Page 82 of Bad Men

“We’re already fucked, Dav,” he murmured, haunted eyes lifting to fix on me. “Who are we trying to kid?” He sighed and shoved a palm viciously back through his hair. “Do you honestly think either of us can walk away from her now? From the moment we had her on that train, we both knew it was over.”

Sheer grit and stubborn force willed my head to pivot in reflexive panic, swinging wildly from side to side, refusing to accept the reality I was being handed. “No, we can still walk—”

“Can you though? Can you let her go?” I stilled all over as if he’d pulled a gun and pinned it to my forehead. He never wavered, never so much as drew in a breath. “Look me in the eye and tell me you have no problems walking away from her. Tell me she means nothing more than a lay to you.”

“Nero—”

“No lying.”

Even without his warning, the words had already soured in my mouth, had already become vomit and glass, and self-loathing. They clung to my tongue, making me gag on them.

I glared up at my best friend, hating him for the first time in my life for my own lack of will.

“I know,” he said softly in that same quiet reassurance. “She snuck up on me, too, but for better or worse, she’s ours now.”

“We can’t,” I protested. “Look what happened yesterday. We almost got her killed.”

For the first time since the conversation started, Nero broke eye contact. “I know. That’s why I need to do this. I need to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. I want Mia to stay with us.”

I had never understood the phrase, time stood still, but in that confession, the world seemed to still around me. The very blood roaring in my ear silenced. It was a quiet that sent a surge of panic crashing through me.

“What?”

He met my gaze squarely. “I want her to move in with us. Not at the apartment. We don’t have the room, but once we get the job, I want us to get a place with her.”

I hadn’t expected that. The speeds with which he was racing towards this unknown reality was scaring the shit out of me. I was barely registering the fact that we were keeping her, a rule we’d broken just the day before. Now, we were talking about moving in and picket fences, and a normal life. It was enough to make me want to … what? Run? Embrace? How was he so calm?

“You don’t want to.” It wasn’t a question, but there was a tension in the words that made it clear that we were both stepping on a landmine; one of us wasn’t going to survive it.

“I don’t…” Fear and apprehension caught me by the throat, choking me from finishing a sentence I didn’t even know how to finish. “We have rules, Nero. Tried and true rules that we perfected and followed religiously for thirty damn years.” I stopped again, my lungs squeezing the shit out of my heart. “What if we’re wrong?” I blurted, painfully aware of the sheer panic in my voice. “What if she doesn’t want to be with a pair of … us, and the things we do? What if this was just to pay what her family owes and she … she leaves?”

I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t face seeing my terror on his face. I couldn’t face being responsible for destroying our one chance at happiness if I was wrong.

“I love her, Dav,” his quiet confession lifted my own guilt-ridden eyes to his solemn expression.

Hearing him say it, hearing how easily it could be said sent a weaving crack up my wall I wasn’t prepared for. The assault collapsed what little cool I had left, abandoning me to sheer, blinding panic.

“And how is that supposed to work?” I blurted. “Two men in love with the same woman. How does that work, Nero? How are we supposed to … work?”

Rather than see the sense in the point I was trying to make, Nero leaned closer across the table and murmured, “If anyone can make rules to make this work, it’s you and me. I get it,” he stressed when I opened my mouth, “this is scary fucking shit and I am fucking terrified out of my mind, but I think we need her, Dav. It’s selfish and dangerous, but … last night when I got home and she was there with you making supper and us just watching TV and you guys making jokes … it made sense. We make sense. Do I think it’ll be perfect? Probably not. It’s going to be messy and crazy, but we have done messy and crazy, and we made it work. The only thing I know without a shadow of a doubt is that if you say no, if you say this isn’t for you and you walk away, I can’t let her go for you.”

I sucked in a breath. My hands balled beneath the table.

That had been our first rule; if one walks away, the other does, too. No girl was worth our friendship.

“It’s not going to happen tomorrow, maybe not even in a year,” he went on, eyes unwavering, “but I’m giving you a heads up that this is what I want for both of us. I want you to be part of this, but if you can’t, I understand that, too. You will always be my brother and I will always have your back, but Mia will be off limits.”

Anger brewed up in my belly, hot and unfathomable. It tangled with the trepidation lodged in my esophagus, creating a spewing black sludge that bubbled and frothed at the very idea of anyone keeping Mia away from me. It scorched my very soul even as frigid sense reminded me that this couldn’t possibly work. Mia would never go for it and the minute we bring it up, she’d laugh and run the other way, which she should! She had no right being with assholes like us. Her life would be better without the danger and … oh, God, we’d put her in so much danger. Eduardo was fickle. What if we upset him and he had Mia killed? What if Alejandro decided she was a loose end? I’d kill him. I’d fucking kill him. But she’d be gone. My Mia would be gone and it would be my fault because I didn’t protect her.

I was flipping out. I could feel myself spiraling, freefalling into a void. I couldn’t stop. Air kept rushing up between my fingers, endless nothing all around and I had nothing to grab, no safety net. Holy Christ, was I having a panic attack? I was a grown ass criminal. We didn’t panic.

“Dav?”

I tried to motion that I was fine, but I couldn’t breathe. Where the fuck had all the air gone?

Nero’s eyes widened as realization struck. “Davien?”

His enormous frame started pushing to his feet. The clumsy attempts sent the cutlery rattling on our plates. The woman with the novel was looking up now, staring in confusion. Somewhere in the distance, something was ringing, a buzzing that somehow penetrated the vortex sucking me in. From the corner of my eye, my phone lit up. Its bright light was blinding, a hazy smudge of white that spiked at the edges, but I could just make out the name flashing across the screen.

---