Page 79 of Traitor

I was going to have to stop for coffee first.

Lauren

May 2016

Up until Mike slammed the door behind him, I’d thought that things had been going well.

Granted,Abuelitahad been pushing for a wedding, but I didn’t want to put any pressure on him. She claimed to just be an old romantic, but I think secretly, she wanted the opportunity to plan a wedding for her only granddaughter. She had never forgiven Josué for taking off and getting married in Boston without the entire family.

When I moved out, I’d assumed that she was going to go back to Denver, but she’d surprised us all when she announced that she was going to stay permanently. Before she could even begin to talk about finding her own place, Torch insisted that she was staying with him. I think he just hadn’t wanted to go back to cooking and cleaning for himself and everyone knew that she loved having someone to fuss over.

If Mike proposed, I wanted it to be one hundred percent his decision. Well, if he still wanted me.

I’d screwed it all up though because of this neurotic idea I had that talking about my relationship with Mike would only curse us.

God, I was stupid.

I should’ve been honest with Elizabeth, especially when Jimmy told me that she had the wrong idea about the two of us. If I was listing off my regrets, I should’ve told Mike that I was still seeing Jimmy, but purely for professional reasons.

“Gah!” I roared into my hands.

What was wrong with me?

The man had given me his home and the ability to do what I wanted during the day and how had I repaid him? By making him think that I was cheating. I tried to put myself in his shoes and realized that I would’ve reacted poorly too.

The only difference was that he would’ve had to come bail me out of jail because I would’ve killed a bitch.

I hadn’t known how to put into words my true feelings, so I got defensive and all but shoved him away. On the days that I didn’t shoot with Jimmy or go to the gym, I thought about her. My mind went to dark places and I chastised myself for not working harder to find her killer.

I’d even gone as far as setting up my crime wall in the guest bedroom closet, but I was still no closer to answers than I’d been a year ago. I’d secretly added information on Jamie to my wall, in the hopes that I could find out more about Mike too.

Without a full-time job, my life had become a constant reminder that I was failing. I didn’t know who killed my mother. I didn’t do a damn thing to support myself. I’d been sneaking around with some secret agent trying to become—what?Black Widow? It was depressing.

That was going to change. Once Mike came back home, I’d tell him that I needed something else. Working would get my mind off of my mother’s case.

Being at the gun range had been the only place where I felt like I had a sense of control. Jimmy told me I was getting better every time I picked up my piece and I knew that the next time I was confronted, I wouldn’t hesitate to reach for it. Maybe they had an opening for me.

I wandered back into the living room and stared at the urn. I hadn’t known where to put it when I moved in. I felt like if I insisted on putting her remains somewhere prominent, then it was a slap in the face to Mike. If I put it somewhere private, then I wasn’t honoring her.

Luckily, Mike had made that decision for me. I’d come home with the last of the boxes to find it up on the bookshelf in the living room.

My chest tightened up and I prayed that it wasn’t too late to save us. Just as I was debating whether or not to drive after him, my phone vibrated with an incoming text.

Restricted-

“Ask him about the text he received the night your mom was killed. Mike’s a good soldier, always following the orders of his club Pres.”

I stared down at the screen in confusion. It didn’t make sense. He’d gone home that night after his shift ended; that had been the extent of his involvement.

Right?

“Who is this?”

I asked, as a knot of dread began to form in my belly.

I blindly sank down onto the carpet and willed the person on the other end to respond.

Had he been under orders to keep her in jail? Was that the real reason he’d refused to help me? I rocked back and forth, trying to find answers that didn’t incriminate Mike, while keeping my eyes laser focused on the phone.

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