onto it like an invalid.
“N-No.” She sniffles. I am so sick of women weeping over things that are their own fucking doing. Harlow steps into the living room, hovering at the edge of the room.
I speak to Donna, but hope Harlow knows I’m talking to her. “I’ve given you nothing but my loyalty, protection, and trust, and this is how you repay me? By stabbing me in the fucking leg—I mean back.” My brothers snicker at my slip, and Harlow winces.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Donna. You’ve been like family to me, but you can understand the difficult position you put me in.”
“I understand.” She looks down at her lap and dabs her eye with a tissue.
“Tell me why.” I can feel Finn getting restless beside me, he wants to go for the jugular, but that’s why I’m king and he’s not. You can’t get information from someone who’s bled out.
“A man, he came to me. Showed me pictures of my grandkids he’d taken on their walk home from school. Said he could get to them anywhere and anytime.” She pauses and looks up at me as if for permission to continue. I nod.
“He said all I had to do was hide this necklace somewhere Harlow would find it. Told me he’d get you out of the apartment. Oh, and to make sure when she found it, it would seem like she stumbled upon it by chance.” It’s smart, and I hate that I’m appreciative of the technique. A leaky faucet seems so innocuous, a random discovery.
“Who was he?” Finn barks.
“I don’t know. White, in his thirties, athletic build. I don’t know. I’m so sorry, it was just a necklace. I thought, what was the worst that could happen—”
I hold up my hand to stop her. I’m not interested in what she thought would happen or her tired apologies. I need results, and she’s not giving them to me. “Do you have a way to reach him? How did he contact you?”
“Just showed up at my house. Never gave his name or number or nothing.”Fuck,why does everything have to be so difficult? “Can I have just one day with my kids and grandbabies before…?” she asks timidly.
“Before what?”
“Before you kill me.”Goddamn,what is with these women? I’m a cold-blooded killer, no doubt about it, but I don’t go around killing women. But it provides a good opportunity to speak to Harlow again without actually having to look her in the eyes, because those eyes…they break me.
“I should kill you. In fact, if you were anyone else, I would. If you’d just come to me, I could have helped you and we could have avoided all this—”heartbreak, soul-wrenching pain, “unpleasantness.Have I not always proven that I protect those around me?”
She nods along, blotting her tears, and I can't stand to look at her any longer. I push myself up and slap away Lochlan’s proffered hand.It’s a mere flesh wound, not a goddamn amputation.
I pick up my crutches and make my way slowly and awkwardly across the room. I pause and turn around to face Donna. “You’ll get a generous severance, but you and your family are moving somewhere far, far away. I can’t have people around me that are so easily turned.” Before I leave, I add, “And I never want to see your face again.” It cracks something in my chest to say the words, but it’s what needs to be said.
That’s the thing about betrayal that hurts the most in my world. I can’t allow betrayal, so even if I wanted to forgive and forget, I can’t. I can’t afford that weakness. So I hate Donna more for making me cut ties with her—someone who’s been like a mother to me—than for planting the damn necklace.
I shuffle down the hallway, refusing to look at Harlow.
“That’s him,” Donna gasps, and everyone’s attention spins to her.
She’s standing next to the island where I dumped out my pockets. There’s my keys, a switchblade, a loaded magazine, my phone, and the item she’s looking at like she’s seen a ghost.
She stares at the photograph I pulled off the pig and points at Detective Saxon. “That’s the man who gave me the necklace.”