Good. Fucking good.
My heart ached a little though.
I shook my head, wondering how I was going to spin all of this to Aton.
Some fucking honeymoon, right?
~
“Where do you want me to drop you off?” I asked without hesitation.
There wasn’t time to waste. I had to meet up with Aton and explain everything. My plan was going to bullshit him into understanding my position. That I was trying to avenge Shane’s death. I was going to catch some hell for all this - hell, maybe even a bullet to the back of my head - but I didn’t care. As long as I didn’t see Rose ever again. Or better yet, next time Tommy went on the job, he could make damn sure Rose was in the car.
Fuck. That was mean.
“I can’t go anywhere,” she said. “Not to the restaurant. Not even to my apartment. He’s going to be looking for me. Those two guys you jacked up probably told him everything.”
“So what?”
“You’re kind of famous, Wes,” Rose said. “Whether you like it or not. So I’m sure Luke knows… you know… the connection.”
I gripped the wheel tighter. “You mean my dead brother?”
“Please, Wes…”
“Pick a fucking a spot,” I growled. “Anywhere.”
“Fine,” Rose said. “There’s a cafe down on Ashbrooke. If you could, please pull into the alley. So nobody sees me. I’ll figure it out from there.”
I started to feel guilty as I drove. My eyes kept moving to the right, catching sight of Rose as she played with the strings of her hoodie. She was scared half to death. Rightfully so, her brother was a murderer. But she already knew that, didn’t she?
I hated myself for what I was going to ask next, but I needed to know.
“Did your brother ever kill anyone else?” I asked.
I made the right turn down the alley next to the cafe. My car came to a stop and I faced Rose.
She opened the door. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Hey,” I said and reached for her. “What the fuck do you want me to do right now? Honestly pretend to be your husband or something? After what I know…”
She shook me away. “You’re right.” She slammed the door and opened the back door.
“You never answered my question,”I said.
Rose grabbed her bag and looked at me, tears in her eyes. “Did my brother ever kill anyone else? That’s what you want to know? All that should matter is who he did kill. I’m sorry that he did that to you, Wes. But to answer your question… it’s not a matter of if Luke killed anyone else. It’s a question of how many did he kill…”
Rose shut the door and walked away.
I stared in the mirror and watched her. My heart did that ripping thing again. Like it was a piece of paper and someone was just tearing it into two pieces. One thing I knew was that Rose had a nice ass.
Christ, Wes, really?
Fighting and sex were the only two things that kept the pain away. And I watched the sex walk away from me, like I even had a shot at it. Fuck, if I wanted it, sure, but not with what I knew.
I forced myself to look forward.
She was sorry… she told you the damn truth, man… her brother is dangerous… her brother hurts her, hits her… her brother is going to…
My cell started to ring.
It was Tommy calling me.
“What do you want?” I asked, desperate to find a source to take out my anger.
“Get here now!” Tommy yelled into the phone. “This is a fucking mess!”
“Where?”
“Hospital, Wes.”
“Why?”
“Aton was attacked… shot… he’s in surgery…”
“What?”
“Family shit, Wes. Your brother-in-law took Aton out.”
I dropped the phone.
Your brother-in-law took Aton out.
Luke had done it again…
13.
(Rose)
I needed the coffee because I didn’t sleep the night before. I spent half the night tossing and turning, the other half of the night creeping from the bedroom wondering what to do with Wes. He wouldn’t even talk to me. He wouldn’t understand that I had nothing to do with Luke and his anger. Yeah, I had been there that night, but I hadn’t seen a thing happen. I was in the back of the building, helping to count money. Then everything went bad. Dad came rushing back, grabbing handfuls of cash. He screamed at me to hurry the fuck up and get to the car. I waited, wondering what was wrong. Then he had Luke by the back of his shirt. Luke was covered in his blood. His hands were almost dripping with blood. That’s when I knew something really bad had happened.
“Do you need a refill?”
I jumped and blinked. A young woman with a name tag that read Jenny stood holding a pot of coffee.
“Sure,” I said.