Page 76 of Their Stormy Reunion

“It almost sounds like you were trying to save her,” Mom murmured.

Her words stabbed straight through to my heart. She was right. That is exactly what I was doing. I had been saving Fallon.

From me.

No, not me, from the monster I had confronted yesterday.

Mom patted my chest, right over my heart.

“You good?” she asked.

“Yeah, Mom. I am.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“What the fuck were you even thinking?!” Roan yelled at me.

My friend had been waiting outside my house when I got there this morning. I’d never seen him pissed before, let alone furious. I opened the door and waved for him to go inside. I closed the door and headed for the kitchen.

“I thought I would scare the shit out of the pissant and he’d stop.”

“You threatened to kill Sid, and I have it on tape!”

I gave a fierce grin. “You have his apartment wired?” I took two mugs down from the cabinet and set them on the counter, then grabbed the carafe of coffee and pushed the sugar bowl toward Roan.

“Yeah. We do. But so far, besides listening to The Wheel of Fortune, Judge Judy, him whacking off, we heard you threatening to kill him.”

“Do you think I convinced him to leave town?” I asked Roan hopefully.

“Nope,” he said as he doctored up the mug of coffee I had just poured for him.

“You know that much sugar isn’t good for you.”

“Neither is threatening to kill someone. Shit, Michael, he could have recorded you.”

“He’s not that bright. I might look like him, but the brains must have come from my mom’s side of the family. Or it all comes down to nurture.” I took a sip of my black coffee. “I could see it in his eyes. He was happy I was there. He liked that I was mad at him. He wanted me quaking in my boots that he would hurt someone I loved.”

“Which is another reason I’m pissed at you. You played right into his hands. I’m thinking that it’s not nurture, it’s nature, and you’re not as smart as I always thought you were.”

I stared out my sliding glass door to my back yard. Harley was running around, chasing something.

“I had to do it, Roan. I hadn’t seen him since the day he’d killed my mom. I needed to meet the man he was today. Get a measure of him, eye-to-eye.”

“Okay. What did you find out? Anything new?”

“He has no soul. He doesn’t care if he lives or dies. He just wants to punish me.”

“And the bad part of what you just said?” Roan prompted as he took another sip of his sugared coffee.

“That he’s willing to be a martyr to the cause. He’s willing to die for it. I ran across enough of those in Afghanistan. But I saw something else. He doesn’t want to just shoot anyone from a distance. He wants to toy with them. That’s why he wanted to be the one who was in the van trying to run Fallon over.”

“What about the snakes?”

“Shit!

“Fuck!!

“Shit! Fuck!”