Page 128 of Vile Bastards
“I’m sure you know by now that my parents died in a building owned by Archer Realty. Damn it.” Emma Jean yanks her hand back, lifting her thumb to her lips, sucking on it as she hisses in pain. She draws her hand down and stares at the cut as it wells with blood. That’s not a great omen, is it? “Why would I be working with the mayor?” She moves over to the sink, washing her hands thoroughly, and when my grandmother comes in, requests a band-aid.
The two of them leave for the bathroom as I frown, looking down at the food in front of me. Why did I ever let myself get roped into any of this? I wonder with a long sigh, glancing over my shoulder to see Widow entering the kitchen.
I frown at him, the metal ring burning hot against my finger. Nobody’s noticed it yet. That, and I moved it to my pointer finger so as to avoid confusion. Besides all that, he deserves to be circumcised right here and now by that knife lying on the counter …
“What do you want?” I ask him, and he pauses beside me, frowning hard. Tension immediately sizzles between us, and I see that being mean to one another is a huge turn-on for the both of us. It’s all in good fun, I swear it.
“Why did you invite the reporter?” Widow asks, and my lips twitch.
“Journalist.” The correction is automatic.
Widow scowls at me.
“The journalist then. Why?” He tucks his hands into his pockets, watching as I bend low to check the corn casserole that’s in the oven.
“Um. Because I can?” I stand back up and give him a look. “Why? You jealous? I’m very popular with women, as you well remember.”
“Would you stop that shit?” he hisses out at me, pausing as my phone rings and I reach into my pocket to check the number.
It’s Ash.
My heart leaps into my throat and I lift my eyes up to look at Widow’s.
“Business?” he asks dryly, but I just raise both brows and slip past him. I answer the phone as I’m walking, but I say nothing as I skirt past Marie, sulking in the corner, and head up the stairs to my room.
I close my door and put my back to it.
“Hi.” That’s me. Very eloquent, as I’m sure you know by now. A garrulous, silver-tongued magpie.
Ash’s breath is shushed and heavy when he releases it, and even though it’s just the sound, I swear his exhale stirs my hair.
“Ohayou, Scarlett-chan.” His voice is softer than his breath, and I wonder for a moment if he isn’t alone. Then I hear the clinking of glasses and soft, aristocratic laughter from a distance. “Or should I say good afternoon? What time even is it?”
“You called me.” I check the time and put my phone back to my ear. “It’s about one, by the way. We haven’t eaten yet, if you still want to come over.” Only, I know that he can’t, and I shouldn’t tease him about it.
“If I could, I would.” Ash pauses here, and his chair—or whatever he’s sitting on—creaks as he stands up. Footsteps. A door opening and closing. Silence. “If you were to find out that I’d done something terrible, would you at least trust me enough to let me explain?” he asks, and the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.
“Do you have any fucking idea how ominous that sounds?” I grind out. “Could you be a little less vague, please.”
“I want to come see you, but I can’t,” he repeats with another sigh. I hear his footsteps again followed by the sound of a sink. A bathroom then? “I’m at a function with all of those people.” He says the last two words with an obvious scowl; his rage is present in every syllable. “Tell me I shouldn’t just walk in there and off my father and Chief Bolin and Chet Archer in front of everyone. Take the hit. Go to jail. Convince me, Scarlett-chan, or I might just do it.”
“I care too much about you to lose you that way,” I admit, and that’s the simplest explanation. We could send Ash Kelly on a kamikaze mission, sure, but one way or another, I would lose him. Either to death or jail. There’d be no easy way to get out of that, even if he tried to hide his actions.
The sink shuts off. The line goes silent again. We have a weird thing going on, me and Ash Kelly. If I could explain it, well, I guess I probably wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place? My loyalty will be the death of me.
If I could just let Lemon’s death go, if I could just resist Ash Kelly and Alexei Grove … but that’s not how things are.
