It took me more than three hours to walk from the Pork Pit up to Jo-Jo’s house in Northtown. It would have taken even longer if I’d stuck to the roads, but I cut through several patches of woods, climbing up ridges and then sliding back down them again, taking the most direct route possible.
Finally, I reached the last leg of my journey. I entered Jo-Jo’s subdivision and slid into the trees along the side of the main street, peering out into the night. Just because Emery had told her men to leave their watchers’ posts didn’t mean that they had yet—or that Madeline hadn’t had another hinky feeling and sent them right back out. She seemed to be as paranoid as I was, and with good reason this time.
But I didn’t see any cars parked on the street below the hill that led up to Jo-Jo’s place, and I didn’t spot anyone stationed in the thick patches of trees that ran between the homes, training a pair of night-vision goggles on the three-story, white plantation house.
When I was sure that the watchers had all gone, I climbed the hill, keeping to the trees and low bushes and skulking from shadow to shadow as much as I could. I hadn’t come this far just to get spotted by a nosy neighbor.
I paused again outside the house, staring at all the cars clustered in the driveway. Finn, Bria, Owen, Roslyn, Xavier, even Phillip Kincaid, Warren T. Fox, and Cooper Stills. All of their vehicles were here, along with Sophia’s classic convertible. Silvio must have been able to bail her out of jail after all.
I let out a long, tired breath because I knew that I was finally safe and shuffled forward, somehow feeling both exhilarated and more bone-weary than ever before.
To my surprise, the front door was unlocked, and the knob turned easily in my hand. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. The front of the house was dark, but light, sound, and fury emanated from the kitchen, so that’s where I headed.
That’s where they were all gathered—Finn, Bria, Owen, Eva, Jo-Jo, Sophia, Xavier, Roslyn, Phillip, Cooper, Violet, Warren, Silvio, Catalina. All crammed into Jo-Jo’s kitchen, and all talking at the same time.
“I say we go kill that bitch right fucking now,” Finn said, his voice the loudest. “What are we waiting for?”
“For once, I second Lane’s opinion,” Phillip agreed.
Cooper, Warren, Sophia, Roslyn, and Xavier all nodded their heads in grim agreement. Silvio stood by the refrigerator, silent as always. Eva, Violet, and Catalina looked back and forth at everyone with wide eyes, while Jo-Jo rubbed her head, as though it was aching. Yeah. Mine too, and I’d only been here a few seconds. Judging from the empty pot of chicory coffee and the mugs scattered everywhere, they must have been in here arguing for hours.
Bria let out a brittle laugh. “You know we can’t do that. Madeline will be expecting us to retaliate. I’m sure she already has a plan in place for that. It seems like she’s had one for everything else so far.”
“Forget about Madeline right now,” Owen said. “We don’t need to do anything except wait for Gin to come home.”
He was standing by himself at the back of the kitchen. Everyone quieted at his words, and one by one, they turned to look at him with shocked expressions. Finally, Finn jerked his head at Phillip, who ran a hand over his blond ponytail before stepping forward.
“Listen, man,” Phillip said, his blue eyes locked onto his best friend’s face. “I know you don’t want to believe that she’s gone, but you saw the restaurant. There’s no way that anyone could have survived that fire, not even someone as tough and strong as Gin.”
Owen’s violet eyes crinkled, and his lips lifted a fraction. “If you believe that, then you obviously don’t know Gin at all. But I do. And I know that she’ll be here just as soon as she can.”
Tears pricked my eyes at the ringing certainty in his soft voice. He hadn’t given up on me. Even when everyone else had, even when they all thought that I was dead, Owen had believed that I would find some way to survive.
He had believed in me.
I stepped into the kitchen, wanting to rush straight into his arms, despite the furniture and people that separated us. A floorboard creaked under my weight, and everyone whipped around in my direction.
Finn was faster than all the others. In an instant, he’d grabbed the gun under his suit jacket and had it pointed at my head. “Who are you? How did you get in here?”
“The front door was open, so I figured that y’all wouldn’t mind if I came right on inside.”
Finn’s face paled at the familiar sound of my voice, and he did something I’d never seen him do before in all the years I’d known and trained with him—he dropped his gun. The weapon slid from his grasp and clattered to the floor, even as he swayed back and forth, as though he might faint.
Bria clutched his arm, and everyone turned to stare at me again, still wondering who I was and what was going on. I guess my grimy disguise was better than I’d thought.
So I reached up and peeled the black toboggan off my head, letting my dirty, dark brown hair flow down around my shoulders as I used the knit fabric to wipe some of the soot off my face. Then I raised my head.
Everyone let out a collective gasp.
I leaned against the doorjamb, crossed my arms over my chest, and grinned. “What’s wrong?” I drawled. “Y’all look like somebody died or something.”
19
For another long, drawn-out moment, my friends and family regarded me in shocked, absolute silence. They really, truly thought that I’d been dead this time. Yeah. Me too there for a while.
Then Jo-Jo screamed. So did Eva, Violet, and Catalina, and everyone stampeded toward me, or at least tried to, but they all couldn’t get around the butcher-block table in the middle of the kitchen. At least, not all of them at the same time.
But even as my friends surrounded me, I looked at Owen, still standing in the back of the kitchen, his hand lying flat over his heart, as though some terrible ache there had abruptly ceased. Yeah. Mine too.
My gray eyes locked with his violet ones, and he winked at me, as if to say, I told them so. I smiled and winked back.
Then I was swallowed up by the rest of my loved ones.
Just like before, Finn was the fastest, nimbly zipping past the others and skidding to a stop right in front of me. He started to reach over to hug me but abruptly stopped.
“What is that smell ?” he asked, wrinkling his nose. “What’s on your clothes, Gin? Is that . . . coleslaw in your hair?”
I opened my mouth to tell him that, yes, that was spoiled coleslaw in my hair since I’d been Dumpster-diving for the better part of the day, but his face split into a wide, happy grin before I could speak.