Page 30 of Ruthless Desires, Vol. One (Ruthless Desires Series Extended Editions #1)
Rhett
At home, I find Oliver and Elliot curled up in Ell’s bed, still sound asleep. By the time I go on a run and take a quick shower, I can hear them just starting to get up.
So I head downstairs in nothing but a pair of shorts and get some coffee brewing. By the time I have it poured and breakfast almost done, they’re shuffling into the kitchen, hair still damp from their shower.
Oliver grins when he sees me. “Omelettes? You’re the best. I’m keeping you.”
I snort. “Like you could ever get rid of me.”
Yawning, Oliver wraps his arms around me from behind. He presses his face into the bare skin of my back, and his words vibrate down my spine. “Wouldn’t want to.”
My skin crawls, but my chest warms with satisfaction. “I know.”
“How was Wren this morning?”
Elliot pauses after Oliver asks the question, his coffee mug halfway to his mouth. That look of guilt travels across his face for a few seconds before he takes a sip.
“Tired,” I say. “But happy, I think.”
I hesitate to reveal more. Elliot, Oliver, and I have been pretty open with each other when it comes to what we’ve learned about Wren, unless it’s something more personal that she might like to reveal to each of us separately.
But I have no idea what proper period etiquette is.
My sister was killed when she was a child. And when it came to things like periods and sex, my mother was fairly squeamish.
Do I tell them Wren’s on her period? Do I not? Does it matter? What if she doesn’t care if people know she’s on her period, and I’m being weird? What if she does care?
I think it’s probably best I keep my mouth shut.
“You sleep well?” Elliot’s voice is quiet, and he won’t look at anything but his coffee.
“Yeah.” I shove a plate in front of where he’s sitting at the counter. “Really well, actually.”
“Good.”
By the time I’ve made Oliver’s omelette and my own, Elliot has barely picked at his. Oliver is watching him with concern. Omelettes are Elliot’s favorite.
“She seems okay, you know.” I watch him closely.
Elliot sets his fork down before resting his face in his hands. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t take back that I said it was best for us to forget her.”
“Elliot.” I round the counter, grabbing his shoulder and turning him on the stool until he’s facing me. “Mistakes are a part of being human.”
It’s a hard truth I’ve become intimately familiar with over the past few years. One that Ell and Oliver have to remind me of constantly.
He leans his forehead against my chest. “I wish I never said it.”
Oliver runs a hand down his back. “You were trying to protect her, Ell. Being reasonable is what you do best. Hell, it’s the only reason the three of us are still alive.”
It’s true. Oliver and I tend to be more impulsive. Elliot’s patience and reasoning have saved us from running head first into quite a few bad situations that would’ve gotten us killed otherwise.
“I still hurt her. You guys saw her face.”
“Yeah, I did,” Oliver says. “But I also saw her face when she was saying goodbye to you last night. Wanna know how she looked then?”
Elliot sighs and shakes his head.
“Like she’d worship the ground you walked on if you let her. She gets it, Ell. Even though she doesn’t have the whole picture. I don’t think she’s holding a grudge at all.”
Blowing out a breath, Elliot says, “We’ll see.”
The discomfort on his face is one I’m all too familiar with. “Have we gotten anywhere with the Williams job?” Hopefully, a subject change will give Elliot some relief.
He nods. “Just the first round of the usual stuff. Address, family, finances, security. His home is practically a fortress, so we’re going to have to get him in public. He also has two bodyguards with him at all times.”
Already, I can see the guilt fading from Elliot’s eyes, replaced by determination. His entire demeanor lightens as he outlines his ideas to tail Williams and set up a spot to ambush him.
This is his favorite part—the researching, the planning. It’s like putting a puzzle together without knowing where all the pieces are. For most people, it’d be frustrating. But Elliot? He loves the challenge.
And the Williams job seems particularly challenging. Good. Sometimes distraction is the best solution—temporarily, at least.
Edgar Williams is some of our city’s top scum. A successful businessman known for cutting corners, having a short temper, and exploiting his workers—in and out of the States.
On more than one occasion, I’ve contemplated taking him out myself. Getting hired to do it should sweeten the deal.
But it only leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. There’s a possibility it has something to do with a beautiful, smart woman who very well might hightail it out of this relationship the second she realizes what we do.
She knows that being with us might put her in danger. But I don’t think she really understands what that means. And that’s no one’s fault but our own. Because we thought we’d never be able to have her, and now? Now that we have a chance, none of us are willing to let it go.
Which, unfortunately, means letting things go unexplained.
“We’re going to tell Wren eventually, right?”
Oliver and Elliot stare at me. It takes a second for me to realize that I interrupted Ell while he was in the middle of explaining what we’re going to do today and tomorrow.
“I don’t like keeping her in the dark,” Oliver says.
“Neither do I.” Sighing, Elliot cuts into his omelette with his fork. “But it’s a lot to spring on someone.”
“Is there a way to ease her into it?” As Oliver says it, he glances between me and Ell, but the look in his eyes tells me that he already knows the answer.
How do you ease a woman into telling her that the three men she’s in a relationship with are killers? You don’t. Either you hide it and hope to get away with it, or you tell her and hope for the best.
And the longer you keep it from her, the less the odds are in your favor.
“I don’t want to break her trust,” Elliot says. “Not again.”
“I mean. We refused to tell her what we do. So she knows we’re hiding something.”
“Yeah, but why would her mind go to us being hitmen?”
Oliver palms the back of his neck. “Fuck, how mad do you think she’ll be?”
My stomach sinks at his question and the silent admission that there’s no chance she could accept it without getting upset.
With a groan, Elliot rubs his face. “We need to stay focused on the job. We have exactly a week to kill him. After that, we’ll figure out how and when to explain everything to Wren.”
Right. Taking out Edgar Williams is our priority right now.
“So we spend today and tomorrow learning more about his security team?” I’m pretty sure that’s what Elliot said while I was lost in thought.
“Yeah. Supposedly, he’s meeting a business partner at Garden Grille tomorrow evening.”
A restaurant downtown—owned by Williams, of course.
“You think that’ll be our best shot?” Oliver asks.
Elliot shrugs. “It’s the only time I know he’ll be away from his house. I have Finn trying to get us more intel, but he has to be careful who he talks to. The last thing we want to do is tip Williams off.”
I frown. That’ll be tough. Taking a man down in a public place comes with a lot of problems, including traumatizing everyone who happens to be there at the time. His murder is supposed to be high profile, but not like that.
“We hit him on his way home?”
Elliot stays quiet. As we watch, he squints his eyes ever so slightly, a sign that he’s taking in all the puzzle pieces he has. Comparing them to each other, seeing which ones fit where, figuring out what he still needs.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find it hot as hell.
After a few minutes, he says, “We only have one shot at this. If we don’t kill him the first time around, he’ll go into hiding. We could probably get into his house, but I don’t want to take that risk.”
Neither Oliver nor I need to ask what risk he’s talking about. It’s the one we’ve decided never to take, no matter how well a job pays. There’s no amount of cash that could make losing one of us worth it.
It’s not that we don’t take dangerous jobs. We do. But we’re always able to outsmart the system. Keep ourselves hidden. Avoid the impossible situations.
Usually, that is. When we were only in this to get revenge on the man who killed my little sister, things were different. We were young. Angry.
It took almost losing Oliver for us to realize that we needed to re-prioritize. Us first, and then revenge.
I guess that’s how we got started in all this. We had to acquire certain skills to take down the crime lord who killed Sammy.
In the meantime, we’ve become the guys you go to when you need someone dead. We have the means and the know-how, so it was basically a natural progression.
“We tail him all night. We’ll have to take different cars and switch on and off so no one notices us following him. The Garden Grille has enough windows that we won’t have to go inside to monitor him. If an opportunity presents itself, we take him out. Otherwise, once he makes a move to head home, two of us will get ahead and cut him off on his road. The third will follow Williams from far enough behind and act as backup in case we need help.”
He goes on, giving more details of his plan, shoving food into his mouth in between sentences. As he does, my confidence builds. We’ve definitely handled worse before.
By the time he’s done talking, we’ve all finished eating. Almost immediately, the guilt is back in Ell’s eyes.
Oliver nudges him. “She’ll be okay.”
Elliot says nothing for a minute. Last night, when Wren overheard him, he immediately knew he’d made a mistake.
But what he can’t seem to grasp is that Wren understands why he said it. It was to protect her, to shield her from the potential danger and pain that could be a result of her entering into a relationship with us.
Wren seemed to get it last night. But Elliot hasn’t.
“I think I’m gonna see what else I can find on Williams.” Elliot rinses off his plate, then sets it in the sink. “Dive a little deeper. You know.”
Translation: I’m going to sit in my office and feel like shit all day.
Oliver and I exchange a glance. Then he gives me a mischievous grin.
“Don’t worry,” he murmurs. “I know exactly how to fix this.”