Page 72 of Bleed the Shadows
Maeve paced the living room. “All we do is talk.”
“Talking first is what you do when you don’t want to get caught,” Bram said, an angry edge to his voice. “Or killed.”
“Bram is right,” Remy said. “The drone footage is a good start, but this isn’t some small-timer we’re dealing with. We have to be careful. Make plans to get the job done, make plans to clean it up afterwards.”
“Plus, we’re meeting up with the Kings this weekend,” I added. “They might have more information about Todd’s ties to Aventine.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t care about his ties to Aventine. I just want him…” She took a deep breath. “I just want him to pay for what he did to June.”
I didn’t remind her that Ethan Todd hadn’t killed June. I knew what she meant. I also knew how easy it was to blame someone — anyone — for all the things that went wrong in life.
Which wasn’t to say Ethan bore no blame, but I was starting to wonder if Maeve had made him a receptacle for all her anguish over June. And that worried me, because I also knew no amount of vengeance would ever heal her pain. I couldn’t help wondering if she’d be left hollow after we got rid of Todd, still in pain with nowhere to put it.
She walked up to Bram and stopped just a couple inches from him.
“Please.” Her voice was small and pleading as she looked up at him. “I’ve never asked you for anything.”
His jaw was tight with restraint. “You know I want to do this for you, Maeve. Iwilldo this for you. My way.”
It was a bigger revelation than Maeve could have realized. I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard Bram say he wanted to do anything, let alone something for someone else.
But Maeve’s face fell, her expression full of despair in the moment before she turned away from him, stomping down the hall toward the stairs.
“Fuck.” Bram ran his hands through his hair and paced toward the big windows overlooking Main Street.
I heard the anguish in his voice and knew he was in trouble.
We all were.
44
ETHAN
I sat backin my desk chair and surveyed the video feeds for the hundredth time that day. It had become something of an obsession since the Hunt: watching the cameras, keeping an eye on the new guards Anton had hired to protect the property.
There was no reason to think Bram would know we were behind the Ghost masks during the Hunt. We’d kept the masks on until we’d exited the tunnels through one of the doors leading to the basement under the used book store.
And it wasn’t just the Hunt: it was the fact that the Ghosts — Viggo, Brock, and Milo — had quietly disappeared in the weeks since.
I knew what it meant: the Butchers had gotten to them.
Anton said there was no way the Ghosts had told the Butchers we were the ones who took their place in the Hunt, reasoning that if they had, the Butchers would already have come for us.
I wasn’t so sure. Bram and his friends were violent but you didn’t run a town like Blackwell Falls for ten years without also being smart.
I stood and paced my office, nothing but boxers under my open robe, the video feeds flickering on my computer screens in the background.
I had a bad feeling. A bad, bad feeling.
I debated going back to Hungary, or maybe some other country in Eastern Europe, which tended to make it easy to evade law enforcement if your pockets were deep enough.
And thankfully, mine were pretty deep thanks to my social media platforms and the cam and prostitution operations. Not to mention the powerful men under my sway in exchange for keeping their peccadilloes from the public eye.
But I’d pushed the limit in Hungary, had only gotten out by the skin of my teeth.
I chewed my nails and tasted blood. I’d bitten them down to the quick in the month since the Hunt, a childhood habit I thought I’d kicked.
It made me pissed at Maeve Haver all over again. It was her fault I was in this mess, her fault I’d ended up at the Hunt. It was her fault I couldn’t concentrate and her fault I thought every unexplained sound was Bram and his fucking Butchers coming for revenge.
