Page 53 of Cruel Debts (Killers of Port Wylde #4)

FORTY-SIX

TRINITY

I was eternally grateful for Lilly St. Clair for the help she'd given me, the protection she offered when she assigned the Gunners to protect me, even before she knew we had a history.

I was thankful, also, that when the boys dragged me directly to her office to debrief her on the situation, her first move was to get me clothed in something normal, other than just Hawke's not-quite-long-enough shirt.

I felt way less exposed while wearing a pair of low-slung sweats and a crop top with the words Bad Bitch emblazoned across the front. I doubted she ever wore these clothes, though, because I'd not once seen her in anything short of elegance and top-of-the-line fashion.

"You're telling me that you called police in to take out a ring we've been working on for almost a year?" She stormed around her office desk, hands behind her back, a furious expression plastered to her face. "What were you thinking?"

Hawke opened his mouth, but Liam held up a hand and shook his head. Asher looked like he had no intention of saying a word until Lilly had ripped them a new one.

"All that work, all that money, down the drain, and now we'll have to sort out the whole mess on our end with the client who hired us?—"

"You mean the mayor? I'd think she'd love that her police department could take the credit for this bust, even if they didn't do shit. It'll look good on her re-election campaign."

Lilly and the others looked at Hawke with open-mouthed stares of wonder.

"How did you?—?"

He huffed, rolling his eyes. "You knew what I could do when you hired me.

I'm not the only hacker in this place, and it's not even my specialty.

Who else has the pull to request the Guild to take down an entire trafficking ring?

And what other client would want an entire organization eliminated, instead of a specific target?

Even if I hadn't broken into your files and snooped out the answer, I could have put two and two together and come out with four. "

I had to hand it to him, he was smarter than we all gave him credit for.

"Oh, and Liam has a little secret he's been hiding from you that I think it's high time we came clean about."

Or maybe he wasn't.

Liam looked like there was absolutely no way in hell he wanted to say a word about what Hawke was hinting at. I had a suspicion it had something to do with my brother. From the looks the guys shot my way, it was very likely my hunch was correct.

"I don't know if now is the time for all that?—"

"Now's the perfect time, I think," Lilly said, her eyes pinning him to his seat with a frown.

"You've blown months of hard work, demolished a contract's stipulations, and burned several bridges in a single night.

You, my most skilled, senior crew, who I thought I could trust to be discreet and react with sense and logic. "

"Well, things changed," Asher grumbled, his eyes finding me in the room behind him. "She was the priority. You made that clear when you made us accept her protection contract."

"Right. You got me there. Now stop changing the subject and let's get out with this secret of yours."

Liam frowned, staring at the floor. "You might want to sit down for this one."

She took the seat behind her desk, the scowl she wore quickly becoming a permanent fixture on her face. "Talk."

"Your ex isn't who he claims to be."

So fast I could barely believe it had happened, her eyes flicked to me, then back to Liam. I almost doubted it even happened. Almost. "I'm listening."

"He's been living under an assumed name for years. The name of our dead best friend, and the fourth in our unit from our time in the military. Keehn McCoy."

Asher cleared his throat, frowning at the top of her desk. "His real name is Danny Mistwood. He's a rich kid who fled his family and hit the streets until he lucked out and found a body with ID on it that had a good past attached."

Lilly slammed her fist down on the top of her desk with a snarl. "I think I know who the fuck I married five years ago. Who I was fucking." But it's in her eyes, right there for all of us to see. She knew. But for whatever reason, she let herself be lied to.

Just like every other woman out here, she trusted a man, and he lied to her. Betrayed that trust.

"I've known his identity was fake from the moment you stepped into my office. How the hell do you think I found out about you to recruit you?"

Or maybe not.

Maybe she'd been playing her own long con this whole time. But that didn't explain?—

"How come he never mentioned it when we blackmailed him to work for us?"

Hawke looked genuinely confused. Lilly just leaned back and grinned like a feral cat.

"He doesn't know that I know. But we met years ago on the streets, when he was Danny Mistwood, and I was Lilly Tremaine.

Neither of us shared our pasts with each other beyond our names, but if you cared to do some digging, it wouldn't be hard to find out we both came from the same world, and were looking for an escape that society wasn't willing to give us without struggles. "

"So you knew," Liam deadpanned, his eyes narrowed nearly to slits. "All this time, you knew we were blackmailing him over his name, his identity. And you let us do it. You let us believe you had no idea about us beyond the stories that circulated in the South End, and?—"

"You assumed all that on your own. What I told you when I called your man over here to join us, to make his own squad, a crew, and join the Guild in its early days, was that I'd heard of you.

I didn't say how. He didn't ask." Her eyes hardened as she stared at me.

"Just like you didn't ask too many questions when you found out he was wearing a mask made of your dead best friend's namesake. "

"Why didn't you say something?" Hawke had switched from confused, to outraged, to upset in less than two minutes. "Why did you let us think?—"

"Because I've been trying to teach you all from the start to ask more questions, assume nothing.

And with the rare exception of Danny's situation, and the McCoys, you have taken that lesson to heart and run with it.

You're the best our organization has to offer.

But you're woefully blind when it comes to the people you love. "

She's right. When it came to Keehn, it was like they'd been blinded and handed braille signs without someone telling them how to read them.

But they willingly overlooked what was right before their eyes with him.

And I wasn't sure what they had for him could be called love, as much as it was a brotherly bond?—

"Don't look at her like you're revealing some heavy truths over here. She knows all about the Keehn situation."

I shrugged. "It's true."

Lilly smiled. "That's not what I was talking about. I was talking about how they were so blind about your situation because of their love for you."

The guys were up and out of their seats in a heartbeat, the three of them rushing to talk over each other.

Lilly silenced them with a scowl and then dismissed them with instructions to take me home.

She didn't elaborate whether that home was my family home or their dorms. She left it up to them to decide how to define that order.

So when I ended up upstairs with them, sitting on the couch as they all stared me down, it filled me with a sense of relief.

I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to go back to that life. I wanted to stay here, with them.

"We need to talk, Trinity," Asher said with a growl, pulling a seat over to line himself up in my immediate gaze. Hawke perched on the coffee table, and Liam took the seat to my left, careful to leave space between us.

He'd take some work to warm up, but it was a start.

"Are you okay?"

I blinked in surprise at Asher's question. "Why wouldn't I be?"

He lifted a hand and started ticking off reasons on his fingers.

"Well, maybe because you came this close to being trafficked at auction, you were shot at, you were held at gunpoint, and you were kidnapped, not to mention all the things that went on here before you left.

" His glare shifted to Liam, and the other man winced, reminded of his harsh words meant to frighten me off getting involved with the others. "For starters."

I shrugged. "It was scary, sure, but I'm safe now.

" I eyed him, then Liam, and then finally Hawke, who looked like he was itching to say or do something.

His knee bounced like a pogo stick, and his eyes were shifty, almost hesitant, every time they cut to me.

"You guys came. You saved me. You protected me, just like you promised. "

"The mission's over, though. You're safe now." Hawke cleared his throat. "You don't have to stay here if you don't want to. You can go home and?—"

"I don't want to leave," I damn near shouted, hands shaking at the thought that they might actually still send me home. "Are you going to make me leave?"

"Yes."

"Not a chance."

"You should make that decision for yourself."

Three very different answers. Three very different men.

Asher spoke first as they all glared at each other. "You should be able to make that decision for yourself. Only you can decide where your life will lead you. We can't make that choice, or take it away from you, just because we want to keep you here with us."

It was as close to a love confession as I'd get from him.

Hawke leaned forward, his hands reaching for mine.

"I don't want you to go anywhere. As much as a pain in the ass as you can be, and for all that you can't be trusted in a kitchen with a boiling pot of water, I like having you here.

I'll kick anyone's ass who thinks they can make you leave if you don't want to go.

" His eyes turned hopeful. "You don't want to go, right? "

"Don't browbeat her into it, Hawke," Liam snarled.

"She shouldn't be here, and you know it.

This isn't the kind of life for a girl like Trinity.

She deserves—" His eyes found mine, and I watched as they softened in real-time, though his lips didn't turn up or down.

They stayed pursed, firm, unyielding. "She deserves a life better than the one we can give her. "

"What if I don't want a life like that?" I asked quietly, realizing they were giving me a choice.

As much as Liam wanted me to be happy in a normal life, and Hawke wanted to keep me, and Asher was determined to play the neutral party, they made themselves and their positions very clear.

"What if I want to stay here with you guys?

What if I said I've wanted nothing but you three since the day you walked into my life, all those years ago? "

Hawke groaned and pulled me onto his lap. "Then I'd tell you that's exactly how it's gonna go. And fuck anyone who wants to say otherwise. They can kick rocks."

Liam's frown deepened as he watched Hawke preen over me like a mother hen. "We'll have to reach out to your parents?—"

"We don't have to do anything like that. They've had their chance to raise me; I'm an adult now. I make my own decisions?—"

"They hired three killers they hadn't talked to in years to track you down and bring you back to them. Do you think they'll just roll over and let you go like that?"

"I'm not giving them a choice. If you send me away, I'll just come back.

" I scowled at Liam, who clearly had thought this whole thing through even though he'd pretended this whole time that he was indifferent.

That I was just a job. "I'll keep coming back again and again until you give up and let me have my way. "

"Brat," he swore, but the smile that finally broke on his lips was a welcome reward.

"You like it," I sassed, knowing from the scene on the car that he'd likely have fun trying to tame the brat right out of me.

"No comment," Hawke said with an eye roll. "But now that you're officially staying, why don't we take you shopping for something a little more befitting a Guild girl."

"Guild girl?" Asher shook his head and sighed. "You idiots never cease to amaze me."