Page 176 of Tempting Fate

Different but equal.

“I know,” Slash remarks. “It’s the reason I’ll never give up on us.”

I leave his confession unanswered.

What else is there to say?

He’s right.

I love him.

I love Zeke.

But my love will destroy their relationship if it becomes known.

Eventually, I push away my unwanted epiphany, and we settle into our usual routine. Laughing at Klaus’ trademark snark. Frowning when he lets his demons get the better of him. Rolling our eyes at Elijah’s eternal desire to meddle. Dissecting what we like about Rebecca’s outfit—I want her shoes, while Slash would like to know what it’d look like on his floor.

It’s good. Easy. Natural.

So natural that when my eyes start to get heavy, and my eyelids droop, I think nothing of giving in to my tiredness. We fall asleep together, my head on his chest, his arm around me.

When his alarm rings the next morning, he’s spooning me from behind. Slash pretends to stay asleep when I roll away from his morning wood to slip out of his bedroom. When we meet in the garage. Bemused and feigning denial. Slash is preparing to head to the compound while I’m hurrying to get to the office after Veronica texted me about an emergency meeting Gabriel has called for this Saturday morning.

After a moment of silence, we exchange wry smiles, then break into laughter. Little do we know, but it’s the last time either of us will laugh for a long time to come.

36

VENOM

In a bad case of déjà fucking vu, I find myself trapped in the chapel with my president and his daughter. We’re even sitting in the same seats we occupied when I told Brutus mine and Lily’s relationship was permanently done. He holds the gavel, although this time, he seems a lot less tense about facing us. I’m sure it helps his confidence to have kept us waiting for him, despite the urgent summons he sent via Cass.

With a droll grin, Brutus says. “I ’spose you’re wonderin’ why I dragged you both in here?”

“Considering you couldn’t even give me time to change.” Lily gestures to her outfit. Her silky shirt is rumpled, and a pencil holds her long hair in a knot on top of her head. She’s kicked off her shoes under the table and rucked her pencil skirt up around her hips so she can prop her feet on the chair next to her. “I figured it must’ve been urgent. Turns out you were just chasing the high of another power trip by refusing to allow me time to head home to freshen up.”

When she calls Slash’s house home, my heart skips a beat.

It shouldn’t hurt, but it does.

After all, I stole her actual home from her.

Took everything from her.

Left her with no way to get it back.

Although I promised Lily I’d fix things, almost twenty-four hours later, I remain unsure how to proceed. I’ve picked Cass’ brains, dragged more of his truth out of him so we can continue our plot to take Brutus down together. Spoken to Cub and schemed with Hunter. As far as any of us can see, I have no way out of the deal I made with Brutus without turning myself in for Alex’s murder.

It’s the only way to truly negate his threat to pin the crime on Lily.

Since Sander, Cub, and Isaiah disposed of the body of Lily’s rapist at one of our farms, the cops will only have my confession to go on. Our pigs are efficient. They eat everything. Clothes. Shoes. Flesh. Bones. We compost their manure at elevated temperatures, then use it to fertilise our dope crops. Any evidence that could remain five months later is spread all over the lower third of Western Australia and has most likely been diluted to nothing by the summer rains.

Another hurdle is the fact Alex is only listed as missing because he made a public social media post around the time he disappeared that said he needed time away to rediscover himself.

Cub posted this for him.

Our tech officer also cleared out Alex’s personal bank accounts. And while Joseph has done his best to elevate his son’s disappearance to a suspected murder investigation, he’s received pushback. No longer in the mix to become our next state premier, his political connections aren’t as valuable as they once were. Turns out his partisan allies aren’t keen to see photos of the convicted rapist son of the minister for police plastered on every newspaper and evening news report when there’s an election coming within months.

Cub has monitored things for me since Lily killed Alex. He’s positive there will be no investigation of any kind unless someone—namely Brutus—is hiding some kind of evidence that links the Shamrocks and the safe house to Alex’s vanishing act.

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