Page 27 of Cruel Debts (Killers of Port Wylde #4)

TWENTY-THREE

TRINITY

The fucking gall of these men. They were smarter than that.

I knew they were. I grew up with them.

So why were they being so stupid now?

I refused to speak to them when we all finally made our way up to the dorm. I didn't have a key, so they had no choice but to follow me, or leave me out in the open, which they'd said a million times already that they didn't want to do.

So the choice was clear—I had to deal with it myself. And if that meant striking it out on my own still, like I'd planned for a while now, then so be it.

I stormed around my room for about an hour before I realized it was getting me nowhere. Okay, so maybe it was time for a shower. Or a nap. Or something.

Or maybe I should treat myself to a self-love session and make them listen.

All those ideas had their merits, but in the end, I decided on a shower. I felt dirty, both from handling a gun I had no business putting my hands on, since I couldn't fire one to save my life, and because of the whole interaction with the man pretending to be my brother.

I couldn't believe they were letting someone run around pretending to be Keehn.

That they felt justified in using him to whatever ends they needed, just because he needed their silence.

That the whole charade went on under everyone's noses.

Somehow, nobody back home ever picked up on someone else using Keehn's name for gainful employment.

Or if he did, he never mentioned it to our parents.

Or maybe he did, and they just assumed he'd run off.

No. There was no way. My parents would have found a way to drag him home if that were the case. They wouldn't let their heir apparent wander off into his own life when they had his future all planned out. When his every move in life was already written on a page in their book for him.

He was just like me in that regard: our parents never planned to let us do what we wanted unless it fit neatly into their little plans.

Perks of being raised as the heirs to an empire.

As I stood under the scalding water of the borrowed shower intended for my brother once upon a time, I thought over what led us here.

How a single instance, a chance encounter, had shaped my life in a completely different way than what I'd ever intended.

How that one moment, that one man, brought me unwillingly to a strange place and somehow deposited me in front of the men I'd loved since I was young.

Would I have given up on Keehn, too, just like my parents and his friends, if I hadn't run into the man masquerading as him by accident? Would he be forgotten now, a memory and nothing more?

Would I have made the same choices as the rest of them, if not for the false Keehn?

I wasn't sure I wanted the answer.

My thoughts swirled the drain like the water and bubbles, and I stared off against the wall for a long time, wishing things were different.

Wishing Keehn hadn't left on assignment to the military to escape our parents.

Wishing I'd stopped him the last time he walked out the door, that I'd asked him to stay.

Wishing he were still here.

This was the kind of problem my brother had always solved for me, not the other way around. And now, it was up to me to bring the truth to light, who put the pieces together and made sense of it all. Even if that answer wasn't the one I wanted, it had to be done.

I would do it, for him.

I didn't hear the door to my bedroom open and shut; I was too focused on my racing thoughts, the jumbled mess in my head. But I certainly heard the swear when someone in my room who shouldn't be found something he shouldn't.

Hawke stood in the center of my room, seemingly undisturbed when I entered it wearing nothing but a towel around my body and a scowl on my face. He held in his hands a simple black diary—not the one I wrote my escape plans in, thankfully, but still a bad one.

I called it my fuck these men and their bullshit diary.

In it was every complaint I'd amassed since I came here, every single offense they gave, every time I'd wanted to strangle them bare-handed, or with a garrote, or in a noose.

And here he was, reading it like he was entitled to my innermost thoughts.

And from the looks of it, he was not happy in the least bit.

He turned a page, reading aloud for my benefit now.

"Liam is a prick. I bet his dick is tiny as shit, because only a man with an inch-long pecker would do what he did to me.

I was locked in that room so long, I thought I'd have to pee in my water bottle and start knocking on pipes.

" His eyes flicked up to mine, and he grinned.

"I'd chop his dick off, but I'd need a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass to find it. "

I refused to let him make me feel bad. Embarrassed, sure, but bad?

Never.

His brows rose as he read on, this time in silence. When he got to the end of the page, I lunged forward in an attempt to wrestle it from him, but he dodged at the last minute, holding the book above my head.

Damn these tall ass men.

"Just a side note, sweetheart, but I can promise you that Liam's packing more than you'll ever be able to handle."

I grinned at the joke he'd opened himself up for. "Oh, you spend a lot of time admiring it?"

He rolled his eyes, but then they fell to my unclothed body, and froze there. "Mature, Tee-Bird."

"I learned from the best," I sassed back, still irritated by the earlier incident. "Give that back, you asshole."

"Why, so you can write me in here, too? I'm sure there's a page for me somewhere in this chicken scratch you call handwriting." He began flipping through the pages, and I ground my teeth, trying to think of a way to get the notebook away from him.

Drastic measures seemed the most successful option. So I dropped the towel and stood there naked, waiting for him to notice.

It didn't take long.

When his eyes fell on me to make another joke, they slowly crawled over my form, and I could see the short-out in real time.

His hand holding the notebook fell to his side, and I took the opportunity to yank it away, turning on a heel to stuff it all the way under my mattress.

I could feel his eyes on me the whole time, and it only served to infuriate me more.

"Got a staring problem, Hawke?" I taunted, knowing damn well he'd hate to know I saw right through him.

He might hate me, but he was a man, and sometimes, they thought of only one thing when a woman was naked around them.

Sex.

Not that I'd say no to sex with him on any other terms. But I was still mad. I had to maintain the anger, or I wouldn't be brave enough to take the chance when it popped up and leave. So I turned around, crossed my arms over my tits, and scowled right back at him.

"Did you come in here for an actual reason, or just to torment me?"

He shook his head like a dog, clearing his vision as he stared me down. I could see the gears turning, the unwillingness to let himself be phased by my body, but it was a losing battle.

"The others wanted you in the living room. We all need to have a little chat, you included." He forced his lips down in a frown. "Put some clothes on, though. Don't you dare come out there with nothing on."

"Why not? Do I disgust you, Hawke?" I cocked a hip out, knowing damn well it only accentuated my figure. "Are you repulsed by the idea of me?"

"Your body might've filled out, but you're still the same troublemaking little brat I've always known." He stepped forward, his hand reaching out to grab me by the chin. "You'd better be careful who you mess with, Trinity. You're in a pit of snakes, and some of us are venomous. Some of us bite."

"You can try," I growled back, my hackles rising as I held his gaze and went toe to toe with my first childhood bully. "You're not the only thing around here that can be dangerous when provoked."

He swore and left the room, leaving me standing there alone, naked and victorious, though the feeling didn't make me happy like it should.

Ten minutes later, I sat perched on the edge of the couch next to Asher, who was the smartest choice. At least he didn't look at me like I might punch him or start crying. He didn't look at me like a guilty dog who'd pissed on the floor.

He admitted his wrongs. He owned them.

Liam might've never said a word if I didn't let on that I knew.

And Hawke?

Well, he was still stuck on the naked interlude in my room. Not that he was complaining, just that there was a lot of confusing emotion in his gaze, and I didn't want to deal with it.

In the end, we sat there in a stalemate of silence until Asher cleared his throat and broke it.

"Pretty Bird, we need to talk about what just happened." He looked at the others, waiting for them to say something, but when they refused, or turned away, his sigh was heavy. Asher, it seemed, was the only one who actually wanted to have this talk.

The others were just unwillingly roped into it.

"I don't think we do." I stared anywhere but at him—I pinned a stare to Liam, and another to Hawke, both of whom refused to wilt under my glares. "Clearly, there's no desire to actually talk here, aside from the one person who already has talked to me."

Hawke's eyes rolled so far back in his head that it had me hoping they'd stay there, permanently. "So you think it's cool just to steal Liam's gun off his waist, hold someone who works for us at gunpoint, and then just march off like you own this place?"

I crossed my arms and leaned back, using their tactics against them.

The cool indifference was driving at least one of them crazy.

I could see it from a mile away. "I think the bigger problem is, how did Liam, a trained assassin and weapons specialist who's been to war, not notice me lifting it off his hip? "

"Not now, Trin," Liam growled, his nose scrunched in frustration. "We don't have time for your jokes?—"

"I don't think it's a joke," Asher growled, his eyes cutting to his friend. "She has a point. How did you let something like that happen? You're better than that."

"I was distracted, asshole, ever happen to you?"

Hawke laughed. "Only every time Trinity walks into a room."

Asher pulled his gun out and pointed it at him, and boy, I've never hoped a gun was unloaded more in my life than at that moment. "Open your mouth and say something stupid again, I dare you."

"Maybe if you wanna threaten me, you should put bullets in it, first," Hawke sassed, cocking a brow in challenge.

Asher cocked the damn thing, then pulled the trigger. Hawke jumped three feet in the air when an actual bullet grazed his shoulder, landing in the meat of the chair behind him. "Fuck! Are you insane?!?"

"Relax," Asher muttered, putting the safety back on as he stuck the still-smoking gun in his jacket again. "Even if I did shoot you, I'm a medic. A surgeon. I could remove it before you bled to death." His eyes sparked with dangerous intent. "If I wanted to."

For the first time in all the time I'd known Asher, I had reason to fear him and what he was capable of. The thought was sobering.

But he'd never hurt me. Not physically.

"See, this is the shit I'm talking about," Liam growled, pointing at the two of them. "You two are dicking around like this, and we have serious shit to deal with, like a fucking human trafficking ring."

"And tracking down Keehn," I pointed out, but Liam steamrolled right over me like he wasn't even listening.

"Our contract before we tacked on Trin is still active, and that means we still have to complete it. Regardless of what we have going on at home, the job comes first."

"Fuck the job," I snapped, "what about Keehn?"

Liam's eyes were hard. "Trinity, I need you to hear me when I say this, but Keehn is gone.

Just because you think what Mistwood told you was some kind of resurrection of hope doesn't mean it has any merit.

We already thought about the possibility that it wasn't him when we met Mistwood.

Just because we didn't ask for confirmation doesn't mean it changes anything.

He's still dead and buried, and right now, tracking down a ghost isn't as important as stopping a city-wide trafficking operation. "

"He would have dropped everything to help you, and you know it." I stood up, ignoring the thread of protest and demands to return as I stalked over to the door of my room, the room that wasn't even my safe haven anymore. It was a prison, and I was the prisoner.

Before I closed the door on them, I shot out one last dig to get under their skin and drive home the betrayal I felt.

"If this is how you repay a blood oath, maybe it would've been better had Keehn never entered into it to begin with. Some fucking loyalty."