Page 189 of Overcast

“It’s official—”Emmy slides her laptop along the top of the picnic table we’re sitting on and points at the screen. “—Mayor Montgomery is dead, shanked sixty-two times.”

The page blends of blue, black, and white, but I don’t need to read it to confirm the details.

Emmy’s words are enough to send a rush of relief and trepidation through my veins.

I don’t know which emotion to settle on, one where I crack a beer and relax because the job is done or to plan. Preparing and prepping for Stormi to begin her new journey, one that is long overdue and promised.

I told her the night I found out that she wasn’t behind Reagan’s attack that I’d help her start a squeaky clean life with a brand new identity.

I’ll make good on my promise.

I just don’t want to.

My focus flicks over the screen, and I watch Stormi playing a game of horseshoes with Mills in a white dress with some floral shit on it. The fabric goes mid-thigh, flowing aimlessly with the small breeze that’s making its way through the trees. Her light blue hair is pulled back in a ponytail, reminding me how lively she’s become and how sweet she is.

A tight twist forms in my stomach as she laughs at something Mills says, and it’s not the fact that the douchebag has a crush but because I’ll miss her voice. It’s contagious, getting Emmy to peer up herself to look at her.

“She’ll be safe now,” she states, closing down her computer. Stormi tosses a heavy shoe and barely makes it halfway to the stake. Her aim sucks, but her laugh and the way she mirrors a sun goddess makes up for it. “Did you teach her how to shoot a gun?”

Mills gestures for her to take a few steps forward to get closer, and she gives it another try, going way too far to the right. Stormi needs someone with way more patience than me.

And I’ve said it once and, fuck me, I’m going to say it again, but she was meant to be with someone like Mills. A dude that can make her smile and not have to watch her next steps from some broody asshole like me. A man that can give her kids and not bring danger to her doorstep.

Now, Mills is out of the running on that alone, but still, if the tables were turned and I gave them the opportunity to get closer, he’d be balls deep inside her.

And he’d probably never let her go.

However, I’m in love with her, and that in itself is extraordinary.

How couldn’t I?

As much as she fights with herself about what I do, she accepts me. Whether she wants to admit it outloud or not—it doesn’t matter. What does is that she wants me.

And I want the shit out of her too.

It’s what’s making this decision so hard. It’s also why I haven’t told her shit yet about the situation with Montgomery being dead because I didn’t want to rock the boat if we weren’t in the clear yet.

But now that we might be, I have some choices to make.

“Yeah,” I deadpan, reaching for my zippo lighter in my jean pocket.

“I also ran Montgomery’s offshore and personal bank accounts,” Emmy tells me. “A nice amount came out and to several other accounts a few days before Reagan’s attack at the lake. Then when they came to the house the second time. I think it’s safe to say he was the kingpin behind it.”

“Did you trace the accounts the cash went to?”

“Yep.”

“I want the ones that I haven’t killed yet, dead.”

A brief silence permeates between us, and I’m waiting for her to be against it. To bitch at me to let it go because Reagan and everyone else is safe now.

“Okay,” she finally states. “I’ll see if Kyson is around. When do you want me to call Wade and tell him the coast is clear?”

“I’ll call Reagan,” I reply, watching Stormi give Mills a gentle shove for probably teasing her.

Normally I’d tally up how many times I was going to punch him in the head for fucking with her, but right now, I’m content with her enjoying herself when I have to put a crossroads in between us.

Stormi runs to the other side of the yard to grab her shoes, her hair swinging side to side as Mills marches behind.

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