Page 55 of Sinners Keepers
“...he’ll think she really fell for what he said and that she snuck out and didn’t tell us,” I listened a little in awe as Law finished his sentence. The way they silently read one another, their familiarity so deep that words weren’t always necessary for either of them to know what the other was thinking. I hoped someday to have that kind of connection with each of them.
Ijah audibly sighed, running his hands over his face. “As much as I want this to all be over with too, I just don’t know how comfortable I am with you delivering yourself right into his hands.”
“What better idea do you have?” I asked. “Let him bring all of his man power here? To our home? Spoiler alert: I’ll be here in the middle of that too, and it will be a whole lot fucking messier.”
“We all hate this, Ijah, but we’re kind of between a rock and a hard place here. We knew this would all come to a head eventually,” Law said, handing me the end of my hair to hold in place while he rifled through his nightstand for something to tie around it. He pulled his hand out of the drawer, producing a shoestring. I guessed I could just be glad he didn’t have actual hair ties in there because then I’d be questioning who they once belonged to and I didn’t think my brain could handle traveling down that path right now. I wanted to believe the three of them had only ever belonged to me, which was ridiculous, but sometimes I just preferred to be delusional.Yikes at that thought.“I can’t see him hurting her if she hands herself over to him. At least not right away. And we all know there’s no chance of him moving her anywhere that we won’t be able to find her.”
I bristled at that, recalling how easy it had been for them to find me at my apartment the day I ran away from the hospital. I twisted my head to the side, eying him suspiciously.
Alec cleared his throat awkwardly, then scrubbed a hand up and down over the back of his head.
My eyes darted between the three of them, expecting an answer to the unspoken question, but no one said anything.
“What is it?” I prodded. “We’re running out of time here, stop being assholes and out with it.”
“Alecchippedyou,” Ijah blurted out, the sentence coming out as all one word.
“Youwhat?” I asked, climbing off the bed and walking over to him.
“Ijah told me to do it!” Alec countered.
I turned toward Ijah. “It was for your safety!”
My flabbers were gasted. “Law?!” Of course they were all in on this, but I still wanted to know what he had to say for himself.
He just shrugged, “I was all for it and I’d do it again.”
I glared at him.
“What? So I want to know where you are at all times, shoot me…”
I placed a hand on my cocked hip and quirked an eyebrow at him.
“...SUEme. Sue me. Not shoot.”
We each attempted to maintain our composure, our eyes all widening as our lips twitched trying to keep straight faces. We triedreallyhard not to laugh at that, but failed miserably. We couldn't seem to help ourselves, and eventually my peal of laughter filled the room, tangling with their dark chuckles.
It was probably too soon to laugh about the fact that I’d shot Ijah, but I guessed you had to have a dark sense of humor to survive the kind of lives we lived.
I regathered myself and gave Ijah an apologetic look.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” he said, pulling me against him. He took my hand in his and rubbed his thumb over the juncture where my thumb attached to the rest of my hand. There was a small bump there, so small I hadn’t noticed it before now.
I tilted my head up and kissed the edge of his jaw. “You chipped me,” I said.
“I did,” he replied.
“You have to let me do this,” I told him. “It’s the best path forward.”
He released a long breath and rested his chin on top of my head. “I really don’t want to,” he answered, squeezing me tightly.
“I’m not afraid of him,” I admitted. “I’m only afraid of what will happen if we draw this out any longer. I want to have a life with you. A real life. With all of you.”
He stroked his hand up and down my back in silence for a few moments, then pulled back from me and kissed me on the forehead. Reluctantly, he said, “Let’s get it over with, then.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY
Hunt
