Page 69 of Rule the Night (Blackwell Butchers #1)

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It took work not to look at her. She was right there, shining just like always.

My heart had lifted when I’d laid eyes on her, which was exactly the problem. Caring she was there — being fucking happy to see her — told me all I needed to know: I wanted her.

And that was the one thing that would always and forever be off-limits.

So I’d walked right past her, had felt my heart shatter when the shy smile had dropped from her face.

And then I’d walked right out of the coffee shop.

Now I pointed the Hummer for the loft, but when I got there, I kept going.

I crossed the railroad tracks that marked the end of Main, then drove along Preserve Road, the potholed strip of asphalt that ran parallel to the Blackwell Preserve.

A half mile later I pulled into an empty dirt lot at one of the local trailheads. This wasn’t one of the places the tourists went. It was too deep in Southside, poorly maintained, mostly deserted.

I got out of the Hummer and started down the trail.

The trail marker had long since disappeared, eaten by the forest’s overgrowth.

I couldn’t even remember what the trail was called.

Maybe I’d never known, but this was where I’d always gone when I needed to think, not because I was a nature enthusiast, but because it was deserted and I pretty much hated everyone.

Everyone except for her.

I stalked up a rise on the trail, then descended as it sloped to the river. I heard it — a rush, a sigh — before I saw it, and I followed the sound to the water winding through the trees.

This wasn’t the Blackwell River. That was bigger and wider and ran through another part of the preserve. This was one of many unnamed rivers and streams that wound through the woods, too small to draw kayakers and rafters, too overgrown to be a well-known picnic spot.

The trail ended at a small beach, no more than a few yards wide and deep, on the riverbank. An old walking bridge spanned the water to my left, and I hopped onto one of the rectangular concrete supports, crumbling from years of wind and rain, and let my legs dangle off the edge.

The water glinted in the late-afternoon sun, like a net of diamonds on its surface. Leaves fell from the trees, drifting into the water in a flurry of color. I watched them as they fell, floating on the river’s surface as they made their way downstream.

I’d hurt Maeve at the coffee shop. She’d never let me know it, but I’d seen it in her eyes.

It had been bound to happen.

The worst thing about wanting something was that you didn’t know how much it mattered to you until it was gone.

I’d taken life before my parents’ accident for granted.

They’d always been there, and even though I’d moved out for college, I’d known I could walk into the house at any time and find my dad watching hockey, my mom laughing with Cassie in the kitchen.

Then, in an instant, it had all been gone.

My dad had been an electrician, my mom a TA at the local elementary school. There had been no life insurance, just a mortgage on a small house in Southside that I had no hope of paying as a nineteen-year-old kid with no skills to speak of.

Then there had been the bills for the lawyer who helped me fight to get guardianship of Cassie, and I’d moved us into a dingy apartment over Syd’s while I came up with a way to give her the life she deserved.

Working the streets — and then running them — hadn’t been plan A. It hadn’t even been plan B.

Plan fucking C for the win.

I’d poured everything I had into giving Cassie a good life, first by purchasing the building that housed Syd’s so we didn’t have to pay rent there, then by purchasing other properties in Blackwell Falls.

Then I’d turned my attention to laying down the law, sending messages to the MCs and street gangs that they could cut me in on their enterprises — and have access to the bigger deals Remy and Poe helped me put together — or they could rest in peace on the mountain.

I’d given Cassie the building on the north side as a high-school graduation present, along with a check big enough to cover the startup costs of the coffee shop she’d dreamed of owning.

By then, running Blackwell had been a full-time job.

Cassie was safe and happy, with enough money invested in offshore accounts to take care of her eventual grandchildren if anything ever happened to me.

Everyone who was anyone knew that Cassie was unofficial royalty in Blackwell Falls, an insurance policy that offered her as much protection as there could be in the world.

There hadn’t been anything else to want, and that had meant there was nothing that could be taken from me.

I’d eaten and fucked and even laughed, but that had just been fun. I wouldn’t have batted an eye if any of it had been taken away.

It was all just a way to pass the time.

And then Maeve Haver had tried to bring that fucking gun into the Hunt.

I’d tried to ignore her. Had tried to pretend my heartbeat didn’t tick up a notch when she walked into a room. Had tried not to see her face when I beat off in my room, in the shower.

But it hadn’t worked. She was everywhere in my life: laughing with the friends who were like brothers, filling the kitchen with the smell of sugar and spice, spreading her legs for Remy and Poe until I wanted to kill them both for taking possession of her first.

And today she’d been at Cassie’s, looking at me with a smile that said she thought we were friends.

I’d felt exposed, like how much I wanted her was written all over my face, like it was coded into the beat of my fucking heart and every person within a mile — including my little sister — could hear it.

It was no good.

Not for Maeve and not for me. I wasn’t built to love. Not anymore.

I was built for destruction.

It was that way by design. Of all the dangerous things in my life, wanting things was the most dangerous of all, and I’d never wanted anything — anyone — as much as I wanted her.

But I’d been here before, wanting things I couldn’t have: safety, security, my parents alive again. I’d learned not to want those things, had learned to accept the things that were available to me: money, control, power.

It had to be enough. The alternative meant ruin.

I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there, but the sun had dropped behind the mountain. The air was laced with a chill that would turn cold in a few more weeks. There would be snow, the world silent and muffled.

Peaceful.

Maeve would be gone by then. Less than a month. That was how long she had left with us.

I could resist her that long.