Page 67 of Arranged Scars
“I have no clue. I bet he has all the probabilities memorized. What’s this got to do with my husband?”
“Nothing at all. Just wanted to confirm a hunch.” Liam slides out of the booth. “Stay here. Get a drink if you want, on my tab. I’ll fetch the ball and chain for you.”
I watch him go, not sure what the whole poker thing was all about, but a strange bubbly feeling in my gut says Liam’s cooking up another opportunity. I should be terrified, sick at the thought of killing another one of my brothers, but I can’t help the smile that trickles its way up from my core.
When I was twelve, Dermot posted the contents of my diary online. It was mostly stupid kid stuff, but I was mortified. All my friends at school saw it and made fun of me mercilessly. When I confronted him, he just knocked me down and kicked me in the stomach and told me he was developing his own private artificial intelligence and I should be happy to contribute to his brilliant research. To this day, I think he was just fucking with me.
That was Dermot’s private style of bullying. There was physical stuff. All my brothers are big and liked slapping me around. But information was always his favorite thing. If I had a secret, Dermot would find out, no matter what. He discovered when I got my period for the first time and told everyone in my class. He somehow got a picture of me kissing a boy under the bleachers at a football game, gave it to my father, and watched as he beat me bloody. I couldn’t take a step in the wrong direction without Dermot finding out and using it against me.
And it was always my fault. That bothered me the most. No matter what he did, no matter how many lines he crossed, it was always for my own good, and I shouldn’t have been breaking the rules anyway. I deserved what I got.
I take Liam up on that drink after ten minutes. It’s an hour and a second glass of wine before Finn appears at the edge of the table. He’s in jeans and a dark jacket.
“Took you long enough.” I tilt my glass to the side and consider him. “I thought Liam had forgotten about me.”
“I was hoping you’d just go home.” He sits across from me and doesn’t look happy about it. “What are you doing here, Caroline?”
“Looking for my husband.”
“You could’ve found me at the apartment.”
“Actually, that’s not true. You’ve barely stepped foot in that place in the past week.”
He glances to the side and I can tell he knows I’m right. “I’ve been busy.”
“No, you’ve been avoiding me. What’s going on?”
Finn still doesn’t look over, and that’s all the confirmation I need. This really is about me, and I don’t understand why.
“I’ve been waiting for you to cool off,” he says after an excruciating pause. He finally meets my gaze and his expression is hard. “We need to take a break.”
I stiffen with shock. For a gut-twisting second, I think he’s talking about our relationship. What the hell did I do to piss him off like this? We were starting to get along—really, really well, actually—and now he wants to move away from that?
But I realize that’s not what he’s talking about. His jaw’s tight and this is clearly difficult for him. “Are you getting cold feet on me?” I ask, trying to make my tone lighthearted and jokey, but it comes out choked and pathetic.
He shakes once. “No, but we’re moving too fast. You don’t want to get caught, right? If we don’t take a step back, your father’s going to figure out what we’ve been doing.”
“You mean murdering my brothers?”
“Call it what you want, but we need to be more careful.”
“Since when did you care about that? Here I was thinking all you wanted was their corpses. I thought you were willing to go to any lengths.”
“I’m concerned about you, Caroline.”
I can’t help but laugh. The idea is hilarious. “And yet you basically dragged me into your revenge murder scheme without a second thought, remember?”
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Too late now, asshole.” I lean forward, voice dropping. My finger stabs into the table. “I want to kill Dermot. I think Liam’s working on a plan.”
“I don’t care what Liam’s doing. You’re not going to be involved.”
“What? Are you kidding me?”
“I mean it, Caroline. You’re out of control.”
I’m tempted to throw my drink in his face. It’s infuriating. That smug fake concern drives me absolutely insane. “You weren’t worried when you were fucking me, remember?” I don’t even know why I throw that in his face. I’m frustrated and angry, partly because of this sudden twist, but also because I’ve been feeling abandoned for the past week.
