Page 92 of Tell Me Why
My mind wanders to Eve. Last night, she took the envelope and left, the finality of our conversation hitting me like a punch to the gut. After I patched myself up, I grabbed the nearest bottle of whiskey and poured it down my throat. That was the only way to keep myself from chasing after her, which is what every fucking cell in my body was screaming for me to do.
But even completely wasted, I couldn’t escape the carousel of images cycling through my brain—the shock on her face, the horror, then finallythe painwhen she realized how deeply I’d hurt her.
I’m the worst fucking monster…
“Drink this,” Jackson says, shoving a tiny cup of black espresso in my face. “Cash said he needs to talk to us urgently.” Then he pulls out his phone and shoots off a text to someone. “Okay, I told Cash where we are. He’s walking over now.”
Gulping down the espresso, I set the cup down and rise to my feet. Mistake number three. A migraine instantly blooms behind my temples, and suddenly my brain feel like it’s inside a fucking rock tumbler. “What happened last night? I took off to find Eve after the gunshots rang out.”
My thoughts in that moment were only for Eve, and when I couldn’t find her, my entire world, all the chaos around me, shrunk to a single pinpoint of focus—find her, keep her safe.
Jackson starts making another espresso. “It was fuckin’ chaos, man. Turns out, it was Yates and Diaz who fired off the shots. Campus security called the cops, but Andre dealt with it.”
Good. It’s what we pay them to do.
“Who got shot?” I ask, rubbing my temples. I only know it wasn’t Sin. I saw him as I was leaving the beach. “Any of our guys?”
Jackson leans against the counter and takes a sip of his espresso. “Not one of ours,” he says cryptically, purposely not filling in the blanks.
“Are you going to tell me whodidget shot?” I ask through gritted teeth. I’m on edge this morning, and seconds away from fucking losing it.
“One of Sin’s guys.”
Fuuuck.
Tilting my head back, I rake a hand through my hair. God-fucking-damn. I look at Jackson. “Is he dead?”
“He took it in the shoulder.” He drains the espresso, then sets the cup aside.
“Where’s Eve?” I ask.
“She went straight up to your bedroom last night.”
“Lucas straight up wants to kill the motherfucker for what he pulled last night, but I said we needed to talk to you first. Something like that is likely to start an all-out war, which means all the Sacred Sons need to sign off on it.”
Fuck.My head is both pulsing and spinning. “Yeah, th—” My words are cut off when Cash comes waltzing through the open door.
“Heyo!” he calls out, stopping short when he gets a look at me. “Oh, damn,” He glances at Jackson. “What the fuck happened to him?”
“Eve stabbed him.”
Cash nods. “Sounds like something she’d do.”
Sitting back down on the couch, I rest my forearms on my thighs and rub my eyes. This is the worst hangover I’ve had in areallylong time. I can hardly think. It’s fucking brutal.
“Actually, Eve is the reason I need to talk to you,” Cash says.
That snags my attention, and I look up at him. “What is it?”
“Well, I have good news and I have bad news. Which do you want first?” He pauses. “Actually, scratch that. One is dependent on the other, so let’s start with the good news—I’ve found your would-be assassin.”
I angle my head, headache forgotten. My muscles tense. “Who?”
“Yeah, see that’s the bad news,” Cash says, looking between Jackson and me. “It was one of you.”
“Great job, Sherlock,” Jackson laughs. “We already knew it had to be a member?—”
I stand up slowly, talking over Jackson. “Give me a name, Cash.”
