Chapter 24
Leo
In a daze, I rode with my boy to the hospital to get checked out.
It took them a few hours, but the doctors finally decided that beyond a little smoke inhalation, he was perfectly fine. The paramedics hadn’t seemed particularly concerned when they’d driven us to the hospital, which had calmed me a bit, but when they’d advised me to have him checked, I’d jumped on it. He was so little that I had a hard time believing that he was fine.
When I’d seen that smoke coming out of the house, and then the windows upstairs shattering from the heat, I’d nearly vomited. Tommy had been the one to tackle me into the grass, and if he hadn’t, I don’t know what I would have done. It had taken him and Rocky to hold me down. Will and Grease had held Cam.
I gritted my teeth at the memory as I wrapped Gray’s sleeping form in a blanket and readjusted him on my shoulder. I could have killed them for what they’d done, and if there hadn’t been two of them, I probably would have.
Watching a house burn when you knew your world was inside was something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. There wasn’t a word that adequately described the terror I’d felt. It was all-consuming, suffocating, so intense that I’d thought at any moment, it was going to literally kill me.
When someone had yelled across the yard that Lily was inside, my entire body had gone limp with defeat. A part of me had felt relieved for just a sliver of a second. I knew without a shadow of a doubt, that if Lily could get him out, she would. She’d never stop trying to get those boys out of danger. I knew that. But staring at the house, I hadn’t understood how they could still be alive.
I wouldn’t have survived it if they were gone.
Will and Grease climbed off of Cam as Trix reached him. She could hold him back better than any two men, without question.
Then, like a fucking miracle, we’d seen the screen on a window downstairs bowing before it popped out of a window. Curtis fell out first, landing on his ass. Seconds later, Draco came tumbling out behind him.
The guys climbed off me as I stared. I was paralyzed as I watched Will and Cam running toward the window. They lifted the boys off the ground and listened to them for just a second before sending them running from the house.
Sirens wailed behind us as I scrambled to my feet. Will and Grease were still staring at the window.
And then, there they were. From my vantage point, all I could see were Lily’s arms, but I could see Gray’s entire body. He looked fine. He looked scared, but fine. Will pulled Gray from Lily and I’d wanted to scream. Get them both, goddamnit, what are you doing? But nothing came out.
I made it to Grease and my baby boy just as Will pulled Lily out the window. She was limp.
I swallowed down the lump in my throat as I walked down the halls of the hospital. My mom texted me Lily’s room number an hour ago, and as soon as they’d given the all clear, I’d headed in that direction. I needed to see her. To feel her. To kiss her face and make sure she was okay.
“And then, the door popped open,” Curtis said from the foot of Lily’s bed as I reached the open door to her room. “And we were kind of worried that it was the Russian dudes.”
“But it wasn’t,” Draco interrupted. “It was Aunt Lily, and she was all, ‘Go out the window’.”
“Well, first she asked where Gray was.”
“Yeah, and then when we couldn’t find him, she said to go out the window, but it was so dark that I couldn’t see anything.”
“Yeah, and I didn’t want to leave her behind, so she pushed me really hard.”
“And she was all, take this many steps forward and then use the desk to guide you,” Draco said. “Did you know she could do that? She found us in the dark.”
“So we counted our steps to the desk and she went to go get Gray.”
“And then we jumped out the window.”
“We didn’t want to leave them,” Curtis said, looking guiltily at his dad. “She made us.”
“You did the right thing,” Cam said gruffly, nodding his approval. “We knew just where to get your aunt and cousin because you guys came out that window. If she hadn’t made it out, we knew just where to look.”
“She was really brave,” Draco said, his chin wobbling.
“You were pretty brave, too,” I said, walking fully into the room. “You guys stayed with Gray in the safe room?”
“Yeah,” Curtis said, giving his brother time to bring his emotions under control. “We played games and stuff.”
“Good job,” I said, kissing his head and then Draco’s. “Thank you.”
I smiled, and finally lifted my eyes to Lily’s.
Her lips were trembling as she tried to smile, and her cheek was swollen and purple.
“Hey, Dandelion,” I said, moving to the head of her bed. “How you doin’, pretty girl?”
“Like I just inhaled a fuck-ton of smoke,” she replied, her voice broken and raspy.
“You’re not supposed to be talking,” Cecilia reminded her from her place near the window. “You’re supposed to let your throat heal.”
“I love you,” Lily said, ignoring her sister. “Is he okay?”
Her eyes moved to Gray, and my eyes watered as I laid his sleeping form in between her side and her arm.
“He’s okay,” I said, leaning down to press my lips against hers. “Thank you.”
I kissed her again. “Oh, God, thank you.”
“Time to go boys,” Cam said from behind me, lifting his sons off the bed.
“Where are we gonna sleep?”
“Gramps’ and Nana’s,” Trix said, helping to usher them out of the room. “You can sleep in Uncle Leo’s old room.”
“But there’s only one bed,” Curtis complained.
“Oh, good. You guys can cuddle,” Cecilia said as she shut the door behind them.
“God, Lily,” I whispered as the room around us grew quiet. “I thought you were gone. I thought both of you were gone.”
I buried my face in her neck, hardly able to smell her beyond the scent of smoke.
“I wouldn’t let that happen,” she rasped, her IV covered hand rising up to smooth my hair back. “I’d never leave you like that.”
“If anyone else had been watching the boys,” I ground out, shuddering.
We both knew the answer to that. If anyone else had been watching the boys, there was no way they could have found them in the smoke. After Lily had been taken away in the ambulance, I’d heard a couple of the firefighters talking about it. They had no idea how she’d managed to make her way from the kitchen to the office. Most people would have been too disoriented in the smoke to get themselves out the front door. It would have been impossible for them to find the boys inside a locked room.
“You’re sure he’s okay?” she asked again, shifting a little so that Gray was pressed more firmly against her.
“He got an all-clear from the doctors,” I said, kissing her forehead. “He’s just tired and freaked out.”
She nodded and then laid her head back on the pillow, her face filled with exhaustion. “Don’t leave, okay?”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere.” Sitting down at Gray’s feet, I rested my hand on her hip as she rolled to the side and curled around us, her knees resting against my back.
I stayed that way for a long time after she’d fallen asleep.
* * *
“What’s the word?” my dad asked after slamming his gavel angrily on the table.
It was a few days after the fire and we were in church, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. Once Lily had been able to describe what had gone down in the house, every man with connections had been on the phone and taking meetings. We’d been searching non-stop for the last two days and I was losing patience with how little we knew. It just took one connection to get to the truth, but we had to sift through hundreds to find that one.
“Sokolov,” Gramps said, pushing his way into the room with a small scrap of paper in his hand.
“You got news?” Casper asked, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. I didn’t know how the guy was doing it, but he’d been at the club every day since the fire, pouring over shit we knew and shit we didn’t, trying to figure out what had happened. He must have been swallowing massive amounts of painkillers.
“Two boys, Sokolov, flew into Eugene from Russia, one week ago. Talked to a friend at a bar near the airport four days ago.”
“The fuck?” Will asked in confusion. “We didn’t even kill that fat fuck! What the hell do they want?”
“Don’t know, but they were askin’ about the club,” Gramps replied. “Contact at the bar said they were askin’ him questions and didn’t give him the option of keepin’ his mouth shut.” He paused and cleared his throat. “Our guy says he gave them Cam’s name, because he was sure that was one place they couldn’t get to.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tommy muttered, tossing the pack of cigarettes in his hand across the room.
“He tried to warn us,” Gramps said quietly. “But the number he had was one of Casper’s burners. I’m thinkin’ probably the one that was lost in the accident.”
“The perfect goddamn storm,” Grease muttered, shaking his head. “You got a place we can find these fucks?”
Cam and I were on our feet before Gramps could finish rattling off the address of the cheap motel.
“Take Will,” my dad said, not bothering to argue with us. “He’ll make sure you don’t act like fuck-nuts.”
It didn’t take long to get to the motel, which was a pretty standard throwback from the sixties. All the doorways faced one direction and it was only two stories.
From the minute we stepped off our bikes, each one of us was on high alert. No way that the Sokolov boys hadn’t heard us coming, but there was no way to know if they would run, or try and make a stand OK-Corral style. It could go either way if they were feeling froggy, and since they’d already burned down my sister’s house and punched my woman in the face, I was betting they were feeling pretty damn froggy.
“Boris and Hank,” Will called, his lips twitching at the nickname we’d come up with, since none of us knew how the fuck to say the guy’s name. “You in there, boys?”
Oddly, the door opened wide, and there stood a big guy with a scowl on his face.
“What you want?” he asked in heavily accented English.
Cam grinned and punched the big guy, knocking him flat on his ass. We stepped around him and into the room before the littler guy could pull his weapon.
“I’d keep your hands visible,” Will said, pointing his gun at the little one. “I don’t take chances and my woman would be pissed if I got shot.”
“Who are you?” little guy demanded as he stood from the bed.
“Pretty sure you’re the one who’s been lookin’ for us,” Cam grunted. “Who the fuck are you?”
Little guy’s expression filled with understanding before rage took over his features.
“You killed my father,” he spat, his words almost impossible to understand. “Like a dog in his bed.”
“I’ve never killed a dog in its bed,” I said under my breath.
“Who the fuck would do that?” Cam replied.
“My father was Karl Sokolov,” the guy said proudly, lifting his chin.
“Not sure you should go around boastin’ that shit,” Will said as he turned his head toward the man waking up from his stupor. “Just stay down, idiot,” he warned.
“You burned down my motherfuckin’ house,” Cam said, done with the conversation. “With my fucking sister and kids inside it.”
“You poison my father, yes? Like a woman,” the guy barked.
“Nobody fuckin’ poisoned your dad,” I replied. “I mean, I woulda killed his ass, but I fuckin’ didn’t. He was dead when I got there.”
“You lie,” the little guy said, but his face didn’t look so sure anymore. “We have autopsy done in Russia. Say, poison.”
“Why the fuck would I lie?” I asked.
Just as the final word left my mouth, I saw the big one reach for something on the floor next to him, and less than a second later, I was raising my arm and pulling the trigger. The hand holding the gun he’d been trying to pull fell to his side and he slumped backward, the hole in his forehead not even bleeding.
“Son of a—” Two more gunshots split the room and I looked over to see the small guy hit the wall with a thud and slide all the way to the floor.
“Idiot went for his piece the minute you shot his brother,” Will said in annoyance.
“We’re gonna need a cleaner,” Cam mumbled, shoving his gun back in the holster he wore in the back of his jeans. “ ’Cause I’m not doin’ it.”
“Me, either,” I mumbled, stepping over the dead big guy as I left the room. “You think anyone heard anything?”
“Nah,” Will said, putting his phone to his ear. “Even if they did, no one would say anything.”
As soon as Will had the clean up settled, we got back on our bikes and took off. On the way home, each of us wiped down our weapons and threw them in separate parts of the river. Getting a new weapon was nothing, but trying to convince the police that ballistics from your gun didn’t match the hole in a dead man was a bit harder to manage.
Something the Russian fuck had said nagged at me as I pulled into the forecourt and turned off my bike. What had he said? That they’d had an autopsy done on Sokolov and he’d died by poison. Had the guy had enemies besides us? There was something that I wasn’t piecing together, and it was driving me fucking nuts.
Then, before I’d even stepped into the building, I figured it out.
I fucking knew, and I was livid.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” I growled as he answered the phone. “Motherfuckers burned down Trix’s house and almost killed Lily and the boys because I had no goddamn idea what you’d done.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” my Uncle Nix said easily. “But I’m at work, so I’m going to have to call you back.”
“I don’t care how old you are,” I said. “I’m gonna beat the shit outta you when I see you.”
“I love you, too,” he said. “Give all the boys a kiss from me and tell them I’ll be down this weekend.”
“You fucking douche,” I hissed as he hung up on me.
“That your uncle?” Gramps asked as he stood in the doorway.
“You fucking know?” I asked, stalking toward him.
“I pieced it together once you’d left and gave him a call. He didn’t deny it.”
“Son of a bitch,” I grumbled. “Why the hell would he do that?”
“Because he’s your uncle,” he said simply, turning to go back into the club. “He’d rather the mess was on his own hands.”
I followed him inside, cursing under my breath. It had been bad enough that the man had been dead from natural causes before I’d gotten there. Knowing that my uncle had somehow poisoned his ass made that shit a million times more humiliating. I couldn’t even describe how livid I was that he’d created an enemy we hadn’t known about and they’d almost killed my family.
I pulled my cut off as I walked into my room, then paused when I found Lily sitting at the end of my bed.
“What’re you doing here?” I asked, reaching out to run my fingers through her hair. “You should be in bed.”
“I’m done with that,” she said simply, getting to her feet. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“Me, too,” I murmured, leaning forward to kiss her gently. “You wanna take a nap with me?”
“Can’t,” she said with a shrug, her face stiff. “I have to catch a plane.”
“What?” I asked, unable to stop from blurting out the word. “Now?”
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “I need to get back before all of my professors fail me. I can only use family emergencies so many times before they start to get suspicious.”
“That’s bullshit,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re barely better.”
“I’m good enough to fly,” she said gently. This time it was her leaning forward to kiss me. “I don’t want to do the whole goodbye thing, okay?”
“Have your doctors cleared you?” I asked, unable to comprehend that she was leaving, just like that.
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m not doing the long goodbye,” she repeated. “I’ll see you soon, okay? I love you. I’ll call you when I get home.”
She left me standing there with my heart thundering and my stomach rolling like I was going to heave all over the floor.
We’d spent the last few days together. I’d held her while she slept and I’d cooked her and Gray dinner while they laid in bed watching cartoons. She hadn’t said anything about flying back to Connecticut. She hadn’t said anything about going back to Yale at all.
I strode out of my room and across the common area as fast as I could without running. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I had to do something. She couldn’t just take off. That wasn’t how it worked.
Her dad’s truck was just pulling out of the gate as I hit the forecourt, and I stopped moving when I realized that she was actually gone.
That’s when I began to debate shit in my head. I was acting on emotion. That wasn’t how I was supposed to do things. I’d told her to go back to Yale. I’d told her that was what I wanted for her. Just because we’d lived through something big didn’t change that. I was being a pussy because I wasn’t ready for her to leave, but I knew that’s what was best for her.
She deserved to go to that school. She deserved to have those doors opened for her. She deserved the world. And just because I’d forgotten for a moment that she belonged somewhere else didn’t mean that I had the right to drag her back home.
I spun toward the garage and found Cam staring at me.
“Did Lily leave?” he asked, wiping his hands on a rag.
“Yeah.” The word came out choked and I cleared my throat to disguise it.
“She’ll be back.” He turned and walked back into the garage.