Chapter 20

Like a good neighbor, stay over there.

-Kennedy’s secret thoughts

Kennedy

I rolled over in the bed, stared at the dented pillow, and frowned.

What had woken me up? Was it Evander leaving? Was he coming back? He said he was going to stay…

I threw the covers off, knowing that my mind wouldn’t shut off until I knew for certain if he was in the house, and started out the door of my bedroom—without, might I add, putting on pants.

Which was my first mistake.

My second mistake was assuming that Evander was the only one in my house.

I heard murmuring from somewhere in the living room/kitchen area and assumed that either he’d gotten a call or he’d needed to make a call.

My guess was he’d gotten a call.

He got calls a lot.

I was surprised to know how many people had Evander’s number.

At first, it was only the guys from work calling him, or the dispatcher calling with a pick-up for him to do.

Then, Evander explained, as his feelers started coming back and word got out that he was back, the low-life citizens of Hostel had started to call to give him tips. I wasn’t quite sure why he was gathering the little snippets of information or what he was going to use it all for until he’d explained it to me.

Now that everyone in town knew he was back in the area, all the people who used to act as his informants—telling him, for a fee, where he could find the people he was looking for and when—were calling with leads, hoping to restart their previous relationships. He needed these people who knew things that Evander couldn’t find out on his own without immersing himself in that world. A world, he’d explained, he didn’t want any part of if it meant that his parole could be broken and he’d be sent back to jail.

My third mistake of the night was walking right into the living room without pausing to first make sure that the front freakin’ door wasn’t open.

At first, they didn’t notice me.

At first, I didn’t think about the chill of the cool night air hitting my skin where they should have been covered by my pants.

Why?

Because there was a large man covered in head-to-toe black—black jeans, black motorcycle boots, black t-shirt, and a black ball cap covering his black hair—and he was arguing with Evander.

“I can’t do this for you,” the man stated vehemently.

“You mean, you won’t do it for me,” Evander countered the man’s obviously emotional refusal.

The man shrugged.

“I won’t do this for you,” he amended. “But it’s not because I’m not willing to help. It’s because I don’t want to see you go back to jail all for some petty revenge that won’t serve any real purpose and will barely get the man at the top of the food chain a fucking slap on the wrist.”

Evander’s back straightened. “You don’t know that.”

The man nodded his head. “I do. It may not happen the way I think it will, but it definitely isn’t going to go the way you think it will, either.”

Evander growled and started to pace from side-to-side in the small entranceway.

“He stole four years of my life, Rafe.”

The anger and hurt in those words were enough to make my belly clinch.

“I know, man,” Rafe said. “But he’s going to steal more if you don’t watch what the fuck you’re doing.”

Fear started to curl into my belly.

What could he be doing that would have this man—an obviously badass, all-black-wearing kind of guy—telling him that what he had planned wasn’t smart? Evander wasn’t a dumb man, not at all. Everything he did was intentional. He was the type of man who stopped to think first—and did so carefully—before he acted.

He weighed the pros and cons of his actions, considering every possible outcome and scenario, before he did anything.

Acting impulsively wasn’t in Evander’s nature, and if this man, Rafe, was thinking he was being impulsive, he was wrong. Whatever he had planned, it had been thought out thoroughly.

Whatever it was, though, it was obviously something bad.

I bit my lip and shifted my hip so I could get a better look, which caused the man in the door to look up and stare at me.

“She’s up.”

Evander stopped pacing and turned to look at me, eyes wide and wild.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Kennedy,” he growled low in his throat and started to stalk toward me. “You’re not wearing any goddamn clothes!”

I looked down at my pantless state, and then frowned, reaching for the afghan that was on the couch.

Before I could get it up, Evander was there, shrugging off his shirt and then pulling it on over my tank top, smoothing it until it covered me from mid-forearm to right above my knees.

“What are you doing awake?” he snapped.

I blinked.

Evander snapping—at me or even just in general—was foreign to me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever actually seen him angry.

But this man, the one standing in front of me right this very moment, wasn’t the same man I was used to. This man was angry, vindictive. This man was unforgiving.

“I woke up, and you weren’t there,” I whispered, tears automatically forming in my eyes.

And just like that, all the anger and annoyance drained out of Evander. In its place was a man who looked practically defeated.

“Head back to the bedroom. I’ll be there in a minute.”

I would’ve argued. Really, I would have. But the look on Evander’s face brooked no room for argument from me. At all.

I could tell that with just one glance in his eyes.

“Okay,” I finally murmured. “I’ll just go do that.”

Then I started backing away, watching as Evander watched me, until I hit the mouth of the hall.

The moment that I was out of sight, I turned and walked back down the hallway.

The murmuring didn’t start up again, and that was either due to them going outside so I couldn’t accidentally overhear their conversation again or the departure of Mr. Mysterious, the all-black-wearing, midnight visitor.

But while I waited, I quickly realized that something was very, very wrong here.

Evander was worried.

And I only had to listen to him twenty minutes later as he explained why, exactly, he should be.

Once he was through explaining everything to me, I was worried, too.

***

Evander

I saluted my former squad member—the man who had my back when Gertie wasn’t there to do it—and closed the door quietly.

I shouldn’t have bothered.

I knew that she was still awake, and likely on the edge of her seat waiting for her answers.

Answers that I didn’t want to give—not yet at least, and, if I had my choice, not ever.

But I was a man who knew when his woman wasn’t going to be appeased by some bullshit explanation.

I knew that she wouldn’t stop until she got the answers she sought.

So I chose to share the details with her on the man who we’d gotten the repossession notice for earlier at the club.

I wasn’t surprised to find her wide awake and waiting for me as I walked through her bedroom door.

I also wasn’t surprised to see Gertie in the bed with her, legs sprawled out and his face in her lap. Kennedy’s dog was also in the bed with them, stretched out by her feet and chewing on a piece of rawhide.

If anything good had come from all of the shit that happened and that was now my life, it was what I had in this woman.

Would I have met her had I not gone to prison? Would I be standing here, staring at her in this bed as she was petting my dog, if the nightmare I went through had not happened?

No, I didn’t think so.

And it was tearing me apart inside.

On one hand, I wanted vengeance. I wanted Balthazar and the chief of police to fucking suffer. I wanted them to die, and I wanted them to die slowly. Painfully. Agonizingly.

I wanted them to feel it, every single second, as they died.

I wanted them to realize that I was not someone they could shit on and not give a second thought to. I was an opponent who was going to just roll over and let them play their stupid fucking games.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she whispered.

Instead of sitting on the bed, I took the chair that she had piles of clothes sitting in, shoving them backwards so I was on the edge of the seat.

“Do you know who that was?” I asked.

She had to have seen him around town.

This wasn’t a big town. Plus, I’d mentioned him while we were at the meeting today, and the types of places that he liked to frequent.

She nodded.

“Rafe?”

I confirmed with a nod of my head. “The one and only.”

“Okay,” she hesitated. “Then why was he here in the middle of the night, and what was he refusing to help you with?”

I paused, considering my words very carefully.

“The job that Travis gave us before he left today. I was asking Rafe for the help and offering him the job if he wanted it.”

“And did he take it?”

I shrugged. “Yes, for a while, anyway.”

“Then what was the problem?”

“He didn’t want to help me catch Balthazar.” I refused to keep her in the dark about what I was going to do in the next week. She deserved to know that I might fuck this up—just like Rafe said. “He wasn’t refusing to help do the job as much as he was refusing to help me do the job.”

She waited, eyebrows raised in question, for me to elaborate.

“Balthazar is the man who lives down the street from me,” I said. “The one who didn’t take kindly to me threatening him with the police. The one who’s responsible for my four-year prison sentence.”

The moment she realized who he was to me, and it sank in, her face fell.

“You can’t do that job.” She sat up straight, displacing Gertie’s head. “If you do that, you could get hurt. You could go back to jail if you do what I think you’re going to do. And where would that leave me?”

I gritted my teeth.

“I won’t go to jail, and I won’t get hurt.”

She sat forward.

“You don’t know that,” she snapped. “You’re so far from rational about this that you can’t see what everyone else does, and that’s that this is a bad idea. I mean, really, Evander, what are you thinking?”

What was I thinking?

“I’m thinking that if I don’t do this, that stupid motherfucker is going to be a thorn in my side for the rest of his life. I’ll have to deal with him doing his business at the end of my road, living with just a few acres separating him from me, and there wouldn’t be a goddamn thing I could do about it.”

“Your brother…”

I immediately shook my head.

“Not happening,” I immediately disagreed. “He’s not been there at all for me in a long time. I’m not bringing him in on this.”

She growled under her breath and looked away as angry tears started to form in her eyes.

“This is the worst idea—it’s not like you.”

“You don’t know it’s not like me.” I stood up and threw my hands in the air. “That’s the problem we have here. You don’t know me, Kennedy. You only know what you want to know.”

“What do you mean I don’t know you?” she hissed, standing up now, too. “I know you!”

I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at her, trying not to think about how hot she looked when she was pissed.

“You don’t,” I countered.

She stalked toward me, finger raised and poked me in the chest at the same time she said, “I know that you love me.”

I snapped my mouth closed.

I did fucking love her.

I wouldn’t admit that, though.

Admitting it meant that she’d just have one more hurdle to jump over when this all turned south.

And I wasn’t lying to myself. This very well might turn south. I might end up back in jail after I did what I had to do. I might be fucking dead.

But there wasn’t a goddamn thing that was going to stop me from exacting this revenge. My heart couldn’t live with it, and if she really loved me, she wouldn’t ask me to.

Until this was all over, I wouldn’t say those words to her. I wouldn’t give her the false hope.

So I remained silent.

And broke her heart in the process.

It’s too bad that I didn’t realize that I was breaking her heart while I was doing it, though.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” I said, taking a seat on the bed and dragging my boots to me.

“You’re going tonight?” she asked in alarm.

I nodded, slipping my feet into the boots and standing up.

“Don’t do this, Evander,” she pleaded. “This isn’t a good idea. I have a bad feeling about this.”

I walked to her and hugged her, dropping a kiss on the top of her brow.

“I’ll be fine.”

Then I let her go.

“I love you, Evander.”

My heart swelled at her words, but I didn’t let them stop me from leaving.

But I really should have.

She looked just fine.

She looked like she was okay with me not saying it back to her.

As I got to the end of the sidewalk, though, I couldn’t stop myself from turning around and heading back up the stairs.

She looked so fuckin’ hopeful that my steps faltered.

“Gotta get Gertie,” I rumbled. “Gertie!”

Gertie was at the door moments later.

And as I turned to leave, I got a good look at her face.

I saw the moment it fell.

Saw the resignation and hurt there.

I promised myself that I’d make it up to her. I promised myself that I would tell her everything. Show her everything that was in my heart.

As soon as I got home.

But when I got home would be too late.

I just didn’t know it yet.

***

“Worst fuckin’ idea, ever,” Rafe grumbled, watching the house.

I watched it, too.

I’d done this a lot. Sat here, watching, waiting, hoping that Balthazar would come out so I could get my chance and grab the fucker.

But he never came out. I didn’t know if he knew I was out there. I also didn’t know if he would even care.

I’d done this before. I knew what I was about to do was stupid.

But then I got a phone call.

And what was said sent shock straight through me, right to my core.

“Hello?” I answered.

“You don’t happen to know why I have three goats and a dog tied up outside the police station with a note to me on it, do you?”

That was my brother.

“What?” I was confused.

“A dog. Three goats. Tied to my cruiser.”

My brows furrowed.

“What does the note say?” I asked distractedly.

I honestly didn’t know why I would care whether he had a dog and three goats tied to his cruiser.

“Got a note. From your woman.”

My heart froze.

Now I cared that he had a dog and three goats tied to his cruiser.

“How do you know it was my woman and why would she have anything to do with that?” I asked, sitting up straighter.

Not comfortable having this conversation in the car with Rafe, I pulled the door handle and bailed out of the truck, heading to the tailgate so I could lean against it.

“Because the note is signed ‘Kennedy’,” he drawled. “How else would I know they belonged to her?”

A sick feeling of dread hit me.

She wouldn’t leave…would she?

“What did the note say?”

“Nothing that I’ll be sharing with you,” he shot back. “Get here and get these goats. I live in a fucking subdivision. I won’t be able to do anything with them.”

Then he hung up, leaving me staring at the fence of my worst enemy.

Knowing that I wouldn’t be going in there today.

Not today and maybe not ever.

Not if it meant losing Kennedy.