Page 123 of What Lies Within

“Think I got no other choice.”

He chuckles as I start for Terry’s body and bend to take him by the ankle. “Uh-uh. You made the mess; you get the shit end of the stick.”

I lower the weird fucker’s bare feet back to the ground and round his body with a sigh. Blood pools on the dirt beneath his head and shoulders, staining the wanky cardigan.Consequences of your actions, asshole.I slide my hands beneath Terry’s limp shoulders and heft him into the air as Ronan does the same at his feet.

We shuffle a few yards before I ask again. “So, why’d you do it?”

"Because I could." Ronan glances over his shoulder, checking where he's walking. "And because it needed to happen, and I was the one who could do it."

“But you didn’t.” I pulled the trigger.Idid it.

"If you hadn't come today, Tyke, he would have been dead by the end of the week anyway.”

“You plotted against him.”

“From the moment I walked in that house and saw yer daughter there, bound up and used like no woman should be—as a pawn for her father’s sins.”

“Some sin,” I snap, rolling my ankle a little when a rock wedges beneath my boot. “I ain’t do a goddamn thing wrong other than refuse to sign overmyland to this cunt.” If I could kick the asshole as we walked, I would. But I don’t fancy falling on my ass and ending up down the hill too. “You aware what Fox has—” I pause, correct myself. “—hadagreed to with the Devil’s Breed?”

“Knew he wanted the road for personal gain, but not what.”

“Skin trade,” I push through gritted teeth. “Fucker agreed to cart women down that road once he’d secured it. Truckloads of stolen, drugged, beaten, andsoldwomen.”

Ronan slows his shuffle, holding my gaze. "Why'd you correct yourself and say 'had' instead of 'has'?"

“Because I took care of that problem, too.”

He nods twice to acknowledge what lies unsaid.

"Tell me," I urge, while we seem to be on open terms. "Was there ever a threat from you to Rae?"

He rearranges his hold on Terry's legs and sighs, pivoting a little to walk more side on, the dead drug lord slung between us like a hammock. "Rae was Fox's job. When your brother heard about where she'd ended up—at your club—he propositioned using her as leverage for the lot. Terry figured it couldn't hurt tolet him try, but he asked me to keep an eye on how things pan out, anyway."

“Just in case.”

“Just in case.” He stops moving, still as a predator that’s caught scent on the wind, and narrows his eyes on the trail behind me.

I keen my hearing, but there’s nothing other than the soft drone of the breeze through the trees.

“Do you think she would’a sung?” he asks, picking up our conversation as though it never stopped.

I jostle my hold on Terry and nod to indicate we should keep moving. “Perhaps. Given the right motivation.” He frowns a little, so I elaborate. “She’s on good behavior.”

“No shite.” He chuckles, navigating us through a tight, descending S-bend in the track. “What for?”

“Smashing up her ex’s car.”

His chuckle continues. "Hope you've got a plan for keeping your bike safe if things don’t work out for you."

“They will.”

He gives me a knowing grin. The one all men who've been repeatedly burned by women share. The grimace that says, "Sure, buddy. You believe what you want." I don't like it. Like what it insinuates less: that I have poor judgment, that I don't know what I'm in for.

I fucking know. I’ve seen that woman go through hell this past week, and I still want in.

I want all of what she's got and then some.

Shit. She's young and still has the whole marriage and baby thing to go. A conversation we need to have. I’ve been done having kids for a long while now, but damn, the thought of her carrying a baby? It’s a conversation I need to have with Digger.

---