“I’m not going to bed.” She headed across the living room, but I didn’t turn around and look. I didn’t trust myself to look at her right now. “I’m going to work.”
It took me a minute to process the fact that, once again, she was trying to kill me. Technically, she was trying to kill herself, but if she died, I’d . . .
It was one and the same.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
She threw her hands up. “Why not?”
I set my gun down on the table by the door and leaned against it, blocking her only exit. “You just had to go and show your pretty little face at that damn party.”
“I told you. They needed to see me.” She lifted her chin defiantly, looking as foolishly brave as ever. “Tate needed to see me.”
Everything I’d been holding back, everything I’d been trying to keep at bay, came slamming out of the dam. There was no stopping it. I slammed my palm against the door. “I don’t give a flying fuck what he needed. I wanted to keep you safe, and out of this life. And you ruined it.”
“By going to one single party,” she drawled. “Yeah. Sure. I totally won’t be able to resist the lifestyle now. I’ll be at every party you ever go to, being a regular social butterfly. Ruining everything with my presence.”
I walked into the kitchen and grabbed the whiskey with a shaking hand. Rage filled me more with every single word she said. She was now the prime target for Scotty. It was only a matter of time till he struck.
And he’d strike hard.
“You won’t be alive to do that.” I flipped the cap off and brought the bottle straight to my lips. After I finished, I slammed the bottle on the counter with so much force that it was a miracle it didn’t shatter into a million pieces. “You don’t get it. You really don’t get it, and that pisses me off more than you could ever know.”
She came up behind me and snatched up the bottle. She did the same as me, raising it to her lips and setting it down on the counter. “Dammit, Lucas. I was already in the cross-hairs, thanks to Bitter Hill. How could me going to some stupid party make it any worse?”
“You went to a party where my brother, who is dead set on killing me, was scheduled to attend.” I leaned on the counter, scowling at the wall. “You walked up to him, introduced yourself, and let him see who you were.”
“Yeah . . .” She blinked. “And?”
“This all started because I wanted to keep you safe,” I muttered, shaking my head and laughing. It sounded slightly maniacal. “And you are constantly ruining it. You’re trying to get yourself killed, I swear. That’s the only possible explanation.”
She made a frustrated sound. “You’re not making any sense. What does the party have to do with any of—?”
“When I rescued you, I had nothing to gain from it. All my life, I’ve existed by only doing things that helped me get what I wanted. I was tired of being poor, so I joined up with the Sons of Steel Row. I let Scotty join because it was the easiest way to keep an eye on him. Hell, I went to jail rather than work with the cops because I wanted to stay alive. Everything I’ve done, I’ve made the smart decision, the safest decision.” I dragged my hands down my face. “And then for the first time, I did something where the cons greatly outweighed the benefits.”
She bit down on her tongue or cheek. I couldn’t tell which, but I knew she had a habit of doing it when she was thinking really hard about something. “Me.”
“Yeah. You.” Holding my hands out to my sides, I laughed again. “And if you’d been just a casual fuck, no way I’d let you meet Tate. Scotty knows that. But you didn’t. So, darlin’, what better way to get me to show up like a lamb to a slaughter than to have you show up to that party? Scotty’s gonna know that you’re the best way to get to me, since now he thinks you’re the most important person to me on this planet.”
And he might be right, but I still refused to admit it. Out loud, at least.
It wouldn’t do us any good.
“But that’s . . . I’m not . . . I’m not your weakness. You’ve been trying to get me gone since day one.” She licked her lips and shook her head. “What you did in that alley, it was just temporary insanity on your part.”
I opened my mouth to tell her how wrong she was. To tell her I’d been drawn to her from the first moment I’d seen her. Why else had I gone back to her bar, time and time again? I could drink at home easily enough. I’d gone to see her. To be near her. It was on the tip of my tongue, all the words I’d been keeping locked inside.
But what good would it do for me to say them?
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter what I really did, or why. It matters how it looks to him. What he believes.”
She turned away and took a deep breath. Right before she twisted away, I saw a glimpse of something shadowing her stare, but I couldn’t get a close enough look to know what. “That’s why you didn’t want me to go to the party. Because you knew what Scotty would think.”
“Yes,” I managed to say.