Page 108 of The Secrets We Bury

Just like he had when we were fifteen and I’d gone on a bender after my first and last heartbreak, Nolan pulls up to the side of my bed and yanks the trash can out from under a pile of clothes stacked in the corner of the room. He shoves it under my head just in time for the reminder of my poor choices to erupt from my mouth.

My abdomen clenches with each heave and I curse whatever fucking dumbass convinced me that drinking away my problems was the answer. It sucks raw, ugly-ass monkey balls being on the other side and dealing with the consequences.

After what feels like hours of upchucking the entire contents of my stomach into a small-ass trash can, I manage to swallow back the last of my bile and sit up. The room is no longer spinning, but the smell of my own vomit and the sweat on my skin cling to me like a second layer of body odor.

“Shower,” I grumble as I crawl off the bed.

Nolan stands and gets out of the way. “Make it quick,” he orders. “We’ve got shit to talk about.”

“Could’ve guessed,” I shoot back. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

Nolan doesn’t respond as I make my way to the bathroom across the hall, feeling like an old man with cancer versus an almost nineteen-year-old with a decent workout schedule. The shower, thankfully, does the job of wiping away most of the liquor and puke smell. By the time I get out, I feel marginally better and am able to walk a bit more upright into my bedroom to find that Nolan’s cleaned up the puke can and is sitting in the swivel computer chair against the rickety secondhand desk.

“Hurry up and get dressed,” he says, looking up from his phone quickly before returning his eyes downward. “We need to get going.”

“Where?” I ask as I march towards the open closet door and yank out a well-worn t-shirt. Back at the dresser, I snag a pair of boxers and jeans and begin to pull everything on.

“Viks came to me a few nights ago,” Nolan answers me. “He’s got new info on Denise Donovan.”

Buttoning my fly, I scowl as I reach for my t-shirt. “Does that have anything to do with Juliet being blackmailed by Calloway?”

Nolan’s hands pause on his cell, mid-type, and he slowly looks up. “You figured it out?”

Yanking on the shirt, I scrub the towel over my still wet hair. “Ma-Ri pointed something out to me, and yeah, though it took me a bit.”

Nolan looks to the empty bottle of whiskey and half-empty bottle of tequila. “Then, why this?” he demands.

My scowl deepens and I drop the towel to the floor. “Because there’s nothing we can fucking do to save her,” I snap. “Knowing your girl is sacrificing herself to protect you and your friends—it’d drive any man to fucking drink.”

“We’re not letting her stay with him,” Nolan says. “It’s out of the question.”

I laugh, but the sound is bitter and that tequila is looking good all over again despite the still sore, achy feeling of mystomach. “What choice do we have? Calloway is too powerful. He owns this fucking town.”

And her. The one woman who should never be owned by a man like him—Morpheus Calloway owns Juliet Donovan, and the knowledge makes me want to rip him apart piece by fucking piece.

“I’m going to take care of it.” Nolan’s words penetrate my thick skull and have me looking back at him.

“You’re going to take care of it?” I repeat his words back at him in a question before shaking my head. “How? He’s not the type of man you can just kill, Nolan. He’s not your father.”

Nolan’s gaze darkens, the set of his jaw hardening. “Any man can be killed, some just require more preparation.”

Morpheus Calloway requires more than just preparation, I want to tell him. The fucker needs a whole army, and we need alibis. Not just alibis, we need to have absolutely no question of our involvement. If we’re going to kill the richest man in Silverwood, no one can know. Not even her.

I settle my eyes on Nolan and let him see the truth in my gaze. If he wants to do this—I’m all in. Some men exist only because of a mistake of the universe and Calloway is one of them. I have no qualms about fixing that mistake.

“What’s the plan?”

41

LEX

Loving something that hurts has always been my default. It’s all I know. From my parents. To the girl I could never have. To the aunt that let me live with her like a lonely pet until I ran away and never cared enough to come searching for me.

Love has claws and needles and knives. It pricks, swipes, stabs at you until you’re littered with the scars of its being. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t surprised when Juliet left. The shock kept me from reaching out, sure, but what really stopped me from dragging her back was the fact that deep in the back of my head, a small voice whispered,I knew it.

I knew no one would want me. I knew she wouldn’t really mean any of it. I knew she wouldn’t care.

Then, the anger came. The rage. The unfettered fury and the pain and heartache. I wanted to make her bleed like she made me bleed. Our castle of pain came crumbling down with the realization that all of it was a lie.