Page 36 of Gilded Lies

I sit up, lowering my elbows to my knees, not bothering with the messages left on my phone. Not yet, anyway. “My father is right, Oliver. We have to stay away. It won’t be for long. We eliminate the Hightowers, and then we can be with her. It’s the only way. Iwitnessed the destruction my mother’s death left behind. I can’t place Magnolia in the same danger.”

“You mean we, brother.”

I nod at Rune. “We,” I correct.

“Fuck, Danika. I don’t know if I can go another hour without touching her. Much less days.”

I hear the strangled torture in Rune’s voice. Oliver’s silence is deafening. He might as well be roaring his frustration into the rafters until the roof caves in with how powerful he is when silent.

I pour each of them a drink and get a fresh glass for myself.

“How long have we known each other?”

“Fuck, I think I remember you in diapers.”

I crack a grin at Rune. “You wish your memory was that good. But the fact is, time is nothing. We are blood. We either agree on this as a unit or we don’t do it, but you heard my father. The old bastard is a fuckup, but that doesn’t make him wrong about this.”

I reach for my phone and power it on. I get the same number of messages as Oliver did.

I scroll through a few of them before stopping over the very last one. “Did you see this message?” I hold my phone up and show Rune then Oliver.

“Come and catch me… if you can,” Oliver reads.

“We pissed her off and a woman this mad is nearly impossible to reach.”

Oliver’s grin turns wicked. “I say we head over to her place and find out what will make her take us back in.”

I shake my head. “Stop. We can’t and you know it. You still have blood under your nails from the last fucker you eliminated.”

My stomach curls into itself with a sickening feeling of guilt and unworthiness. She deserves better but fuck if I can let her fully go.

“You’re scared.” Rune wipes his face with both hands. “You’re scared of touching her after having blood on your hands.”

Fear grips my throat. “Aren’t you?” I force out.

Oliver refills our glasses and snags my phone.

“She sent you a selfie at some point that I didn’t get. Look at this smile. She’s so damn sweet and innocent it hurts to think of her in danger because of our life choices.”

Rune balances his glass on his knee. “We should walk and never look back.”

I don’t know how I feel about them agreeing with me. I half want them to fight me on it and drag my ass out of this safe house to find our woman.

Rune takes my phone from Oliver’s hand and sends himself the picture. “If we are going to do this, declare war on the Hightowers, I’m going to need that sweet smile to get me through.”

His head is pointed down, and he’s not exactly talking to us, but Oliver and I hear him all the same. We share a look. Rune is worse than a pit bull after blood. Once he sets his mind on destruction, there is no off switch until the job is done.

We take on the business of wiping out our enemy, there will be no turning back.

He returns my phone, and I stare at Magnolia’s face. “If we go to her, bring her into our lives now with Hightower out there with a gun with our name on it, she will have a target on her back.”

“We have to erase her from our lives until the job is done. Nothing can trace back to her in case one or all of us die. Pictures, messages, contacts. Nothing.”

We all nod and pull out our phones. I hover a thumb over the delete button. Two taps for each of us and it’s like she never existed.

“Fuck that hurt. She’s gone.”

Rune’s words come out strangled.

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