I don’t want to see it.
I stumble over Gaz, my shoulder slamming into the wall as I struggle to stay on my feet. I’m in shock; my body is brimming over with adrenaline. All I can see when I close my eyes is a memory I thought was long-buried, one where Gaz, Queenie, Posey, and I are playing together in a small yard filled with flowering dandelions and the rusted-out shells of two cars.
Gaz was so much older than me, but I liked that when I was little. He could put me on his shoulders and carry me around. He could reach things on high shelves. He could make Queenie laugh.
Dizziness sweeps over me, but I push it back. I shove with all my might until nostalgia fades into the distance and the blurriness of the real world fills my vision. It’s hard to tell where the floor ends and the walls begin, if there’s even a ceiling, if I’m standing up or sitting down.
“Gidge!”
Loud footsteps precede warm hands on my rib cage, lifting me up, pulling me close.
Suede and violets.
It’s Crown, my father’s vice president and one of the four men in this club that I dare to call my own.
But only if he wants me.
I don’t know if he does, if he can’t have all of me.
“Oh, Gidge,” Crown says, smoothing his hand over my hair and tucking me so tightly against him that I feel like I must be crazy. How could I ever imagine this man didn’t want me when he holds me like this?
“Sin,” I start, trying and failing to prevent another coughing attack. I got hit in the chest hard. That, and the smoke and heat from the blast seem to have irritated my lungs. “Beast. Grainger.”
“I should’ve fucking seen this coming,” Cat says, more to himself than to us. I don’t know what he saw on Gaz’s phone, but I’ll tell you this: the way he looks at me wrapped in Crown’s arms is enough. Seeing us together is enough. Our love—as gritty, as resistant, as hard as it is sometimes—is so potent as to be a smoking gun. It paints us filthy, like traitors, paints us with the bright colors of guilt and betrayal. “Jesus Christ, Crown. I should kill the two of you right now.” My father actually turns around, hefting his gun in his hands. He stares at it like he’s deciding whether or not to execute us both right here, right now.
His loyal demons aren’t so loyal, not when it comes to me. Their greatest sin. Their most holy triumph.
Crown very slowly, very carefully, turns us both around so that he can face Cat, keeping me tucked in his arms. I’m not sure that my feet are even touching the floor or, if they are, I’m not sure they’re holding a single ounce of my own weight.
“I won’t tell you that you’re wrong,” Crown says, his voice steady and even. He’s remarkably calm. I can’t help but wonder where he’s been all this time, what he’s been doing. He isn’t singed from the blast; he isn’t bleeding from any gunshots. “But Prez, give me time to explain the situation.”
The sound that escapes Cat’s lips might be called a laugh in some circles, but only if you believe that sound can be tinged with malice and the promise of future violence. The expression he’s wearing now isn’t much different than the one he held just before he killed his only son.
We’re alive, but only for now.
And Crown has just revealed his hand.
He should’ve left me to flounder on my own beneath Cat’s dark stare.
“Gaz’s body is on the floor of my office; clean it up and keep quiet about it.” My father turns and starts walking away, dropping that nugget of information the way someone else might relay the weather to an acquaintance.
“Fuck,” Crown growls out, squeezing me even more tightly in his strong arms. “We need to get you out of here.” He looks down at me, but I can’t really look back at him. I’m too weak. I was running on pure adrenaline until now; I’m not sure there’s a lot left.
“Where are they?” I whisper, my voice quavering as I dig my fingers into the leather of Crown’s cut. He hesitates then. I don’t like that, not one bit. He takes me by the shoulders and moves me back enough that he can lean down and meet my eyes.
“Don’t worry about that just now,” he tells me, but of course I’m going to worry about that. The only people in the whole world who matter to me are on this compound. “We need to get you some help.” He sighs and flicks his gaze to the side for a moment, running his tongue along his lower lip. “You might also need to run.”
