Page 26 of Ruthless Reign

“We don’t know that for sure. Not yet.”

“But soon. If they don’t move against us soon, we can assume they don’t know we had any involvement.”

He nodded quietly to himself, and even if he wouldn’t say it out loud, I knew he had the same thought I did. The Kents’ sacrifice—however fucking idiotic—might’ve saved our lives.

“I need to talk to your Ma.”

He left without another word, and I took my time scrubbing the remnants of the dead Son of O’Sullivan from every crease in my knuckles and every crevice of my face before following him upstairs.

The house felt quiet. Tight.

Like something balanced precariously at the edge could tip over and shatter the silence at any moment. But as I made my way into the den, the quiet held, and I sighed with relief, finding Kaleb seated on the couch, one hand absently stroking Becca’s head in his lap, the other resting atop his weapon on the cushion next to him.

A rerun of some sitcom played with muted volume on the screen, but there were no smiles or laughter from my brother. He glanced up at me with a look that dared me to make a sound and wake her.

Soundlessly, I crossed the room and perched on the arm of the sofa next to him, looking down at my little Hawk in his lap. My jaw ticked, watching him brush her hair back from her neck, where half a dozen butterfly closures cinched the small cuts closed on the skin there.

It wasn’t jealousy, not really, I told myself. Not of her feelings for him, at least. But of his ability to do this. To be gentle. Patient. His ability to give her things I wasn’t sure I ever could.

I was glad she had that. Someone to touch her gently. Softly. Someone to hold her when she felt like breaking.

“Did they tell you?” I asked in a whisper.

“About the Kents? Yeah. They told me. Idiots should have left when I told them to.”

Yeah. They should’ve.

One wrong choice. That was all it took to dig their own graves. It was all it took for any of us to get our ticket punched.

Becca sighed heavily in her sleep, a little knot pulling between her eyebrows as she began to grind her teeth. I leaned down and touched her jaw. Kaleb glared at me, but after a second, she stopped grinding her teeth and fell back to sleep.

I noticed the phone she held tightly in her hand, arm curled in against her chest and something nagged at me seeing it there.

“What is it?” Kaleb asked, concern etching into his features as he looked between Becca and me. There was something…but I couldn’t seem to catch it. An errant thought.

“Hey,” Ma whisper yelled from the arched entryway to the living room. Both of us turned to see her standing there, apron covered in red. For the first time, I realized I could smell something other than bleach and blood. Something salty and garlicky filled my nose.

“You boys hungry? I made a spaghetti.”

Of course she did. Ma could never sit still when shit got tense. I barely heard them continue talking as I fought off the nagging feeling that I was forgetting something.

“Ma, could you not. She’s sleeping,” Kaleb hissed, shaking his head with a raised eyebrow in her direction, but both of us heard his stomach growl. Becca stirred at the sound, letting out a little groan as she started to wake up.

Kaleb gave Ma a pointed look that said this was her fault as Becca started to sit up and rub her eyes.

Ma rolled her eyes at his dirty look.

“The hell you doing making spaghetti? It’s four a.m., Ma.”

She waved him off. “Call it breakfast, then. Come on, all of you, before it gets cold.”

“This will be your final class to work on your self-portrait projects,” my instructor, Ms. Benchwright, told the class as I walked in a few minutes late. She gave me a curt nod as I took my seat and then she continued. “Anything uncompleted during this class will need to be worked on in your own time and handed in Monday morning. For any questions, I’ll be in my office.”

Her analytical gaze slid in my direction one more time before she turned to head into her ‘office’ which was more of a cubicle closed off with large floral painted canvases done in moody jewel tones. She was the only reason I showed up today at all. I got the email at seven this morning.

Apparently, the scholarship department was unlikely to renew my funding for next term if I didn’t show up for any of the classes. Shit had gotten so crazy over the last week that I hardly registered it was Friday and I’d missed four days of classes in a row. It’d been a whole day since Gilligan’s Finch exploded and still the Sons of O’Sullivan hadn’t retaliated against us. They didn’t take credit for the Kents, either.

I didn’t let myself imagine the possibility that I’d damaged a gas line when I hit the building. That I caused the explosion.

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