Doing my best to squash the urge to pummel Stubbs for what he’d done to my brother, I slapped the flash drive down on his desk. “We’re fucking done now. Do you hear me? Come after my family again, and I’ll put a fucking bullet in your head myself.”
Stubbs waved me away as if my threats were nothing more than me overreacting about the situation. But I swore I’d find a way to take him down—one of these days. “Calm your ass down, boy. And if you hadn’t dragged your feet on this, I wouldn’t have had to resort to getting your attention.”
“You have no fucking clue what a job like this entails. I wasn’t dragging my feet—I was trying not to get caught. I don’t feel like doing jail time just because you’re an impatient bastard—and in case you haven’t figured it out, landing myself in jail sure as shit wouldn’t get you your plans.” If it hadn’t been for Avery deciding to show me some mercy and not turn me in—not to mention her working her magic—who the fuck knows how this job would have turned out. Chances were, not good. “I’ve held up my end of the bargain. We’re done. And you better not even look at my family, or I’ll hunt you down and make you regret it.”
“These plans better be all that you’ve promised, Blackthorn. I won’t be pleased if it isn’t—and neither will my buyer.” Stubbs sat forward, trying to make his point. Not that I wasn’t aware of all that he was capable of.
My chest tightened as I realized my mistake. Desperate to put an end to this thing with Stubbs, so that I could get on with my life, I came straight here to hand off the plans to Stubbs without ever looking at the plans.
Yet I shrugged off my worries, knowing Avery was more than capable. If she said she’d got me the plans, then she did. And as technical as these plans were, I highly doubted Stubbs—and more than likely, even his buyer—would be able to make heads or tails of it.
“The files I found on Chameleon are there—and they were damn hard to get, too. But that sort of tech...it’s well beyond my knowledge, so I make no guarantees beyond the fact that the flash drive contains whatever data and plans they had filed under that project.” It was nothing but the truth. I might be smart, but this wasn’t exactly the sort of thing I’d ever played with.
“Show me.” He motioned to the laptop on his desk, as I bit back a groan. I just wanted to get the fuck out of here so I could put this behind me. And I wanted to get back to Avery so that I could tell her that this was all finally over.
“Log yourself in.” I motioned to the laptop on his desk with a tilt of my head. He did as I asked and then handed me his laptop—which was truly a stupid move on his behalf, since he was essentially giving me access to all his files. I grabbed the flash drive off the desk and slid it into the USB slot, quickly accessing all the files to make sure there wouldn’t be any problems. It was all there, just like Avery had promised...and more.
What the fuck was this?
Whatever it was, it was brilliantly disguised, I’d give her that. Chances were good that no one would notice it, buried as it was in the code. Few would likely be accessing that area if they were simply looking at the files. And the code? That was definitely her work. I’d recognize it anywhere. But what the hell was she doing?
I made sure to keep a straight face as I continued digging around, since the last thing I needed was for Stubbs to get suspicious. Because Stubbs wasn’t just an asshole—he was fucking dangerous.
And then I saw it. Fucking hell...she’d implanted a tracker in the code.
But why? Why would she care about tracking it? There’d be no reason for her to go to such extremes. Unless, of course, she wasn’t the one tracking the data, but rather Avery had inserted the tracker on someone else’s behalf.
Like the FBI.
Son of a bitch.
I gathered up what data I could find on Stubbs and his business ventures, and with a sleight of hand, downloaded it onto one of the flash drives I always had on me. It’d come in handy if he ever decided to try to blackmail me and my family again—or if I needed a bargaining chip to keep him from killing me once he found out I’d just handed him plans with a tracker imbedded in the file.
Not wanting to take too long, I pulled up the files Stubbs wanted to see, and then turned his laptop around and put it down on his desk so he could check it all out, knowing that I’d already covered my tracks. “Here you go. Now leave me and my family alone.”
I needed to get out of there—and I needed to see Avery.
I wanted some damn answers.
Because she hadn’t just put me in danger, but my whole family. And I might love her, but I still didn’t take too kindly to her lying to me and pulling a stunt that could easily backfire and end up with someone dead.
“I appreciate the help, Blackthorn. Here’s what I promised you.” He slid an envelope across the table, thick with money. “Send my regards to your brothers.”
He looked like the cat who’d stolen the cream, sitting there toying with the flash drive, looking damn happy with himself.
But the joke was on him—same as it was on me.
We’d both been had. It’s just that only one of us knew it.
She had fucking betrayed me. Lied to me. Used me. And the fact that it was all too ironic didn’t escape me. I knew I deserved this—and yet it fucking hurt. Had this been a setup from the very start? Or did she simply see it as a way to make me pay for hurting her?
Well, I’d find out soon enough, one way or the other. I cursed her the whole way over to her house, and by the time I slammed the car door shut behind me and pounded on her front door, I was fucking hurt and furious.
Except that it wasn’t Avery who answered—but rather Huck.
Of course it was.
“I need to see Avery.” I was in no mood to butt heads with Huck, especially when I knew damn well that he’d always been in love with Avery.
Huck leaned his muscular body against the doorframe, looking smug, like he didn’t have a bother in the world. “Yeah well, I hate to disappoint you, but she’s not here. Had to go and deal with some work emergency. Not sure when she’ll be back—and you’re not invited to wait for her.”
Now there was a fucking shocker. “Tell her I came by.”
“Sure will.” He scoffed and slammed the door shut, making it clear he wouldn’t be in any hurry to tell her I was looking for her.
Fucking asshole.
I pulled out my phone and called her. Straight to voice mail, so I texted her next. “Call me, Avery. We need to talk.”
Work emergency, my ass—at least not at GTC. And that likely meant that she was off dealing with the Feds. I growled in frustration.
It wasn’t even that I was mad about her working with the FBI. Maybe I would have been in the past, but that wasn’t who I was anymore. No...what I was angry about was that she’d lied to me from the start, and imbedding that tracker into the plans I handed Stubbs could easily cause blowback on me and my family.
Someone could easily end up dead. All because of her lies and manipulations.
Was that what Slater had been referring to? Had he known she’d been working for the Feds? I called my brother, wanting a fucking answer, but again ended up with my call going to voice mail.
I got home and slammed the door behind me, immediately regretting it when a few of the dogs got spooked. Fucking hell.
“Hey...” I knelt down and tried to soothe them, petting and trying to calm the pups who needed it the most, knowing that most of them had been abused in the past and were easily traumatized. I might be furious with the world, but they didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of my bad mood. Once they seemed calm and happy, and had been reassured that everything was okay, I went and grabbed them their dinner, knowing they were waiting to be fed.
I filled their bowls and set them down to eat, though I couldn’t get my mind to slow, nor could I squash my anger and frustration with Avery.
My brothers...
I texted them and let them know that the deal with Stubbs was done, but that there may be complications and they should keep an eye out for trouble. It was nothing new for my family. Trouble seemed to follow us, no matter how hard we tried to avoid it and break free of the life we once led. I supposed we were still paying for our previous wrongs.
I poured myself a whiskey and took a long sip as my gaze settled on the label. Blackthorn Whiskey... I’d designed the label myself, and had to say, it looked sharp. A raven sitting on top of a bramble of black thorns. The distillery, under Ash’s guidance and hard work, was doing really well. And it was where my family’s future lay—if we could finally break free of our past.
I finished my first glass, and then poured myself another as my thoughts drifted back to Avery. I finally thought I’d found happiness again. Finally thought I had her back in my life.
But it looked like that was nothing but a lie.