“I’ll take care of both of you.” She was my family and there was nothing that could keep me from protecting her.
“If we can survive all of this,” she muttered.
One thing was guaranteed. I was going to make sure that our fathers paid for this act of betrayal. I spotted Greyson and Henry.
“What the hell happened in there?” I asked as I looked them over.
“You saved my skin, I owed you a favor. Plus, those jackasses deserve what they f*ck
ing get,” the Butcher said. He grinned wide and threw his knife down into the dirt, wedging it there, then pulling it up. It was how he cleaned it. “I should get going, though. Want to head back home, maybe make a stop or two on the way.”
“It’s probably for the best. If my father realizes what happened, he’ll have your f*ck
ing head for sure,” Greyson admitted. “Take David’s car, he won’t miss it, but be sure to ditch it the first chance you get.”
Henry nodded. “What will you do now that you know you are a wanted man?” he asked.
“Oh, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Greyson said.
Chapter Nineteen
Kathryn
I fidgeted in the car behind the two of them. I had nothing to do but grip the leather seating, my hands threading in and out of the grooves in the stitching. I was nervous. Scared.
And my mind wouldn’t stop flashing back to those events. The knife against David’s throat, the blood. He was my brother, but he was an evil son of a bitch. Still, I wasn’t sure if he deserved to die that way or not.
He had meant to kill Greyson, after all. And possibly Janson, too. So I shouldn’t have been so upset. But I never wanted to see the life drain from someone, and now I was sure it was a terrible fate. I blinked again and tried to bite back the tears that were threatening. This was all my fault. If I hadn’t been so stupid, if I hadn’t disobeyed Greyson and tried to run away, none of this would’ve ever happened.
All because I was scared. It was a longer ride going home than it was coming out. I swear to god they were thinking all kinds of things about me and about what happened. It was making me so f*ck
ing nervous. I thought they would say something, but no, nothing. We just f*ck
ing sat there in silence as I looked out the window at the cars passing by.
Greyson was driving slowly and carefully, looking back in the mirror at me. He wanted to say something, I could tell, but no words came out of his mouth.
So, I spoke up first.
“How could you?” I asked, my glare very real. “How could you just charge in there like that? You have a wife, now. A child. You think they want you risking your life for me? That baby should mean more to you than that.”
I watched in the rearview mirror as his jaw clenched and he looked back at me. He was angry, I could tell, but he was doing his best to keep it in check.
“Joanna knew the entire situation and she agreed. You are a part of our family, too, Kathryn. You are important. You deserved to be rescued.”
“They never would have hurt me, you morons. You don’t understand? It was to try and lure you out. To try and kill you.” I was so angry. Angry at them. Angry at everyone around me. I wanted them safe, but I didn’t want anyone dead. No, that was asking far too much. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to rage at them all for putting us in harm’s way but hold them close at the same time. None of this was fair.
“But it didn’t work,” Janson spoke up now. “Everyone that mattered got out of there alive. Anyone who wasn’t going to betray us.”
“What about Dad?” I asked.
“We need to act quickly to neutralize him,” Greyson said. “I’ve already been in contact with Michael. You got them just the right amount of information they needed. Those coordinates, those code names. They were f*ck
ing bodies. People that they killed themselves. Ones they didn’t want the family to know about. He’s conducting a raid. We just need to stay away from it all and it will be taken care of.”
“When?” I asked.
“Soon.” Greyson was sure that everything was going to work out, but this was the most dangerous move any one of us have ever done in our entire lives. It was insane. We were going to use the f*ck
ing feds to stage a coup over our own family.
I had no idea how any of us were going to make it out of there unscathed. We got on I-83 and headed south. We were almost back to Janson’s place.
Home.
I’d been so stupid trying to run from it. From him. I was just nervous, scared. I eyed him. He comforted me in the wake of all that shit, but I knew I was in trouble. I knew that everything I’d done was wrong. He was going to take it out of my hide.
And I f*ck
ing deserved it.
But I also wanted it.