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“You left me to ‘die’ on a bridge and walked off with David without looking back.”

“Cali, I’m not good at heart to hearts and we really need to get past this little hang-up so we can focus on what we’re going to do next. I need you to use your fucking head and put two and two together.

“Why would I leave you and my brother together if I wanted you dead? He was in that car with you. He was shot. None of that was supposed to happen. That situation could have gone so much fucking worse. I could have lost both of you. And I know I hurt you, but there wasn’t anything else I could do.

“I tried to protect you and fucking failed. I was trying to stop David from getting you back.” He shifted and then straightened to his full height, staring down at me with cold eyes.

“I fucking hate that I had to walk away. I apologize for not telling you what was going on. I don’t apologize for a single thing I’ve done.”

Swallowing, I tipped my head back and let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Romero Deville just apologized—sort of. Where was the confetti? I looked back at him and met his penetrating gaze head on.

“You didn’t fail because he doesn’t have me, and now I’m even more…” I trailed off. How did you tell someone you no longer gave a shit about right and wrong? I wondered if he knew about the chaos festering inside me or the venom running through my veins that ached to be released.

Turns out, I didn’t have to question any of it. I should have known better. This was Romero I was dealing with. He was the reason I was strong as I was. When I’d been down, he forced me to get up.

I learned to face my past the day he locked me in a room with a bishop and handed me a knife.

He’d pushed me towards the darkness from the very beginning, patiently waiting in the shadows so I wouldn’t be alone.

“Like me,” he filled in after an elapsed silence stretched between us. “You’re even more like me.”

I nodded, tracing invisible patterns into the comforter. “It doesn’t ever end, does it?” I knew he’d pick up on what I was really asking. Would I always be stuck on this fucked up linear timeline of grief? I’d gone straight from acceptance to anger and depression.

He shook his head and released a deep sigh. “Nothing ever numbs the pain. No matter how deep you bury it, it always fights its way back to the surface, so you learn to live with it.”

I looked up at him in surprise, almost falling off the bed. I’d expected him to be a lot more vague.

He didn’t discuss feelings—at least, not his.

The Badlands grapevine would attest that he had none. All anyone seemed to focus on was the reputation that’d made him so notorious for all these years. He was an outcast, an undesirable, and sick in the fucking head. He had his own law and his own rules, taking what he wanted and never apologizing for it.

None of that was untrue.

He was supposed to be this unstoppable force that never showed emotion and didn’t feel anything. But at the end of the day, he wasn’t made of stone. The devil felt pain just like the rest of us. He turned it into power.

At my prolonged silence, he continued.

“We did make a deal, you and I, but all fourof the other bishops are in hiding. There’s been no sign of them, and David went back underground as soon as he found out that I have no intention of ever giving you up.”

Well, fuck. I should have known that would happen. David was like a phantom when he wanted to be.

That was one of the reasons I’d needed the Savages’ help in the first place. Where the fuck did the man go when he was off the grid?

“How did you lure him out this time?” I asked.

“Me and David had been in contact for months when you came along. He has a pattern. Every six months, he moves to a new location. I fucked up the first time. He reached out to me again when he found out I had you. Knowing all he does now, don’t count on that happening again.”

Great. We were on a strict timetable and hunting a ghost. Four ghosts.

Wait…“Four other bishops? We already got rid of two. Shouldn’t there only be four total?”

“No, his son is a higher up now. I think his name’s Noah.”

“Noah?” My stomach rolled and my heartbeat turned sluggish at mention of him. He was a fucking bishop at twenty-one?

The last time I saw my baby brother, he was forcing his dick in my ass and then kicking the shit out of me. I tried to school my features but must have failed because Romero paused mid-sentence.

“What did he do to you?”