Page 145 of Cruel Lies

Well, and Lilly’s nagging.

"You need to find her, Rowan. She’s in bad shape; even McCoy could see that when she went back to that house for the fucking knife she stabbed that monster with?—"

I sighed heavily, hating that this conversation kept going on and on to nowhere. Lilly had been on my case for three days to find her newest asset, as she’d dubbed Harper. I was told in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t come back with Harper in tow, not to come back at all.

I stared at the phone like it would miraculously disappear if I glared hard enough. "I know, Lilly. But she left on her own willpower. I didn’t force her?—"

"I believe that as much as I believe you didn’t know she didn’t die seven years ago, Blackwood."

I froze at her words, confusion and shock warring with each other in my head. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"The fuck do youthinkit means, Rowan? It means I’m not an idiot. I recruited you boys specifically because you were given an insanely heinous task, and you chose the moral high ground at the risk of your own lives."

So she’d known all along."You hired us without a single kill beneath our belt, and let us think you were in the dark about it all."

A long pause came from the other end of the line, and I could almost visualize the slow, creeping smile that was currently working its way across her face. If there was one thing Lilly St. Clair did well, it was play the long game.

"You made the assumption that I believed your lie. I simply never bothered to correct you."

It was my turn to wax contemplative now.

Technically,she was right. She’d never outright told us she believed the lie. We simply assumed she, like everyone else, believed it to be the truth.

That was my own damn fault. I was so confident, so self-assured, so full of myself, and so distracted by her future survival, that there was no doubt in my mind I’d fooled everyone. After all, if I had fooled my own brothers, how could I not have fooled the rest of the world?

Lilly’s sigh broke my train of thought. "Listen, Blackwood. I know you’re worried about your brothers. And you already said she left, and you have no idea where she went. But I think deep down, you know where she’ll be."

"I—"

She disconnected the call and left me with nothing to go on but my own gut. I knew what she wanted, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t blindly trust this feeling in the pit of my stomach. It didn’t make sense. Of all the places she’d go, she should want to go there the least.

So why did my gut tell me I’d find her there?

And why couldn’t I bring myself to go after her?

Nash wokeup on day two, and since his eyes opened, he’d pestered me about Harper. I couldn’t fault the man for being smitten—after all, he had a sick sense of humor. He probably equated being intentionally stabbed with a proposal.

But it angered me that he wasn’t mad. Not even a little bit.

In fact, he wasproud.

"Listen, man, I don’t understand why you’re so angry. She didn’tmeanto kill me?—"

I frowned at his easygoing smile, eyes trailing to the IV in his arm. "She put you in the hospital. If she’d been properly trained, she wouldn’t have let that knife fly without confirming a target."

"She’s not a trained killer, though, Ro." Nash groaned at my stubbornness, dragging his hands down his face. "Look. She had a reason for doing what she did. I can’t fault her for that."

"I never said I faulted her for trying to kill him."

His brow quirked. "She didn’t try. She delivered that kill shot, man. She killed him." He looked at his hands as if they were brand new, like he’d never seen them before in his life. "As much as I hated him, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was a coward."

"You weren’t a coward, Nash," I insisted, reaching out to put a hand over his on the bedspread. "I had so many opportunities to do something about him, but all I did was make excuses."

My end goal had always been to protect my brothers. To take the weight of the world from their shoulders, so that they could breathe free. And yet I’d failed spectacularly. And somewhere along the way, I’d stopped thinking of myself as a protector and started acting like a martyr.

I could have ended this all years ago. Instead, I just shoved it to the back burner. I thought if I put it out of my mind, maybe it’d go away.

"And now I’ve fucked it all up for you and Angel."

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