“I didn’t need to see her, Carly. I heard her,” I said dryly. I knew this day had been
hard on Carly. I had heard some of the things that Emmy was yelling to her. So had Spider—his
face had looked like it was going to explode. But Carly understood what Emmy was going through.
She had been there herself a few years ago. She didn’t hold Emmy’s spiteful words against her
—and I loved her more for it. But I also didn’t need Carly to remind me of this day either.
When I heard Emmy’s howls outside, it was heartbreaking, like someone was stabbing me with a
screwdriver. It was too hard to bear, more excruciating than I would have ever thought was
possible. Knowing that I was causing her all that pain … I had never felt more pain than in
that moment. I had begged Spider to just finish me after he had fired the last shots in dead
air. “Don’t be stupid,” he had answered me abruptly, and then he quickly turned around and
left. I had already glimpsed the tears that had been building in his eyes. Emmy had a way of
humanizing the worst of us.
Spider couldn’t kill me. No one could, unless the leaders decided so. With me dead, no matter
what Spider and Carly did, they would be next. The leaders left no room for witnesses, no room
for revenge. There was no way that Spider was going to let that happen to Carly. And there was
no way that I would let that happen to either of them. As annoying as they were sometimes, they
were my brother and sister—blood ties or not.
“Why can’t we forget all of this and bring her back?” Carly said teary-eyed. “I promise to
watch her like a hawk. Nothing will happen to her again. I should have never let you and Spider
go through with this in the first place.” She remembered how that conversation had gone, “I
wished you would have listened to me when I told you and Spider that you were making a really
big mistake.”
“It’s done, Carly. Deal with it,” I sighed. There had been a moment when Emmy looked at me in
the warehouse, like she was being tortured, like I was killing her, when I thought about
forgetting about our plan and keeping her with me forever. But this could never happen. I couldn
’t keep Emmy caged up like an animal like the rest of us. She was too beautiful, too free for
that. Even if I could lock her up behind three-foot-thick cement walls, ten feet below the
ground—a thought that had crossed my mind more than once—someone would always find her. Even
if Shield wasn’t around anymore—and I still vowed that I would find a way to make that happen
for good without getting the rest of us killed—there were a thousand more behind him who would
readily take his place. As long as I was alive, Emmy would never be safe. I couldn’t die yet,
but I also couldn’t fight off all the thugs that filled the underworld. Emmy had to be forced
to stay away from me. Because of her utter pigheadedness, the only way that we could make that
happen was to fake my death, convince her that I was gone for good, force her to let me go and
move on.
For a long second, Carly scanned my face in a way that I imagined a mother would. I already knew
what she was thinking. “Cameron, you won’t make it through this. I’ve seen the way you are
with her. You’re not the same anymore. You can’t just go back to the way things were. This
whole thing is going to kill you … both of you,” she said.
“Drop it, Carly.” I closed my eyes. The stupid pills were taking forever to work their magic.
I heard Carly sigh and get up. She took a few steps and stopped. “You’re nuts to leave those
two alone together without adult supervision,” she mumbled. I forced a smile. Spider was as
fond of Emmy as she was of him. It was a match made in hell. But apart from Carly, there was no
one else in this world that I trusted more than Spider to bring my girl home safely. A shiver
still went down my spine as I wondered how the chit-chat in the car was going.
Carly was headed out the door. “Do me a favor?” I called out to her.
“Anything.”
“Get my money to Emmy,” I said, and added before she asked, “All of it.”
“That’s a lot of money,” she said exasperatingly.
“Please?”
“You know she won’t take it, Cameron.”
“You can convince anybody to do anything. It’s your specialty.”
“I’m losing my touch,” she said sourly.
Carly exited. Silence grew around me. I knew I ought to be thinking about how I was going to
explain to the leaders everything that had happened in that warehouse, explain all the favors we
owed, keep our heads off the chopping block. My mind had to go back to being completely focused
on the business again.
But all I could see in my head was Emmy’s bruised and tear-soaked face while she knelt by my
side, overcome with pain and grief as she begged me to stay; instead, I forced her to watch me
let her go …
She’s better equipped to deal with this than me, I told myself over and over. She’ll forget
about me, move on, get married, have a couple kids, and live till she’s a hundred years old. No
bullets will ever touch her skin. Emmy will survive me.
The fact that I wouldn’t survive her didn’t matter. I had already lost my kid brother. I wasn
’t about to lose her too.
Knowing that Emmy was out there safe, living her life, even if it was without me, was enough …
it had to be.