Page 45 of Ruthless Reign

I wouldn’t.

Becca was right, too. We wouldn’t be able to sit the meet out and she’d be safer in Thorn Valley temporarily, but only temporarily.

She’s mine.

My skin bristled at the thought and my head twitched to the side as I attempted to think past the swell of possessive thoughts clawing through every rational thing vying to be heard.

I tried to shift my focus to something else like the therapist taught me, but that shit never worked.

You know how you get when you latch on like this, Hardin. It can become… unsafe for those around you.

Well too fucking bad.

“We pick her up after we’re through in the canyons,” I decided and Kaleb didn’t look at all surprised with the choice or even like he disagreed.

“She won’t like us leaving her there,” he said.

She wouldn’t. I knew that, too. But we couldn’t bring her with us. I wouldn’t have Séamas O’Sullivan see her face. And I wouldn’t put her there, in the same airspace as any of them.

“The last safehouse we set up for the families was rigged to explode,” I reminded him. “She doesn’t have to like it, she just has to deal with it.”

We’d been in here long enough. I wanted to go sit out front where Pope had been. Keeping watch outside until Kate and Toby left. I’d take the watch tonight. There was no chance in hell I was sleeping. I’d tell Kaleb to get as much shut eye as he could. I knew he wasn’t sleeping in his room next to her.

I wouldn’t, either.

Kate was trying to steal Becca’s phone out of her hands as we came back into the living room. “Come on, just let me read it,” she was saying. “It can’t be that bad.”

Becca released her phone with a groan. “Fine, read it, but if it’s bad I don’t want to know.”

“Your paintings are next level, babe,” Toby assured her as I reached the front door but stopped as the image of Becca’s self-portrait poisoned my thoughts again. “There’s no way she failed you.”

“Oh yes there is,” Becca replied, dropping her face into her hands. “Besides, I told you I ruined it. I am literally never showing my face in that classroom again.”

Kate squealed. “Oh my god!”

Becca’s head snapped up. “What? What does it say?”

“You passed! She gave you 94% on the project!”

“No fuckin’ way,” Toby shouted, snatching the phone from Kate’s hands. He zoomed into the screen, and neither he or Kate seemed to be aware of the blank shock on Becca’s face as Toby read out part of the email.

“Rebecca, even though you didn’t formally turn in your assignment, I’ve graded it in its current state as I believe your intent was not to return to class. I hope I can change your mind. You’re a gifted artist and this piece is the most honest-feeling portrayal of self I’ve encountered in my twelve years teaching this class.”

“See!” Kate beamed, shaking Becca back to reality.

“She wants you to come talk to her in her office before class tomorrow if you can,” Toby added, passing the phone back to Becca with a smug look on his face. “Told you that you weren’t a failure.”

“But…you didn’t see the painting,” she said, her voice a distant echo that brought it all back. The dead eyes. The moth-eaten mouth. The blood.

It had been beautiful work, I knew that, even if my preferred methods consisted generally of spray paint and the uneven canvas of train cars and cement walls. But her face, portrayed how it was, would haunt me for the rest of my miserable life.

A promise of what would happen if I wasn’t strong enough to protect her.

I couldn’t sleep. Not when I knew that tonight, as soon as it got dark, the Saints would be face to face with the Sons again in the canyons.

My stomach turned and I hiked up the Kaleb scented blankets, burrowing deeper into them, closer to the heat of his body as I flicked listlessly through TikTok videos under the covers to keep from waking him up.

He was always already awake when I woke up every morning, with coffee made, and some horrifyingly burnt or oversalted monstrosity of breakfast cooked by the time I reached the kitchen. He was improving a bit at least, but the dark circles under his eyes only grew each morning. The rich, healthy bronze tone of his skin fading to a shade that seemed leached of life.

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