“What are you doing here?” Jeremy asked. “Ellen… where is my wife?”
He made no attempt to help her up as he walked through the open door, calling out for Ellen. Angeline’s head throbbed, as she moved to his side with no idea of how she could tell him what had happened without sending him into a total tailspin.
“Where is she?” Jeremy bellowed, as he grabbed her by the arms and nearly lifted her off the ground.
Too late. He was already there.
“It… it was Lillian,” she said.
“Lillian?”
“My… the one that was pushing pills with them when Noel was around. She wants her piece of the action back and—”
“Then, why the fuck didn’t she take you? Why is it always my family that has to pay for your sins?”
“Jeremy—”
Flinging her aside, he started to go for his phone to call the cops. But Angeline knew that that was no good. If Lillian felt as if her back was against the wall, she would slaughter Ellen and Mary without a second thought and just try to make a run for it. Or she might hurt Ben or Waldo or the people that they loved to get her illicit gig back on track.
She recalled some of Noel’s last words.
Think you do me and it ends?
It would only truly end and they would only be free if Lillian could be put down quietly.
“Don’t, Jeremy,” she said as she tried to wrestle the phone from his hand.
“Don’t you fucking touch—”
“You need to listen to me!”
Forcing her hands to his face, she stared hard into his eyes. “You want Ellen back? Then, we’re calling Kane. He’ll call Ben and—”
“He’s out, Angeline!” Jeremy cried. “He said—”
“But it’s our only real chance! Please. Lillian doesn’t care if she dies. If Mary dies. But I do, Jeremy. And so does Kane. You need to trust another mother on this one.”
He struggled for another second, but then he relented and handed her the phone.
“Then call my brother and fucking fix this.”
She reached Kane at the shop, and he was over in a flash. As soon as he saw Angeline with a fresh bruise forming across her cheek, he grabbed her shoulders and asked, “Angel! What did she do to you?”
“She’s fine!” Jeremy spat as he stepped between them. “It’s my wife that’s missing! Why did you bring her back? And…” Now, he turned his rage on Angeline and screamed, “And I told you to stay away! This is how you pay me back for giving you your son?”
She remembered the way that Jeremy had brought Theo into the world. Without Jeremy’s presence, there might not be a Theo, and if just the thought of that made her tremble, she couldn’t let him face the reality of such a loss.
“It is,” she whispered. “Let Kane make a call, and you will see them again before this night is over.”
He started to form a fist, and Kane intervened to absorb the blow as it landed against his broad chest. As Kane took hit after hit, Angeline hated the feel of him hurt, but she let Jeremy attack until his body withered, and as he started to fall, Kane held him and together they slipped to the floor.
“Jem?”
Jeremy looked up at him, his eyes full of tears, and Angeline’s heart broke at the sight of him.
“I love her, Kane,” he muttered. “And I can’t lose her. Or the baby. I… please.”
Kane patted his back and slightly turned his head when Angeline knelt at his side and whispered, “I need to talk to you.”
Lifting Jeremy up, Kane settled him on the couch and told him to hang on for a second. Jeremy was too drained to do anything but nod. As Angeline took Kane’s hand and started to lead him back to the porch, she had to blink back tears when Jeremy saw the pink blanket that Ellen had managed to unpack and buried his face in the soft fabric.
“I’ll find her,” Kane said once they were alone. “I’ll rip her apart if she—”
“No, you won’t,” Angeline said.
“I won’t?” Kane challenged. “I can handle this. You need to—”
“You need to get a hold of Ben,” she said cutting him off. “Arrange a meeting or something. We need to make her think that everything’s going back to normal. Because if we don’t, it won’t play.”
“Angel, I can’t get,” he said. “I’m out. I—”
“Kane.”
“We’re only home because I’m hands off,” he said. “If we bring this back to the club’s door—”
“I saw them, Kane,” she said. “When it really mattered, they sacrificed Noel to save me. And Theo. They’ll do the same for Ellen. Because… because they’re carved in your image. Not Noel’s.”
He paused under the weight of her words, but when Jeremy’s sobs intensified, he shifted into big brother mode. Kissing her bruise, he moved back into the house and dialed up Ben as he rubbed Jeremy’s back. Hearing only one end of the conversation, she waited until he was done to cross the threshold and ask him for the verdict.
“Arranging a meet,” he said. “I have to play a part though.”
She sighed and held his hand.
“Of course you do.”
“But it can work, Angel,” he promised.
Helping Jeremy up, they started for Kane’s truck from the shop. Angeline was right on his heels when Kane turned to face her again.
“I want you to go home,” he said. “Go back to your dad and Theo. If you don’t hear from me in two hours—”
“No,” she said.
“Angel, don’t argue with me now,” he said. “I have to do this. You don’t.”
Looking at Jeremy sitting in the passenger’s seat, still holding the pink blanket, she knew that Kane was wrong. She had started this, and now she would see the nightmare end with her own eyes. “Yes, I do, Kane,” Angeline said.
“I’m not—”
“Can we just fucking do this?” Jeremy screamed.
Kane grunted and hung his head.
“If I say yes, you’ll hang back until the job is done?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she promised. “Just let me stand at your side.”
He still seemed reluctant, but he picked her up and placed her in the truck as he turned the key in the ignition.
“Fine,” he said. “But you hang back and you run home to Theo if it gets bad.”
Even as she agreed and they sped away from the house, Angeline privately vowed that she would never leave him. She could only hope that things would play out according to this plan.