Page 51 of Taking Chances

If we keep going on like this, he’s going to get her eventually,Tor texted.

“Thatwon’thappen,” Vance snapped out.

“Of course it will,” Hayden offered up. “I’ve worked on protection details enough to know that if a person really wants something, if they won’t back off, it’s only a matter of time until they find a way. We can do everything in our power, but eventually, everyone gets lucky.”

I thought back to that pit after my wife had died, when I’d attended her funeral, when I’d recognized that she was gone and that it had been my fault. That was a wound that never healed fully, a loss that a person never got over. My wife had been part of my life day in and day out, even if I’d always hidden my real self, even if I now understood just how empty the relationship had been—all because of me—it had been difficult to forget.

I thought about it when I woke up in a bed alone, when I ate meals by myself, when I fell asleep in an empty bed. I couldn’t ignore it when her side of the closet was empty, when the scent of the fancy coffee she liked didn’t fill the house in the mornings, or when I no longer saw her shoes by the door beside mine.

The loss could tear a person apart, and I’d somehow come out the other side of it alive.

“I can’t lose another woman I love,” I said softly.

It seemed as though those words sucked the air right out of the room. We’d all come together before without talking much about our own feelings, our own problems. We’d already known what we had each lost, but we’d never been the type to open up and talk about it.

We weren’t exactlysharing hourmen, here.

However, the memory of Kenz leaping from that bike sat like a spot of acid in my brain, burning down through the layers, growing worse and worse as it went, impossible to ignore.

“I’ve been through that once already. Kenz was the one who showed me a path out. She didn’t pull me out—I had to do that myself—but she showed me that something else could still be there. No matter what happens, Ican’tgo through losing her, too. I can’t bury her, can’t fail another woman.”

Just saying those words had me leaning forward, my chest tight, my breath difficult to pull in. Still, I made myself keep going, forced the words through my narrowed throat. “Seeing her fly off that bike, not knowing if she was alive, if she’d broken her neck, it took me back to the explosion, back to when I’d realized my wife was dead. I want Kenz, I want a future with her, to see her grow gray, to see how she changes each year, and always protect her, but I’m terrified that that is just my own selfishness. If it comes down to giving her up or risking her life…”

I drew my hands into fists so tight that my knuckles ached. “I don’t want to let her go but I’ll do it if it’s best for her.”

“How is she safer without us?” Vance asked. “Even if we backed away from her, that doesn’t take Lorien’s target off her.”

Nem could keep her safe.

My hands trembled as I looked at the words Tor had texted, especially because I struggled to argue with the fact no matter how much I wanted to.

“Are you sure about that? I mean, if we can’t protect her, how could she?”

Hayden sighed softly before speaking up. “We are just the four of us, and we’re here in Lorien’s space. Even if his mother took away her support, he still has people he knows here. If she returned to California, if she was given over to Nem, the Quad and Jarrod—she’d become a far more difficult target. They have power and status and control there. Nothing is for sure, but Nem would have a far better chance at protecting Kenz than we could.”

“And we just write her off? We just forget all about her? Can you do that?” Vance asked as he stood, the first real signs of panic I’d seen in him.

I shook my head. “No. With Kenz safe, we could focus on Lorien.”

“I thought you didn’t care about revenge,” Vance said.

It isn’t about revenge anymore,Tor texted.It’s about removing a threat to Kenz. We’ve been forced to split our attention, to always keep one hand on her, but if she’s safe? We get to take the gloves off.

Vance pressed his lips together, frustration clear on his face. However, Vance came from a different background than the rest of us. He’d known about the darker side of the world, had seen it only from the POV of the rich, but he hadn’t existed in the depth of that filth like the rest of us.

He still retained more hope than we did, didn’t recognize just how ugly life really got. That made it more difficult for him to come to terms with how easily people were killed.

“And if we get Lorien out of the way?” Vance asked. “If we succeed in making sure he isn’t a threat to Kenz anymore? What then?”

“You mean if we survive it?” Hayden pressed, driving home the point that going after Lorien was hardly a sure thing.

We had our own power, our own skills, and we were a force to be reckoned with. However, we still had chains on us, morals we couldn’t let go of. Lorien had none. He would burn down an entire city to get what he wanted, which meant going up against him meant accepting that there was a good chance it wouldn’t end with us standing.

That fact hadn’t bothered us before—in fact, we’d welcomed it. As long as we got rid of him, our future hadn’t mattered.

Didn’t it figure that we actually had the chance to face him when we had something we wanted to return to?

“Yeah, I mean if we succeed.”

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