Page 54 of Cruel Lies

"She fucked up, man. She called me a freak, and she laughed at me.Laughed.I couldn’t let that shit go, so I gave her some pretty scars to go with mine. Now we’rebothlaughing."

"Ha, ha, hilarious, Nash. Get ahold of yourself before I beat some sense into you." Angel flicked an imaginary piece of lint off his shirt, staring at the ground at my feet. "Your uncontrollable personality and rash decision-making tendencies are precisely why we’re even here right now."

Harper’s fist darted out and socked him in the shoulder, earning his ire and an intense stare of disapproval. "Jesus, Angel, learn when to shut the fuck up already." She still hadn’t looked away from me, and though she didn’t vocalize the words, I could feel the confusion and anger and fear churning in the depths of those beautiful twin orbs of sapphire. "Rowan, where do you normally get rid of your, err, targets?"

To see her leaning into our lifestyle so soon was like a dream come true and a heartbreak all rolled into one. I hated to think of the kind of life I lived tainting someone who’d once been so pure and innocent. She was so good—even if she had been a spoiled brat. At the same time, I never thought any woman would inspire feelings of pride and excitement in me at the thought that she wouldn’t shirk away from the real us. That she might adopt our lifestyle as herown.

Just not Harper.

Rowan cleared his throat, a hand on the back of his neck as he eyed her warily. Suddenly, he didn’t seem too eager to answer her. Not that I could blame him.

It’s hard to tell someone that you dump all your dead bodies at the site of your first murder.

Hermurder.

When Rowan seemed unable to answer her, she looked to Angel, who was still staring at the ground, this time in the other direction.

"Oh, for fuck’s sake. We drop them off the bridge, Harper," I spat, aghast at my attitude. "They’re afraid to tell you we dump all our kills where we shoved you off the bridge."

She blinked for a moment, the news sinking in finally. I could see the moment it hit her brain, because her calm, composed face fell like a bowling ball from the roof, slamming into the ground at terminal velocity.

"Oh," she whispered, her eyes falling to join the others. "That’s, uh, wonderful. Okay. Yeah, totally normal. Makes sense."

I could hear the crack in her voice, but her glare told me to stay the fuck in my own lane. It dared any of us to question her as she strode over to the dead body, shutting the girl’s eyes as she tugged her into a fireman’s carry and marched over to the trunk like it wasn’t the first dead body she’d ever moved.

Which, of course, left us all speechless.

A melancholy and somewhat disappointed gaze trailed over all three of us pointedly as we watched. "Is someone going to open this damn trunk for me, or do I have to stand here until my arms go numb?"

Watching Rowan trip over himself to help her was like watching a spider trying to climb an icicle or a dog running on a wet floor. When he bent over and popped the damn thing open, his damn hands shook.

He didn’t say a word to her, and when she held out her hands for the keys, he gave them to her.

The keys to the Torino.

Just like that.

The fucker was whipped.

"Pussy must be pretty fucking good," I muttered, hands shoved in my pockets as I strode to the car. I felt like a petulant child who’d been denied his checkout lane candy pleas. "She the boss now, too?"

"Shut up, Nash, you’re drunk." Angel shoved the passenger seat forward and climbed in, then scooted over so I could follow behind.

Rowan slammed the seat back and reached beneath the seat for the quick cleanup kit we carried with us. "How many more messes of yours will I have to clean up, Nash?"

Like a whipped dog, my spirit sank at his words. But this was Rowan. He’d never made me feel bad about a kill before. Well, okay, so most of my other kills were sanctioned, butstill?—

"If you want me to feel sorry, I don’t." My eyes found Harper’s as she slipped into the driver’s seat, the mirror perfectly conveying her disgust and disappointment. "I’d do it again. She got what she deserved."

"She was someone’s daughter, Nashville Blackwood."

If I thought Rowan’s words were rough, Harper’s managed to cut me to the bone. She couldn’t have made my heart bleed more if she’d used an actual knife. Why did I want to apologize to her? Nobody asked her to come. I didn’t callherfor help.

Did I?

It was hard to remember what the fuck I’d done when I was still not thinking straight, riding the high from the kill and fumbling with bloody fingers to make a phone call.

"Yeah, and so were you, once upon a time. Didn’t stop us then. Why should it stop us now?"

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