Page 39 of Kings & Carnage

No one had the number so I closed it again and slid it into the Mercedes’s console.

I glanced at Dean Giordana's house, wondering how things were going with his widow and Willa, then shifted my attention to Rock, still in the backseat.

It was obvious something was eating him. It didn't matter that he’d been trying to keep up his usual cheerful personality. He was my brother, had been ever since we'd faced the boogeyman that was Roberto together with Neo.

"You going to tell me what's eating you?" I asked.

He almost tried to bullshit me. I saw it in the way he grinned and opened his mouth to issue some dumbass retort that would make light of the situation.

But a second later the mask dropped from his face. "I don't see the point.”

"The point is, until you get it off your chest you're going to walk around like the Grim Reaper with one of those big red clown noses.”

"What the fuck are you talking about?" he asked.

"It's obvious something’s on your mind. You can try to cover it with your cooking and a stupid smile, but anyone who knows you can see right through it. And we all know you, even Willa.”

I wasn’t sure I’d realized how true it was until I said it. Willa had only been living with us for four months and it felt like she knew us as well as we knew each other. She might not have called Rock out on his weird mood, but I had no doubt she knew something was up too.

"I fucked up," Rock said. "There's no point talking about it because it's done.”

"Are we talking about a fuckup I don't know about or a fuckup we’ve talked about before?" I asked.

“We're talking about the fuckup where I almost got Willa killed," he said.

"Still don't know what you're talking about.” Normally I'd be annoyed by the cryptic conversation, but with Willa talking to Mrs. Giordana, I was almost grateful for the distraction.

Rock looked out the window. "She was with me when those assholes drove us off the road. She had to shoot while I drove for fuck’s sake.”

"She shot at them?" I remembered game number two, the way she'd had every reason to hurt Connor, the fucking traitor who’d worked with Zachary Walsh to stalk her, and still hadn't been able to do it.

"She didn't have much of a choice with me driving," Rock said. "The point is, she shouldn't have had to shoot at all. If I'd protected her, we wouldn't have been in that situation and she would never have ended up in the hospital." He paused, but I sensed there was something else he wanted to say, and a few seconds later he said it, so low that I almost couldn't hear it. "She could have died.”

I understood how hard it was to say the words, to even think them.

Fuck, I wanted to go on a rampage just hearing Rock say them.

None of us wanted to think about the possibility that Willa could be taken from us.

Because a world without Willa Russo's sparkling green eyes, wry smile, and smart-ass sense of humor wasn't a world worth living in.

We all knew she’d leave when we found out what had happened to Emma, but we wanted her out there, living her life, lighting up the world the way she’d lit up ours.

"All of that’s true but I don't see how any of it’s your fault," I said.

"She was under my care, my protection. I know I don't have Neo's big dick energy or that whole brooding bad boy thing you have going on, but I’d always believed when it came right down to it, I’d be able to protect her," he said. "I was fucking wrong.”

"By that logic, we've all fucked up." It was hard to say because it was true. The fact of it haunted my dreams. “Willa almost died at the cabin, then those assholes broke into the house and were literally seconds away from getting their hands on her.”

“Exactly," he said. “We all suck at taking care of her, but I'm the only one who actually got her sent to the hospital.”

"That's why you've been sulking for the past two days?" I asked.

He looked offended. "I wouldn't call it sulking.”

"What would you call it?"

He took long enough to answer that I knew I'd hit the nail on the head. "Brooding? In an attractive way?"

---