“You know,” Rory says finally, breaking the silence. “If anyone ever hurt Piper, I’d go nuts.”
Levi nods, the muscles in his cheek tensing as he clenches his jaw. “Yeah. When I lost my brother, I was so fucked up for a while that I did some messed up shit afterward. Grief is…” He shrugs. “It messes with your head. A lot.”
Rory glances at his friend, sympathy and understanding shining in his green eyes, and when he looks back at me, I can see some of those same emotions still lingering there.
As if a floodgate has been broken, I open my mouth and keep talking, spilling my guts in a way I haven’t done for a long, long time. I tell them about my plan to feed information to the Jackals, and why I felt like it was my only option.
I could easily be damning myself more by telling them all of this, but I don’t want to keep it inside anymore. I don’t want to lie or hide shit from them. I don’t want to plot against them—and now I have no reason to.
But Rory and Levi seem to grow less angry as we talk. The tension in their shoulders bleeds away a little, and with each word I speak, I can feel relief surging through me, sweet and strong.
The air seems to have been cleared a bit, at the very least. They haven’t quite forgiven me for everything, I can tell that much, but they don’t seem to hate me the way Sloan does.
“I promise I won’t do anything to hurt you again,” I tell them, hoping the sincerity I feel comes through in my words. “I fucked up so bad by hurting you in the first place.”
“We’re going to hold you to that,” Rory replies, catching my gaze and holding it. “Because this shit? It really sucks.”
“I know.” I cross my arms over my chest, feeling the softness of the damp towel against my skin. “It won’t happen again.”
Then, on an impulse, I step forward and lean up to kiss him. Just a light kiss, a brush of lips on lips that makes Rory stiffen slightly in surprise. Before he can say anything, I turn to Levi and do the same thing, kissing him softly.
Both of them stare at me, blinking in something like surprised wonder, but they don’t seem upset about me kissing them both at all.
Of course, as soon as I draw back from Levi, I turn and see Sloan standing in the doorway. Usually I can hear him stomping up the stairs from a mile away, but I guess I was too focused on Levi and Rory to pay attention.
Fuck.
His face is a stony mask, but his eyes are dark, and his jaw clenches as he looks at the three of us.
3
I tense immediately, my muscles going taut as if preparing to fight or flee.
I’m not sure what I’m so nervous about, but I swallow hard all the same. Maybe it’s the fact that Sloan looks pissed as hell about seeing me kiss the other two after he fucked me, or maybe it’s the fact that he’s got a hard look to his face that suggests the conversation with Gavin did not go well.
It’s always a toss-up with Sloan, even on a good day, and no one would accuse today of being good.
I take a deep breath and turn to face him, and when I can’t read anything at all in his expression other than general anger, I brace myself and ask, “What happened with your dad?”
Sloan’s face darkens even more, as if a thundercloud is traveling over his features. “The Jackals must have sent several teams to clear out the cash at Alex’s house. We managed to find one team, so we got a chunk of the money back.”
“What happened to the team?” Levi asks.
Sloan gives him a look. “There was a shootout.”
No one needs clarification after that. Clearly, those members of the Jackals didn’t make it out alive.
The familiar sour feeling returns to my stomach, and I wipe my suddenly sweaty palms on the towel that’s still wrapped around me.
“No one found Alex, though,” Sloan continues. “And Dad’s fucking pissed about this whole thing.”
He glances at me briefly, and I know what he’s not saying. He doesn’t even have to say it out loud at this point. Gavin’s pissed at Sloan because it all technically happened on his watch, so it’s his fault for letting this happen—and he’s also probably pretty pissed at him for letting me live. At least if he’d gone ahead and killed me, then the person actually responsible for this mess would have been taken care of. As it stands now, I’m still a loose thread, and I know Gavin doesn’t like that.
It’s hard to tell how Sloan really feels about any of this. Obviously he’s upset, but is it more because of the money being gone and Alex still being missing or because his dad is mad at him?
“What did Gavin say about Mercy?” Rory demands, asking the question I’ve been too scared to ask myself.
Sloan sighs. “I was supposed to kill her,” he reminds us, like we need the fucking refresher at this point. “And he’s not thrilled that she’s still alive.” Clearly an understatement. “But he said he’ll let her live if she redeems herself.”
I can tell he’s leaving some things out, just from the way he talks in those short, clipped sentences. There are details missing here, but I’m not in any position to try to force him to tell me the whole story.
What he’s said is perplexing enough. My brows pull together as I look at him. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“You have to get Alex back.”
My heart immediately drops. “What? How the fuck does Gavin expect me to do that?”
Sloan looks angry all over again. His arms flex as he curls his hands into fists, making the tattoos on his skin shift. “He doesn’t. He expects you to die.”
It’s not surprising, but it makes me feel sick to hear it anyway. I clench my jaw, fear flooding through me. I love a good fight, and I know I’m not weak, but nothing I’ve ever done has prepared me for walking into enemy gang territory and mounting some kind of rescue mission. Sloan’s clearly right, and the only reason Gavin set this as my so-called redemption is because he thinks it’ll get me killed in the process.
But right on the heels of the fear churning in my gut comes a steely determination. I’ve never been one to roll over and give up when things get rough, and I don’t plan to start now.
I don’t want to die, that’s for damn sure, and I’m relieved as fuck that my dad doesn’t seem to be taking punishment for my fuckup. That would be the worst thing that could happen here. This was my mistake. Something I caused, and I have to find a way to fix it. There’s no other option now.
Levi and Rory glance at each other, and I can see the worry in their faces. It’s the same look they shared when Gavin told them to go look for the Jackals earlier, leaving me alone with him and Sloan. And they know exactly how that turned out.
“We’ll help you,” Levi declares, turning to face me. “We’re not going to let you do this alone.”
“No,” Sloan agrees in a hard voice. “We’re not.”
My eyebrows shoot up, the shock showing on my face before I even have a chance to try to master my expression. From Levi, the words make some amount of sense. I can tell he offered to help because he wants to keep me safe, despite the bullshit that’s gone down between us. But with Sloan? I have no fucking idea what his motives are. I don’t know if it’s because he wants to help me, or if he just wants to protect his gang’s interests by finding their accountant.