I want that. Even if I’m sore as fuck. I want Crown to break and screw me on his pretty bed. I’m guessing he wants an answer from me first, about the baby thing.
“If you want to turn the direction of the club, we have to take action. How do we get access to the Don?” Crown is asking a question, but he’s also musing on the thought, trying to puzzle it out for himself.
“Alvise is prepping his best men for a hit on Cat,” I tell Crown, and he lifts a dark brow.
“Information from Grey, I’m guessing.” That’s not a question; he isn’t asking. Just a statement of fact. “When? Where?”
“Grey says they figure they’re only going to get one chance. He doesn’t know exactly when or where, but sometime in the next few weeks. The Don wants this to end in total bloodshed as little as we do; he knows it’ll be bad.” I cross my legs and sit up straight. “If we can get Grey out of here in one piece, he can tell us where and when.”
“Sounds like a perfect way to catch us off-guard and get us killed.” Crown has a point, but I can’t just say ‘I trust Grey’ and make it work.
“Why don’t we start with step one: getting Grey off the compound. Then we’ll figure out where to go from there?” I suggest, and my pulse spikes when Crown uncrosses his arms, like he’s gearing up to change the subject.
“I want you to help with the families that are on the compound. Finding places for them to sleep. Procuring beds. Food. Helping make a schedule for the showers.”
Oh.
Right.
Work.
I resist the urge to sigh, and then give a sharp nod.
“How … bad was it?” I ask, trying hard not to think how the ripple effect of my life has drowned so many in its wake. I know I can’t hold myself responsible for the actions of others, but it’s impossible to ignore that the catalyst for this shit was my rescue from the arms of the mafia.
Retaliation.
No, no, this goes much deeper. Beyond Kian and Queenie. To Gaz. To the casino.
Chills take over me and I rub at my upper arms to ward off the cold in my soul.
“René’s son and granddaughter were killed,” Crown says, his voice grave, and my lips part in surprise. René is one of the old-timers, one of Cat’s most loyal men, and the club’s official treasurer. We’re not exactly close, but he’s always been nicer to me than my own father. When I was little, he’d give me coloring books and boxes of fresh crayons to play with.
“Fuck.”
“Yep.” Crown stays where he is, pausing when he hears a creak in the hall that signals that Grey has finally come down the ladder from the attic. Without a word, Crown takes off and opens the door, and I scramble off the bed to follow him into the hallway.
“Here,” he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling something out.
It’s the diamond engagement ring that Grey gave me. Crown moves over to him and offers it up on the palm of his hand. Grey stares at it for a moment before lifting his gaze to Crown’s.
“You might need this when you meet your own girl.”
Your own girl.
Ouch.
With a scowl that he can’t quite hide, Grey reaches out and snatches the ring back, the expression fading from his face as he throws one, last look back at me. It hurts to see him like that; I hate it. If I could, I’d take my friend’s pain and drown it in the dark, endless sea that’s already inside of me.
But that’s not how life works.
We can help each other build boats, but we each own the entirety of our melancholy ocean.
“I’ll be in my room—taking a nap.” Grey shoves the ring into the pocket of his sweatpants and pads down the hall, slipping into the guestroom at the end of it and slamming the door.
Crown looks back at me, and my pulse spikes. Talk to me, I think, hoping, dreaming, wanting. Say something.
“You should get dressed; we have a lot of work to do.”
He takes off down the stairs, and I kick the wall hard enough that my toes throb, and I’m left with an all-day reminder that reacting in anger hurts me more than it hurts anyone else.
Everything I do has to be calm, well-thought, and planned.
This war. My marriage. My love. Even my pregnancy.
I turn and head back into the bedroom, slamming and locking the door behind me.
The task that Crown has given me isn’t an easy one.
I don’t think it was meant to be.
But by nine that evening—essentially a twelve-hour day for me that seems endless—I find myself in Sin’s office in the clubhouse, sitting in his chair with my elbows on the desk, fingers buried in my hair.
