“How could you?” I yell. My words melt into a scream, a long wail of soul deep agony, torn from me like my heart is being torn from my chest.
It was all a lie.
“Oh, God, Sloane, please. I’m so sorry. I swear to you…I promise you that I…I never—”
“Stop it! Stop talking! I don’t want to hear your words anymore. Your promises, your truth…it’s all bullshit. I don’t believe any of them. I just want you to leave me and my family the hell alone.” I wrench free of him a second time. “Go away, Hemi. Just go away.”
I hate that my voice breaks on the last part, my heartache showing through. But it’s with a stiff, straight spine and a head held high that I walk away from Hemi, leaving him behind.
I walk until I don’t hear him following me anymore. It’s only then that I look back. I expect to see him gone, already having driven out of my life like I asked him to.
Coward! Bastard!
But when I glance behind me, I see Hemi standing just where I left him—in the gravel, under the sun, alongside the road. Across the distance, our eyes meet. His are full of guilt and regret and sadness. I push every other emotion down into the pit of my stomach so that mine show only anger. And hatred. And betrayal.
I hold his gaze as I take my phone from my pocket. Then, slowly, decisively, I turn and dial my brother’s number. The brother that I know and trust and believe in. The brother who would never do anything to hurt me. I realize he might still be sleeping, but I need him to answer. I need him to prove me right. In front of Hemi. Even though he has no idea who I’m calling.
When he answers, I exhale and start walking again.
“Steven, I need a ride. Can you come get me?”
“Where’s your car?”
“At the tattoo shop.”
He sighs, but he doesn’t argue. Because he loves me. And this is what people who love each other do—they help, never hurt. “Yeah, tell me where you are.”
I give him my general location and the name of the gas station I know is a couple of miles up ahead.
“Give me twenty minutes,” he says.
“I’ll be waiting,” I reply, trying to keep every bit of emotion out of my voice.
With one more deep, put-upon sigh, he hangs up. And I keep walking until, when I look back, I can’t see Hemi anymore.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - Hemi
I stand in the same spot, watching Sloane walk away until I can’t see her anymore. Now, ten minutes later, I’m still standing here. Waiting.
I don’t want to drive up to her, to keep pushing her when she needs the space. Hell, I don’t blame her for her reaction. If I found out that someone I was sleeping with had endangered my family, however unintentionally, I’d be eleven kinds of pissed.
And she is. Rightfully so.
And I feel like shit. As much for putting the bull’s eye on her brother’s back as getting her house shot up. But the one thing that bothers me most, the one thing I was least expecting, is how much it hurts me to see the hate in her eyes. To see how betrayed she looked when she found out what I’d done. I’d give anything to take it all back and erase that look.
For two years, the most important thing in my life has been finding the dirty cop who sold my brother the bad drugs that killed him. But lately, for the first time since Ollie died, that has taken a back seat to something else. To someone else.
Sloane.
When did things get so different? When did she start to matter so much? When did I lose my edge, lose my focus?
None of those answers matter now. It’s done. She hates me and she has every reason to.
The question is: Can I live with that? Can I live with her hate? Can I live without her?
When I finally turn away from the last place I saw Sloane before she disappeared over the horizon, I pull out my phone and punch in Reese’s number. I get the voice mail.
“Reese, call me when you get this. I need you to have your friend look into something for me.”
If Sloane’s brother is innocent, I’ll make it my mission in life to prove it. Until then, the only thing I can do is reach back into a life that I promised I’d never go back to. Not for any reason.
But that was before Sloane.
With steel resolve, I punch in a number that I’ll probably never forget. When a familiar voice answers, I feel disgust rise in my throat like bitter bile. “Sebastian, it’s Hemi. I need a favor.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - Sloane
I have a hard time meeting Steven’s eyes when I climb into the passenger seat.
“What the hell happened? How’d you end up out here?”
The backs of my eyes burn. With heartache, with shame, with humiliation.
“Steven,” I begin, turning my head to stare out the window and let the tears fall as he drives toward The Ink Stain to let me get my car. “Did you know anything about some dirty cocaine being impounded a couple of years ago?”
“What kind of a question is that? I don’t know anybody who works in narcotics except Duncan’s dad. Why would I keep up with shit like that?”
I’m relieved at the speed of his answer, and how in character it is with his surly attitude. He doesn’t seem defensive or act suspicious in any way. In my head, I curse Hemi for making me doubt him for even one millisecond.
“Is there any way you could’ve been connected to a bust that went down or something? Any way your name could’ve come up in association with something like that? Or with Duncan’s dad?”
“Not that I can think of. What’s this about, Sloane? Are you gonna tell me why I had to pick you up at a gas station, all alone, and now you’re asking me bizarre questions?”
“Somewhere out there, someone thinks you had something to do with selling some rich kid bad coke. He ended up dying and no bust was ever made. Now his family thinks you had something to do with it. I think that’s why you’ve been getting threats.”
“I don’t know where you get your information, Sloane, but the threats I’ve been getting are obviously a case of mistaken identity. They’re from someone who…who…”
He trails off as if a light bulb just went off. “What, Steven? What is it?”
“One of the phone calls I got was from a burner phone. All it said was, ‘We want our money’. I have no frickin’ clue who it was or what money they thought I might owe ‘em. That’s why I didn’t take it very seriously at first. It wasn’t until they started threatening lives and shit that it got real.”