Page 43 of Cruel Lies

She shrugged, her lips spread wide in a knowing grin. "Lucky guess?’

I couldn’t help but smirk at her sassy retort. "You’re too smart for your own good." Something inside me shifted, a small piece of my outer shell fracturing before my eyes. "Don’t ever let anyone take that confidence from you."

Suddenly, Harper’s hands froze, hovering over the medical supplies like she’d given up on them. "It’s pretty funny you say that." She shot me a sideways glance, then shook her head. "Considering you and your brothers were the ones who showed me I’m really not."

A mountain formed before my eyes between the two of us, a mountain of our own making, and the height seemed insurmountable now. She was so close, yet so far away.

I didn’t want to care this much. So what if we’d made her feel a certain type of way about her intelligence or confidence? It wasn’t our responsibility to return her to her former conceited,arrogant, spoiled self. She was much more agreeable when knocked down a peg or three.

So why did the sight of her questioning herself make me want to fucking cry?

"You seemed pretty confident in that body shop," I said instead, hoping to deflect the blame. "I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else give a man a beating like that with a wrench on one shoulder."

Her face lit up again, those expressive blue eyes filled with a new intensity—pride. "Tony had it coming to him. He’s a fuckstick, and nobody but John likes him." Her face slowly paled, and she turned to me in abject horror, her hands grabbing mine. "What about my job? I can’t quit. Tony will take my clients, and I’ll lose my apartment."

"I think an apartment and your job are the last things you need to worry about," Rowan said from the doorway, bags dangling from each hand. "Our father wants you dead still, and if we don’t deliver, he’ll find someone who will."

"Plenty of crews here who’ll do anything for a quick buck," I supplied when her face screwed up in frustration. "Like the Neons. You’ve met Jackal, I hear."

She couldn’t have looked more angry if she’d sucked on a lemon. "Yeah, we’ve met. If you wanna call it that." She huffed, picking up a snap-and-go ice pack. "He’s a jackass." Her hands shook the packet so violently I feared it might split open and fly everywhere. "Might wanna change his dumb name."

She slapped the ice pack on my throat, and I winced, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was single-minded in her anger now, and I couldn’t be happier to have her attention on something else.

She packed up her little first aid kit and marched off in search of her newest victim, passing right by Rowan as if he didn’t exist. I returned his quizzical expression with one of my own and a little shrug as if to say,women.

But I knew why she was walking away. She didn’t like to be made to feel powerless. And if I had to guess, both interactions with Jackal had been just that—unsettling. He had that effect on people. Some days, I wondered if Nash really was the craziest fucker in this place.

Sometimes, it was up for debate.

Then again, we were all a little fucked up inside.

Rowan settled into the kitchen with a sigh as he wrestled the plastic bags of what I assumed were groceries onto the counter. "So, does this mean you two are talking now?"

Bait. That question was bait, and I was no stupid sturgeon. "Nash choked the life out of me after we caught him doing some . . . unseemly things. She was going to combust if she didn’t get to tend to someone, so I told her where to find your kit."

His eyebrows rose, but he said nothing for a while. The silence between us felt stifling as he meticulously placed every single thing he’d bought in its rightful place. Finally, when I thought I might implode from anticipation, he smirked.

"I bet you had something to do with her finding him in a compromising situation, didn’t you?"

My shrug was half as convincing as usual. "I might’ve suggested someone check on him when she mentioned it sounded like he was strangling himself."

"You’re a shit-stirrer, Angel. That’s not like you."

Way to point out the obvious, asshole."I really wish you wouldn’t go all Captain Obvious on me. It’s beneath you, Ro."

"So is this new behavior you’re indulging in, Angel. What’s with you lately?"

I didn’t want to get into a conversation with him about my actions. That fucker had a way of seeing right through our lies, and this one was about as see-through as lace. I didn’t need him to poke holes in the lies—they were already Swiss cheese. But I had to give him something.

So I gave him another lie, one that was only partially an untruth.

"She’s threatening our entire lifestyle, Rowan. Protecting her will bring nothing but trouble."

He knew it, I knew it, Nash knew it. But I seemed to be the only one of us still hung up on it. Nash was hung up on the idea that he was too monstrous for anyone to want to get close to. His self-hatred would push her away on its own. But it was in my nature to care for things that couldn’t care for themselves. And right now, every cell in my body was screaming for me to wrap Harper Daniels in a fucking million layers of bubble wrap and lock her in a fallout shelter where no one could hurt her.

But I was too stubborn and prideful to admit I was just as helpless as she was.

I had spent so much time building my image so that people would see past my looks to the real me. But outside of my brothers, I was nothing more than a pretty face. All anyone could see when they looked at me was my appearance.

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