Page 22 of Crimson Tears

After hanging up, Nessa informs us that we will be taking the remaining guard to a safe house alive.

Such a fucking waste of space in my opinion, but whatever.

A few minutes later, we're in the car as Evie sends a clean up team. She replaces the dead guards with her own people to keep an eye out for more shipments.

You know, like humans being held against their will and such.

Our hostage is in the trunk, even though Nessa told me he could sit in the back with me just fine. I refused and tossed him in without so much as a word to her.

Boris is driving now with Nessa sitting next to him while I hang out in the back like the useless third wheel. When I saw her just forty eight hours ago, I was so full of hope and possibilities. Now, all I want is to go back in time and ignore that stupid sniper on the roof.

Boris glances back at me in the rearview mirror for the fifth time in as many minutes and Nessa eyes him.

“Spit it out,” I snap, done with the bullshit.

“That was reckless,” Boris says, as if he were a disappointed dad.

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, well it was faster than the plan the rest of you came up with.”

“Fast isn’t necessarily safe, Cillian.” Nessa turns in her seat to glare at me. “These kids matter more than your haste.”

“You think I don’t know that? I was more concerned with them dying in this feckin’ heat than I was about following a plan I wasn't even sure would work. I had every confidence inmylast minute arrangement as I did in the original one.”

My voice grows loud, causing Nessa to shake her head. She looks out the window, but it’s Boris who responds, making me feel like a child being reprimanded by his parents.

“You had every confidence in a plan that you thought of for less than two minutes? One you did not think you needed to share with the rest of your team?” He raises an eyebrow, and I cross my arms over my chest as he continues.

“You could guarantee that none of your bullets would have gone through the containers? You were positive that no other guards came here today? There was no doubt in your mind someone wasn’t hiding in a container with a weapon to ambush us?”

Well shite, when he says it like that.

“I was ninety percent sure,” I say with a scoff because none of those things actually happened.

“When it comes to kids,” Nessa speaks quietly but firmly, “we don’t make a singlefeckingmove until we are one hundred percent. Got it?”

Letting out a frustrated huff I agree, even if it makes me want to vomit. “Fine.”

She isn’t wrong, but I hate to admit it. At that moment, I really was just trying to do what I thought was best. Now I know the weird feeling I had about the guards moving so slow was because the kids were no longer there.

After a very long and torturous drive in a small car with two people who hate me about as much as I hate the world, we finally pull into the safehouse.

Evie is standing at the door with her arms crossed over her chest. I noticed Nessa texting during the ride but didn’t realize how much of a tattletale she was until I get out of the car and am met with Evie’s fist.

“Really, Cil?” Her steel gray eyes assess me as if I were scum on her shoe. It takes every fiber of my being to keep from lashing out at her. But when Nessa ignores me and our confrontation, heading to the door without any form of acknowledgement, Evie’s tune changes.

When it’s just the two of us outside, she sighs.

“She’s trying to ignore you, huh?”

I nod, even if I don’t understand exactly what she’s talking about. Nessa isn’t ignoring me as much as she’s just trying to push me away.

“I knew she wasn’t ready to hear what I had to say,” Evie mumbles before walking around the car and popping the trunk.

“This is the guy?” she asks, staring down at the guard, who now looks like a hot mess.

We would be really fecking bad at our jobs if this wasn’t the guy.

But I refrain from having an attitude with her. She isn’t the one to blame for my problems.

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