Page 21

Nadine Bradshaw seems nothing like her asshole brother. And yet, they’re cut from the same cloth. Same outlook on a lot of things—with different approaches. Different morals, but often things come to the same conclusion.

We sit in her office early on a Tuesday morning.

It’s been a few days since the bomb at the Hell Hounds’ compound and the body was found at Olympus. Longer still since the sheriff executed a search warrant on Bow & Arrow.

Nadine holds a seat on the city council. While that doesn’t exactly give her oversight of the sheriff—I suspect that would be a conflict of interest—both are elected positions. Both, in theory, answer to the people.

“I just want answers,” I say plainly.

Antonio has been in the rehab place for over a week. I haven’t seen him, but Vittoria has sent daily progress reports. Soon, he’ll be cleared to go home. And after that, he’ll return to work.

Probably.

Maybe he’ll retire.

The answers I need are in reference to the warrant. It shouldn’t have been signed in the first place, but I need to know which judge okayed it.

And why?

“I’m sorry,” Nadine says. “I can get you a copy of the warrant. Nathan should’ve given it to you already, but it has all the details.”

“It won’t say what they found.” I cross my legs and reach for one of the two coffee cups I brought with me. She hasn’t touched hers, but I’m not going to take that personally. “A body was found outside my club, and a judge signs a warrant for my computers? Really?”

She winces.

There is something there.

“It’s not Bow & Arrow—” She presses her lips together. Guilt flashes across her expression.

It’s not Bow & Arrow… which means this has to do with Terror?

Does someone want to see if I’m still running Terror?

As if I’d do it through my club’s books.

Although… a lot of cash comes through the bar, especially in the summer. Tourists love cash. They don’t want evidence of how much they spent on liquor or champagne on their credit cards. If there was ever a need to clean money, Bow & Arrow would be a great company to run it through.

“Fine,” I say in her silence. “I’ll take a copy of the warrant, then, please.”

She nods and gets up.

She leaves the office.

I hop up and circle to her chair. Her computer is still unlocked.

To be clear—I don’t suspect her of anything. But I do think the sheriff is wrapped up with Kade, which means Gabriel has access to him, too. And depending on how deep their wallets are…

I hate that Nathan Bradshaw isn’t loyal. He’s always followed the money, and for a while, he was fine. He was doing well, actually. Until Kade came along.

Fucking Kade Laurent.

Fucking Cyclopes.

I go to her recently sent emails and take a picture of the list. Then her inbox, just for the hell of it. And her deleted ones. Most people hide shit in their deleted folder, and it’s obtainable because they don’t wipe that browser.

Other than her slender laptop, her desk is clear.

Her heels click on the tile in the hall, and I race back around the desk. I drop into my seat and cross my legs again just as she reenters.

“Here’s a copy,” she says, extending a folder to me. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“You don’t know anything about your brother’s investigation at Olympus, do you?”

She gives me a look . “You know I can’t say.”

“Family dinner discussions? Anything?”

“I’m sorry, Artemis.”

I sigh. “Okay. Thanks.” I tuck the folder under my arm and head out, taking my coffee with me.

In the hall, I flip open the pages and scan the warrant.

It granted the sheriff’s office access to Bow & Arrow’s hard drives, including but not limited to: point-of-sale systems, accounting systems, office computers and phone lines, and identification scanners.

Weird.

I keep skimming, all the way to the bottom line, signed by a judge.

Justice Marcus Graves.

My heart sinks.

Graves … as in, Wesley Graves? As in—the fallen leader of the Titans, who went by the name Kronos.

Things just got a bit murkier.

There might not be a connection. It could be coincidence…

But there are a whole lot of reasons a potential relative of the man who drove Sterling Falls to war might want to see the whole city burn.

I’ve come to two conclusions: Gabriel is going down , and heroin is no fucking joke. It’s been a week since I caved, and I’m feeling it. Everything hurts. Seriously, everything. My hair hurts. How does that even happen?

The guys—Reese, Saint, Kade—have so far left me alone. Saint is probably still freaked out from me needing him to hold me. Reese is watching me with hawk eyes, still not one hundred percent sold on my lie. And Kade… well, Kade can fuck off.

I’m lying in the bathtub, fully clothed, when the fucker enters.

The water has gone cold. Actually, I’m not sure it was ever warm. My teeth chatter. They hurt, too, for the record.

“What are you doing?” Kade asks.

I glare up at him. “What do you mean, what am I doing? What does it look like I’m doing?”

I’m fighting the urge to slip under the water and drown myself. That might be more pleasant than the shitstorm wreaking havoc on my body.

He squats beside the tub and dips his fingers in the water. Instantly, his mild concern deepens. “This is ice-cold.”

“It’s lukewarm.”

“You’re shivering,” he points out.

I shrug.

Let’s backtrack to Gabriel, and how the son of a bitch is going down. I’ve been contemplating this for a while, but with no true leads, no idea of his motivations, I’m stuck.

There’s one avenue I could explore, but I hesitate to venture down it. It would probably result in him going absolutely bananas, and I’m not sure I’d survive that. Although it sure is tempting…

No, no. That will remain on the back burner until I’m even more desperate. If such a place exists.

He has to go down in some other way. Like… well, maybe not murder. Imprisonment?

Shit, I can’t do that to him. It would be what he deserves, but it’s kind of like putting someone back in the trauma that made them this way.

Well, not kind of like . It is .

Imprisonment is out. Killing him is out. Public embarrassment?

I’m losing it.

I focus back in on Kade. “How goes the destruction of Sterling Falls?”

He grimaces, which I have to assume means it’s not going well.

Or it’s going too well?

He reaches into the tub. Water sloshes everywhere and soaks his sleeves in the process, but he doesn’t even flinch. He grabs at my knees, wraps one arm behind my back, and hauls me up.

It’s actually impressive. I’m solid. A lot of muscle, a bit of fat. Some depression… You know, the usual.

“How come you haven’t seen Antonio?” he asks.

I blink up at him. I hadn’t realized my eyes were shut, and it takes effort to force them wider. He perches me on the counter and strips me. If his movements were anything less than methodical, I’d fight.

I promise. Really. I’d fight to have a big, strong asshole try to get me naked.

But he’s not doing it to be sexual, he’s being nice . Arguably the worse of the two.

Once I’m out of the wet clothes—he tosses them back in the tub, where they make satisfying splashes—he bundles me in a towel. One around my body, another slung over his shoulder. He opens drawers until he finds a wide-toothed comb and carefully runs it through my hair.

My painful, aching hair.

But the teeth against my scalp doesn’t feel too terrible, and my eyes flutter again.

“Where’d you learn to do this?” I ask when he blots my hair with the extra towel. “This care-for-a-girl stuff.”

He meets my gaze. “A sister.”

“Right.” I hum. “The medical bills sister.”

The wall behind his eyes? The one I hadn’t realized was missing? Yeah, that slams back into place.

I catch his wrist. “I didn’t mean to say it like that. You said she was sick?”

“She had a long hospital stay,” he says on a sigh. “Yeah. It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, it mattered if you were brushing her hair. That’s an act of service. Love and stuff.” I raise my eyebrows. “It’s okay to admit you love and care for your sister.”

Or… love d and care d for his sister.

I don’t actually know if she’s alive—and I don’t want to know. To learn that someone close to him died some terrible way would be too tragic for me to handle.

Doesn’t that sound bad?

It would be too tragic for me?

Someone needs to slap me before it’s too late.

“Where are your parents?”

“Throw me back in the water, why don’t you,” I mumble.

He wraps that second towel around my hair and rubs my arms through the other towel.

“Why are you even here?”

“To ask you probing, painful questions about your family. Obviously.” A hint of a smile appears, then vanishes. Worry takes over, but he never looks away.

I sigh. “Right, well, Dad’s an asshole and Mom’s a pushover. That’s about all you need to know.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What? You don’t think a girl just ends up in a sex trafficking ring, do you?”

He stops.

Yeah, he didn’t think of that one.

“I wasn’t kidnapped in the middle of the night.

I wasn’t snatched out of the house where I lived with two loving, peaceful parents.

My father put me in the car on my fifteenth birthday and drove me to meet a man who ran Terror.

That man put me in the back of a truck with others, and off we went.

With an exchange of money, of course.” My gaze stays on Kade.

“After all, someone had to pay off his gambling debts.”

Kade’s mouth opens and closes.

I’ve actually stumped him?

“You hadn’t said any of that,” he finally mutters. “I mean, we talked about Terror, but…”

“It’s embarrassing.” I glare at him. “You think I’m proud of what happened to me? So many more girls—and boys—came out of that place with physical scars along with the emotional trauma. My scars are just mental.”

He winces. He looks like he’s about to say something, then clearly thinks better of it. I kind of wish he would say what he thinks, though. Cracking open his brain and digging into his thoughts might be the only way I inch closer to forgiving him.

It doesn’t happen, though. His movements stay methodical. He unplugs the drain in the tub, finishes rubbing down my limbs with a towel. He leaves me on the counter and comes back with clothes.

A t-shirt, leggings, his sweatshirt.

I spot the Cyclopes logo stitched on the breast, and my anger flares all over again. He put me in his sweatshirt so nonchalantly—and for what?

“Why make me wear that?”

“I was hoping it would keep you safe,” he admits in a low voice. “But it didn’t.”

I sigh.

No, it definitely did not. It didn’t stop the target on my back. It didn’t signal that I was protected . Clothing doesn’t work like that in Sterling Falls.

My conversation with Nadine returns, and suspicion prickles at my skin. She said there was outside influence. The sheriff alluded to the same, hinting that it wasn’t his decision to search my club. To take all the computers, our hard drives…

“Did you push the sheriff to search Bow & Arrow?” I ask.

He meets my gaze. “What? No.”

Yeah, right.

“You guys planted a body?—”

“I had nothing to do with that,” he growls. “I’m not a fucking murderer.”

Okaaaay, Mr. Crabby Pants .

He gives me his back while I put on the new clothes, and I clear my throat when I’m done. I leave the sweatshirt sitting where he placed it, because if there’s one thing I cannot handle, it’s more fucking Cyclopes.

He only frowns a little when I lift a forgotten one from the hook on the back of the door. Once it’s on, he opens the bathroom door again. This time with the intention of us exiting.

When I entered the bathroom, I was aching. Kicking off my shoes was painful, so I lowered myself into the hot water fully clothed. No one was home to stop me, anyway. I was allowed to wallow in my misery.

I guess I did that a bit too well.

There’s something in his expression now that seems… regretful. But is it for something he’s actively doing? Or his past decisions?

I eye him.

His hand lands on the small of my back, ending my hesitation. He guides me out and turns me away from my bedroom. I move faster into the main living space, just so his touch will stop.

Reese and Saint both wait for us.

Oh, fuck.

The reality of the situation crashes down on me, and I bite back a grimace.

Is this an intervention?