Page 30 of Violent Skies

Bitter Riggs, spewing lies about precious Koa.

I stare at them, my eyes moving between Rafe, Murphy, and Birdie. The undeniable need to protect them from what I can is stronger than ever. I grind my jaw together and swallow the hurt beneath the surface.

“Maybe a week ago. A month ago. You killed a man in the middle of a crowded bar.” I step forward, the rage seeping back in. “Nothing is as simple as a race anymore, Bird.”

“We need that money,” she pushes.

“Yeah, and the guy you killed just happened to have a card on him leading to a race with a payout that could solve all our problems?” I try to get her to understand. “It’s a fucking trap, and you walked all of us right into it.”

She opens her mouth to keep arguing but is interrupted.

“It was my idea,” Cress says and I look over at her.

“No it wasn’t,” I snap. “Don’t lie for her.”

“I’m not lying. I wanted him dead,” Cress fights.

A thrumming rage pulses through my veins. “Everyone out.”

No one moves.

“Now!” I bark and even Birdie flinches. “Not you.” I point to Cress as she goes to follow Birdie and she still stands, but the look on her face could kill.

Riggs strips off the overshirt he has on and hands it to me. I hesitate to take it. I’m freezing and won’t admit it, but he can see the way my body shivers.“Take it,” he snaps, his anger palpable and his eyes never leaving mine as I take it from his fingers.

I slide it over my arms and hug it around myself, cursing him for smelling so good all the time. It wafts up into my nose and makes it incredibly hard to hold my glare. The long-sleeve black shirt beneath sticks to every muscle on his chest and arms, leaving nothing about the man he’s grown into to my imagination.

“Don’t do that,” he says as the garage goes quiet and only the rain outside can be heard between shallow breaths and unsaid secrets.

“Do what?” I ask.

“That.” He shakes his head. “Lie for her, start shit, go along with their nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense,” I argue, stepping forward. He throws his head back and huffs, his gaze turning violent as it fixes on the ceiling. “She did amazingly tonight.” I say it, I hear the words and nausea builds, that’s not me. Those aren’t mine and he knows it.

A chuff of mean, bitter laughter spills from his chest. “You sound like him,” he sounds defeated when he brings his eyes down to look at me again. There is so much pain behind them that I can’t understand. He’s not wrong though, what came out of my mouth is something that Koa would have said. Birdie shouldn’t be good at these things, but she is. She’s trained to be.

“I’m his wife, Riggs… that’s usually how that works.” I swallow hard. Was his wife. Riggs gauges my expression, cold and cautious. He hates that word more than anyone. A symbol of possession, that’s what he called it. “Koa doesn’t love you. He loves the attention you award him. You’re just another trophy to get dusty.”

“You need to stop,” he warns, his voice low and stern.

“Nothing happened tonight that shouldn’t have,” I say in response. He expects me to stay quiet but he should know better, because maybe that was the girl I was with Koa, but never with Riggs.

“None of you should have been in that club tonight in the first place,” he finally snaps, but he doesn’t raise his voice he just steps forward until he’s towering over me with the intention to intimidate me.

The problem is Riggs never had it in him to be mean to me and he knows it because his jaw unclenches as he breathes me in and his hands flex at his sides like he wants to touch me. I can hear his thoughts, every single one as loud as ever. But I didn’t want to hear them then, and I don’t want to hear them now.

“You can’t throw your weight around here. I’m not yours to protect, and Birdie is a big girl.” I hiss the lie. The reality is I’m fucking trembling with the need to vomit as my adrenaline rush subsides and I realize what happened. She killed a man. For me. “You weren’t here. We did what we had to.”

His chest heaves and the anger boils but the violence towards me never comes.

“You don’t understand how dangerous this is!” he barks as he turns. “I’m trying to keep you all alive, Cress. This isn’t a fucking game!”

He’s livid and it’s reasonable, everything in me wants to protect Birdie and the boys but this isn’t just about me or them. It’s about protecting the legacy that Koa left, safeguarding the garage, and their futures.

“You think I don’t know that?” I snap at him, my own rage simmering. I’m so sick of him pretending like we aren’t capable.

“You don’t know anything,” he growls.