Page 9 of Coup De Grâce
He didn’t know what it was like to be gone for so fucking long, to know that I had essentially destroyed my family and walked away. He had everyone he loved and all his friends supporting him. I had no one.
“Kate’s dealing with it,” he answered. “We went to your funeral.”
I scoffed, shaking my head as more amber liquid filled my glass. The bottle clanked to the table as it slipped from my hand. “That was fucking stupid.”
I tipped the glass back, enjoying the way the whiskey burned my throat. I was relieved to feel anything other than desperation right now.
“I was covered. Besides, if I wasn’t there, you wouldn’t know that your guys started a fight at your funeral and knocked over the casket, revealing your dead body.”
The huff of laughter that escaped my lips felt like relief after such a long time without the simplest smile in my life. “Who got in a fight?”
“Red and Kavanaugh.”
My gaze jerked up at his words. “Kavanaugh was there?”
He nodded. “Can’t say he was too happy about that, but I have a feeling that was more because of how the last funeral ended for him.”
Right. The one where I shot him.
“He was looking for you out there.”
“Did everyone believe it was me in the casket?”
He shrugged, pouring himself another drink. “Sure as hell looked like it. Where’d you find the body?”
“You don’t want to know.”
His eyes flicked to mine and something stirred in their depths. “Eva was pretty shaken.”
I knew she would be. Or maybe I hoped it. Because if she was shaken, that meant there were still feelings buried somewhere in her heart for me. Maybe she would be able to forgive me when this was all over.
If this thing ever ended.
“Well, I guess that’s that.”
“And what was the point of all that?” Knight asked, his tone growing angry. “Why the fuck would you put your wife and kids through that?”
“Because they have to believe I’m dead. Everyone has to believe that I’m gone. It’s the only way to keep the Shadow Government off my back.”
For the first time since this shit began, Knight sighed and looked truly worn out from everything. Mentally, this wasfucking with me, but physically, it nearly took his life. We were both paying in different ways.
“What do you need from me now?”
“Nothing.”
A low growl emanated from his throat.
“Seriously. It’s not that I don’t need your help, but there’s nothing you can do without raising the alarm. As I already said, it was really fucking stupid for you to show up here. If anyone’s watching me, they’ll know that not only are you not dead, but that the whole fucking thing was a ruse. And then what was this all for?”
“I don’t get caught,” he said calmly. “Never have. Never will.”
I hated his confidence because that would get him killed one day, and then I’d have another fucking brother to bury. My family tree was growing just a little too thin at the moment.
“I have to get to sleep.”
“Do you do that anymore?” Knight asked as I walked past him.
I paused for only a minute before continuing to my bedroom and shutting the door. No, I hardly ever fucking slept. Nightmares plagued me and scenarios constantly ran through my head, telling me all the ways I might fuck this up for everyone.
