After I pulled on Kieran’s shirt and towel-dried my hair, I met the guys in the living room, where they were having a near-silent argument.
When I stepped into the room, the words stopped and they stared each other down. Each gave a stiff nod before going to stand on opposite sides of the room, like they were ready to fight.
I’d never felt more uncomfortable as I went to sit in the chair near Kieran.
I needed to be close to him. To draw strength from him and to know that after everything, he still loved me.
But every few seconds, Beck sent pained looks in my direction before dropping his stare to the floor.
A part of me cared for him. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have endlessly worked to keep AJ off his back. No matter how much he’d ruined my life, he’d always been there, and I hated hurting him.
Just as I knew Kieran did, even with their current anger toward each other. Otherwise he wouldn’t have stopped himself from shifting closer after I sat down, and kept his distance instead.
“Jessica,” Kieran finally said, breaking the heavy tension in the room as he moved to stand in my line of sight. “How do I find AJ?”
My head snapped to Beck.
That bastard.
I was retracting every good thought I’d just had about him.
“Is there anything you won’t do to betray me?” I asked, but he only looked at me with an unapologetic expression.
“I can’t help you if I don’t know,” Kieran said calmly.
“You were never supposed to know,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Even now?”
I looked up at his question and had to bite back the automatic reply. After a few seconds, I settled into the chair. “He has a warehouse in downtown Raleigh. But, apparently, he has men following me because he thinks I’m going to skip town.”
“How much do you owe him?”
“Enough,” I said automatically.
“Jessica,” Kieran said with a sigh.
I slapped a hand on my thigh. “It doesn’t matter, because it’ll keep going up. He tripled the price and gave me a week to get it, then cut that time in half just because he could.”
“I’ll find him,” Kieran vowed.
“Good luck.”
“I know who he is and what he did. I told you I’d fight your demons.” His fierce eyes searched mine until I dipped my head in a nod. “I’ll find him,” he repeated, his voice low and deadly.
“We need to know what Mickey had you doing for him,” Beck cut in. “What he had you looking for. Who he had you watching. Everything.”
“I thought you knew.” I tried to keep the bitterness from my tone when I looked at him, but it was hard when I knew he’d sold my mom out to Mickey.
“I put things together in the last week,” he said. “But all we know is what Kieran heard from your conversation with Mickey about searching his room.”
The memory of the pain and hatred in Kieran’s eyes as he repeated my words flashed through my mind, threatening to steal my breath. But I forced myself to remember that he was here.
That he was listening to me. Believing me. That he was giving me another chance I didn’t deserve.
“I don’t know how many times I told you I wasn’t watching all of you,” I said to Kieran, my voice thick. “But I wasn’t. I was leaving after a random afternoon here, just spying on Beck, and Mickey’s driver caught me. He’s the only one who ever has. He dragged me into his car and drove me home. I’d already seen him following me for weeks, but he hadn’t ever stopped me. I had a knife in my hand and he knew it, so I tried to stay calm and asked why he was stalking me, but he never said a word. A couple nights later I was on my way to my street, and he did the same thing. Mickey came to me the next day with the driver. He said you’d taken something from him. He didn’t know if you’d keep it in your room or on you, so he wanted to make sure I could grab things without you noticing.”
“My wallet and knife.”
I nodded.
“What were you looking for?”
“A flash drive.” My shoulders lifted in a quick jerk. “I never found one.”
“I don’t have one.”
A breath of a laugh kissed my lips. “I noticed.”
“Did Mickey say what was on it?” Beck asked.
“No, just that it was important to get back. When I didn’t find anything, he believed you’d given it to Demitri Borello. He told me the bones of the betrayal, made it seem like Kieran was the one behind it.”
Both Beck and Kieran hissed curses.
“I didn’t tell him I already knew the entire story. That I already knew what really happened with you, Beck, and Dare. He told me to get as close to you as necessary until I gained your trust and found out where the flash drive was. I was supposed to tell him if you had any sort of contact with the Borellos. He was sure you were either still working with them, or going to shut them up so no one could talk about your involvement. And then I found out Dare was on your kill list.”
Beck sounded like he was choking, but Kieran was talking, his tone soft and grave. “Everything at The Jack was because of Mickey?” he asked. “Not Lily? Not us?”
I glanced at him, hoping he’d understand. “It was both.”
A breath punched from his chest.
“It was.” I leaned forward in my seat, silently pleading with him. “Mickey was going to kill Conor and then you if he found out what you were doing, so I knew I needed to get Dare off your list. But things had already shifted between us, and then that first night . . . it was over. I was already falling for you. Everything I said was true.”
“Fuck, Jessica.” He ran his hands through his hair and dropped his head to stare at the floor.
“I meant every word,” I continued. “That second night before we even got inside, I saw Mickey’s driver parked outside The Jack, watching us. If he’d gone inside . . . if he’d figured it out . . .” I shrugged helplessly. “I had to get you to drop Dare.”
Kieran hadn’t moved from his place. His fingers were laced behind his neck as he looked down. His breaths were so shallow, and I kept waiting for them to stop altogether.
“Everything was real. You know it was.”
“You were told to love me,” he said with a sad laugh.
My stomach fell. “No. Kieran, no.”
“Funny how that comes back around.”
I was out of the chair and in front of him, my hands curling around his face to make him look at me. “I was made for you.”
He unlocked his fingers to grip my wrists, his blank stare searching mine. “I know that. But after hearing all this . . . it’s hard to believe you can really know that.”
“Kieran.”
“Trust me, I know how hard it is to differentiate real and forced love.”
My head fell to his chest as panic clawed at me. After tasting the sweetest relief of our second chance, the possibility of losing him now left ice in my veins.
“The monster inside you wouldn’t protect me if it wasn’t real,” I whispered. “Couldn’t.”
His gentle squeeze on my wrists was his only response.
“As fun as this is for me,” Beck mumbled, “there was never a flash drive.”
Kieran cleared his throat and straightened, forcing my hands to my sides but not releasing them. “He’s right.”
“And if you weren’t the one spying on the other members, we need to know who was,” Beck continued. “Who’s the driver?”
I wanted to stay pressed against him forever, but I made myself step away from Kieran so I could turn and face Beck. “I already told Kieran, I don’t know his name. He’s never spoken a word to me. Between when Mickey requested I help him and a couple days ago, I’ve only ever seen the driver. The driver finds me, hands me a phone, and I talk to Mickey.”
“Can you describe him?”
“He looks like someone brought him back from the dead,” I said immediately. “His eyes . . . it’s like he can kill you with a look alone. A lot of tattoos. He’s maybe Mickey’s age, but his skin looks like it belongs to someone ancient.”
Beck cursed. “Not Lucas Holt.”
“Who?”
Kieran just shook his head.
“Someone we’d thought we were looking for,” Beck explained. “So, our ghost is no ghost, but a zombie that’s good at hiding. I thought you were checking Mickey’s phone.”
“I am,” Kieran said with frustration.
“Phones,” I interjected. When the boys didn’t respond, I continued uncertainly. “He has two cell phones. I saw them today.”
From the look that passed between Kieran and Beck, they hadn’t known about the second.
“The driver is who you’ve been looking for? The one charged to kill Conor . . . and you?” I asked Kieran carefully. When Beck made a sound of confirmation, I let out a frustrated laugh. “And you haven’t been able to find him?”
“Ghost,” Kieran said, like their name for him had been lost on me.
“He’s not hard to find. Mickey has him watching my every move. I haven’t gone anywhere in weeks without him showing up.” I gestured to the front door and said, “If I walked off this property, he’d come to me soon enough. Especially now. Mickey warned me not to leave.”
The boys exchanged a look for a few seconds, and then Beck said, “It’s our best chance. You know it is.”
Kieran was shaking his head. “There has to be another way.”
“We haven’t been able to find him. If we don’t kill him . . .”
“You want me to leave so he’ll come for me?” I asked.
“Yes,” Beck said at the same time Kieran growled, “No.”
“I can’t.” My stomach clenched and terror seized me as a moment from this afternoon flashed through my mind. “Mickey said he’d bring my mom to me. I can’t make him mad.”
Both guys were silent for so long I nearly begged them to say something.
“Jessica,” Kieran finally whispered. “He’s not.”
It felt like the floor tilted under me. “What? How do you . . . What do you . . . Why?”
He reached for me, latching on to my wrist to pull me into his arms. “The only thing Mickey has over you is your mom. The only way he’s able to control you and make you do anything is by keeping your mom from you. He’s not going to bring her to you.”
He has to.
For her . . . everything in my life had been for her.
It was the only reason I’d let that disgusting piece of shit touch me.
I had to get her back. I couldn’t lose my mom too.
My heart skipped painfully. “I have to . . . I have to find her. I have to get her back. He’s going to kill her.”
“I’ll find her,” he promised. “We’ve looked everywhere for this ghost. I haven’t been able to find him and haven’t seen a trace of your mom. She might be wherever he’s staying.”
“Then I need to get to her,” I said resolutely.
Kieran clenched his jaw and took steadying breaths for a few moments before nodding toward Beck. “Beck’s right. If you get the ghost to come to you, we’ll have him where we need him. He’ll bring you back, and I can slip into his car. I can hide out in there until he takes me to where he’s been staying. Then I’ll make a move. If your mom’s there, I’ll get her and take her somewhere safe.” He waited a bit to see if I would object before looking to Beck. “Agreed?”
“Yeah, man.”
“I need to know what you’re thinking,” he said low in my ear.
My head shook distractedly. “I’ve always been the one to take care of her. I’ve always been the one to do any and everything to keep her alive. Only me. Then Mickey showed up on a day when I was already feeling so helpless. I’d just paid off AJ, and when I got home I thought”—I swallowed thickly and tried to block the memory from resurfacing—“I thought she was gone. I finally got her to wake up, but I knew one day I was going to come back and I wouldn’t be able to. And I didn’t know how to stop that day from coming . . . so I agreed to his offer.” I rubbed my forehead as a pathetic-sounding laugh fell from my lips. “I knew who he was. I knew he was a sick bastard. I’m an idiot for thinking he would ever help her.”
“No, you’re not,” Beck said quickly.
“You’re not.” Kieran lightly tapped my chin and waited until I looked at him. “Mickey O’Sullivan can make anyone believe anything that comes from his sadistic mouth. From stories we’ve heard, the boss before him was a good man. The kind of man you followed to your death. When Mickey was in his twenties, he killed him for his title and Holloway rioted. By the end of the night, he had every single member on his side ready to blindly follow him.”
“Don’t forget he made dozens of men believe they’d be doing women a favor by kidnapping them and buying them,” Beck added.
Kieran tilted his head in Beck’s direction in agreement. “And he used the person who means the most to you against you.”
“You guys don’t blindly follow him,” I mumbled. “You don’t ever believe anything he says.”
Kieran looked at where Beck was sitting behind me then sighed. “I used to. But I figured him out.” His pale eyes met mine, the corner of his mouth twitching into a brief smirk. “I waited for you to stop laughing to know when it was real. Mickey smiles when he manipulates.”
I couldn’t remember ever seeing Mickey without a smile . . . but I was stuck on what Kieran had said just before.
“It was all real,” I said on a breath.
His expression fell, doubt and pain etched across his face. But after a few moments, he nodded subtly.
I could see he wanted it to be enough.
And I hated that it wasn’t.
I would give anything to be able to erase the doubt. But if I hadn’t accepted Mickey’s offer, Kieran would still only be someone I saw through cracks in doors and listened to from other rooms when I spied on Beck.
I wouldn’t know him.
I wouldn’t need him or crave him.
I wouldn’t know what it was to love someone. To love him.
Kieran shifted and cleared his throat. When I focused on him again, his face was indifferent. “I meant, I need to know what you’re thinking about the plan.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll find another way if you’re not comfortable.”
“What’s with all this I?” Beck interrupted. “I’ll do this. I’ll do that? Where the hell do you think I’m gonna be during this?”
“Dealing,” Kieran replied immediately. “We need to time this right. I went through everything last night, including his calendar. He has meetings all afternoon and a dinner meeting with his lawyer.” His eyes met mine and something terrifying settled there. “Considering what he’s planning with Jessica, I have a feeling I know why he wants to meet with him.”
“But the zombie man isn’t with him,” Beck argued. “And he’s what this is all about. We could get rid of him while Mickey’s gone and be waiting for Mickey when he comes back.”
“We don’t know where the ghost is.” Kieran’s stare drifted back to Beck when he said, “He could be waiting for her, or he might not be if Conor’s supposed to be guarding her and Mickey has a camera on the place.” His grip on me tightened. “But as it stands, he knows Conor is too scared to fuck up, and he thinks Jessica is too worried to make him mad because she wants her mom. He’s confident. He’s not watching the camera. If she sends Conor out for food or something, Conor will have to call Mickey, and Mickey will make sure someone else is watching her. He doesn’t trust anyone right now other than that ghost, he’ll send him.”
“Goddammit,” Beck mumbled. “Why is the robotic asshole always right?”
“Because he trained me to be,” he said with a cold grin. “The ghost needs to go wherever he’s been hiding once he brings Jessica back. The only way that has a chance of working is if Mickey’s here to keep an eye on Jessica. This all needs to go down when Mickey’s on his way back from Raleigh.”
“Which means I’ll be keeping up appearances and dealing,” Beck assumed.
“Right.” There was a gentle tug on my waist. “Jessica?”
After what I had endured in the last twenty-four hours alone, no one could doubt that I would do anything if it meant getting my mom back.
Then again, they didn’t know everything I’d gone through.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to get her back.” My voice was confident even though my stomach was clenching as the memories from last night and this morning slammed into me. My body felt heavy and I felt so depleted.
Physically. Emotionally. Mentally.
Kieran’s lips met my ear. “Are you hungry?” When I shook my head, his voice dropped into a low, soothing tone that had me sagging against him. “Then go get in bed.”
I didn’t move.
He was my strength and comfort. Even if he was struggling to know if this was as real for me as it was for him, I needed him to hold me together when I felt so close to falling apart.
Weak.
Go fuck yourself.
“I need to talk to Beck alone, and then I’ll be there.”
“Promise?”
A sound like agony and need grated in his throat, and then my name left his lips like a prayer. “Chaos . . .”
It wasn’t until I moved away that I realized I’d been in his arms.
I couldn’t remember if he’d been breathing, but there hadn’t been any shaking. He’d simply pulled me close and held me like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I wanted it again.
I wanted it every day for the rest of forever.