Page 100 of I Will Revel in Glory (Death by Daybreak MC 3)
The world is so fucking unfair.
Carol Briggs didn’t deserve to die; her mother didn’t deserve to die.
That’s what happens in war, right? Those who have the least to gain, who are the least involved, those are the people that suffer the most.
Cat moves up to stand beside me, reaching out with his left hand to clamp my shoulder and give it a squeeze. It’s half praise and half warning.
“Good work, Gidge,” he says, and I don’t dare correct my name tonight. Cat gestures with his chin in the direction of the two bodies. “You want to play Daybreaker, huh?” He licks his lips and then he laughs. He laughs while a single mother lies dead on the ground not a dozen feet away from him. While a member of the FBI lies dead. We have his brother. That’s what Grey told me. So this man, while unlikely to be a true innocent considering he’s been working with Cat, he was nailed to the wall just like the rest of us. A butterfly pinned to a board and squirming. “Clean this shit up.”
My father takes off, leaving me to stand alone in the dark with my husband.
“Did I do the right thing?” I whisper as Beast moves closer to me, waiting for Cat to exit the alley before he wraps his arms around me and pulls me against him. He’s warm, strong, and solid as fuck. I curl my fingers in the leather of his cut and force myself to breathe in his scent. Just as I hoped, it brings me at least a smell sense of relief.
“No such thing as right and wrong, Gidge. You know that.”
And I do. I do know it.
I step away from Beast just as the other three men join us, looking over at the bodies on the ground with detached expressions that I suppose are the result of doing this sort of thing year in and year out.
I turn and look with them, studying the results of my own handiwork.
“You’re smart, Gidge,” Crown admits, shaking his head. “So fucking smart.”
“I got an innocent woman killed,” I say, squeezing my hands into fists. “Not tonight. But the day I snuck out to go to that stupid goddamn church camp. I don’t feel smart; I feel like a dumbass.”
“Every action has consequences,” Grainger adds with a sigh, moving over to the bodies and rolling one over with his boot. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He swipes a hand over his face. “Get one of the guys down here with the truck.”
I spend the rest of the night learning how to clean up a crime scene.
“Fuck, my head is killing me,” I say, sitting at the breakfast table and liking the routine of it, of having coffee in here with my men in the morning. Well, okay, if you want to be technical about it, it’s late afternoon. We all stayed up past the sunrise to bury bodies.
I don’t think I’ll forget the way Carol Briggs’ mother looked, her eyes wide and glassy as we wrapped her up in a tarp and loaded her into the back of a pickup truck. And then, later, into a very deep hole.
“As I imagine it would be,” Sin tells me, pushing a cup of coffee my way. Before I can even say anything, he leans down and puts his palms flat on the table, peering at me with slightly narrowed eyes. “Before you ask: Grainger sweetened it, just the way you like.”
“I also want orange juice,” I say, yanking the mug toward me and lifting a brow in question. “It’s a pregnancy craving.”
“Oh, is it?” Sin asks, standing up and putting his hands on his hips. “You’re okay enough to canvass rooftops for snipers, but not hale enough to get your own OJ?”
“One of you pieces of shit impregnated me, and you can’t even pour me some fucking juice?” I ask aghast, and Sin rolls his pretty silver eyes to the ceiling, throwing a cocky look in my direction as he shakes his head.
“I’ll get your goddamn juice,” he tells me as Crown takes a seat on the opposite side of the table and then looks across the kitchen at Grainger like the man must’ve lost his fucking mind.
“The hell is wrong with you?” he snaps, and Grainger pauses to look over at him, a spatula in his hand. He’s standing in front of the stove, a griddle laid out over two burners, making pancakes. I know, I know. Weird for me, too.
“What? You don’t eat? Jesus Christ, Crown.” Grainger scoffs. “You’ve been walking around the compound like you’re too good to shit like the rest of us. Makes sense now, seeing as you’ve never seen a man cook before.”
“I’ve never seen you cook,” is what Crown says in response, blinking in surprise at his sergeant-at-arms before glancing over at me. His expression shifts slightly, as if he thinks I might be suffering a mental break or something.
