NO ONE SPEAKS on the flight back to the District, to the city with so many secrets. The plane is a droning vessel of grief-stricken silence. I want to curl into a ball and sob. Want to moan at the possibility of our loss.
I want Clay.
My mind is drowning in blame.
Xander…
He’s gone. Taken. I dart my gaze to Cassidy, who is staring heartbrokenly out of the plane’s port-like window while an exhausted little Kelly lies in her lap. Cassidy combs her daughter’s golden hair with her fingers.
Then I look at Shoshanna. She is rocking the bassinet in front of her with her red sneakers—easily removable footwear—while punching buttons on her phone, concentration furrowing her brows.
What must they think of me?
Sorry.
Sorry. It’s a word I don’t say often anymore because Clay despises the way it slips from me unbidden. But today, I am to blame.
I’m so sorry.
God, I’m so sorry, Clay.
He was so busy protecting me…
He’ll regret that one day.
Regret me.
When we land, there is a car waiting for each of us, and I separate from Cassidy and Shoshanna without a goodbye. Striding away from them with hardly an upwards glance, I’m unable to bear their feigned expressions that hide screams of accusation. My presence is like a nail in Xander’s coffin.
Does my dad want me?
It was meant to be me.
Xander…
He was the one who taught me good things come in three— Where the hell are his? I try to breathe, to fight the boiling heat in my eyes, as I slide into the backseat with HJ. The door closes on us.
Twisting my hair around my finger, I swallow around the rising bile in my throat. I’m sick with grief that knots and twists inside me. That renders guilt and self-blame to my very marrow, to my core. To the parts of me that wanted to believe in Xander’s advice.
There is no sequence of good things, Xander.
Only bad. This is number one.
Xander: Number one.
Gazing out of the window at this city, I watch the blissfully ignorant citizens filter the walkways of Connolly under the early morning sun. The separation between me and them, a thin pane of tinted glass, a soundproof and bulletproof partition—and knowledge.
At the house, I climb out of the car. Under the constant cover of guards, I rush inside, needing Clay so I can ask, ‘What now? Are they still taking the compound? Are they waiting? What did my dad say he wanted?’
I’m halted by Clay’s voice, the sound of him so in control easing me slightly, needing that infallible assurance he is going to take care of this. He’s going to get Xander back. He’ll fix everything.
Within the room, I hear another voice, too. His brothers’—I can’t tell which one.
I wander slowly to the closed door of Clay’s office, leaning my shoulder against the wood and bating my breath. But soon, Carter and HJ appear beside me, and I glance guiltily at my feet, having been caught eavesdropping.
Carter only indicates for me to slide to the side so he can enter while HJ stands across the room, eyeing me.
‘He knows you are home, Miss Harlow. No need to hide,’ Carter advises as he walks into the office. Even so, I tuck behind the wall until the door closes again. Then I ignore HJ’s uncertain stare and press my ear to the wood.
‘Good. Carter is here.’ Clay’s voice nestles into my soul. ‘Is everyone back safely? And where they should be?’
‘Yes, Boss.’
‘Let’s get this sorted out,’ Clay orders. ‘I’ll drive into the campsite alone, and Carter will bring Max, Bronson, and our men in through the flames behind Dustin’s flank. Undoubtedly, he’ll have the Stockyard members there, but they’ll be on vehicles. You’ll be on foot.’
Through the flames?
A voice that I think belongs to Bronson says, ‘Gonna get myself a new bike on the way out. But it’s all lit up in red. How do you know where our yellow brick road is?’
‘The marked red is heat. Smoke, mostly,’ Carter confirms. ‘But I can get you in at this burnout site here. There is an old service road connected to it that runs around the campground. The trees were cleared for the pipes. It should have created a narrow fire break through the inferno. Not visible from above.’
‘Should have?’ Bronson asks in a quiet, unnerving way. ‘Can’t have my beautiful brothers burning their faces now. We need to be sure.’
‘Nothing is for certain with fires, Boss.’ Carter’s voice carries regret. ‘But I’ve seen worse than this fire. I was a smokejumper for two decades before your father hired me. I’m confident I can get you in and out.’
Bronson says, “We won’t bump into any fire-fighters out there, then? We don’t want innocent eyes around us.”
“The fire is contained,” Clay states, and his voice still catches my breath every time I hear it. “They have no need to be out there. No resources to put it out. It’s too large. State services are letting it run its course, and it’ll go out by itself come the wet season. I have all the roads blocked off. Services are at the head near homes, nowhere near the campsite.”
“He’s a clever son of a Butcher, isn’t he?” Bronson states, humour laced in his voice that doesn’t seem genuine—they are all on edge.
‘And Dustin won’t see you coming,’ Clay states, back to business, assertive and systematic. ‘You will enter from behind the campsite. Wait for my signal. Take the bikers out. If anything happens, if we don’t come back, Aurora will organise a hunting party.’
‘We bring the girl!’ someone states, his voice already tight and uneven with sentiment.
Me? I’m going—
‘No, Max,’ Clay dismisses. ‘We don’t.”
‘We can protect her,” Max grounds out. “But the girl needs to—’
‘Fawn,’ Clay corrects smoothly. ‘And I said no—’
Max cuts in. ‘If Dustin asks to see her, and you don’t have her, he’ll put a bullet straight into Xander’s head.’
He’s right.
We can’t risk it.
I can’t—
I can’t risk it.
‘This isn’t about Fawn.’ Clay’s foregrounding voice leaves no room for emotion. ‘He doesn’t care about her enough to risk his own life—’
‘This is about Xander!’ Max snaps, and tears slide down my cheeks, followed quickly by more. They are painful now, after having shed so many over the last twenty-four hours. They leak in thick hot rivulets down my face.
Max is right.
Please listen to him, Clay.
‘This is an execution. This is about us,’ Clay states with that cool indifference that hides his true intensity. I need him to think about Xander now. Think about his brothers.
‘No,’ Max repeats softly, hoarse, making me shiver.
‘You’re angry. Tired. Take a moment—’
‘No—’
‘Damn you, Max,’ Clay hisses, his temper simmering in that sound. ‘I will not hand over Fawn. This conversa—’
‘We’re your brothers!’ Max’s voice breaks, and the talons of guilt circle my throat, tightening around the column as I listen to the Butcher brothers turn on one another.
For me.
Because of me.
Max bites out, ‘He’s your little brother—’
‘Would you trade Cassidy? Think about what you are asking of me,’ Clay says, a lethal dare stalking his words.
His tone buckles my knees, forcing me to slide down the door until I hit the floor and wrap my arms protectively around my legs. You can’t choose me, Sir.
Not over them…
‘And what about Xander? What about Bronson?’ Max’s voice rises with each forced word. ‘The one you made do all the dirty work? What about when we were just children?’ Max growls, straining to continue, as though he is fighting with honesty. ‘Dammit! We needed our big brother! What about then?’ He laughs contemptuously, bringing anger to the forefront to veil the honest declaration that a man like Max Butcher needed his big brother. ‘I don’t know why I’m surprised by this,’ he goes on. ‘I thought maybe you’d changed. Without Jimmy holding your strings. But I see I was wrong. You’re still the same self-important prick you were when we were children.’
‘Max.’ Bronson says his name so quietly it could be a ghost moving through the room.
Clay reasons, ‘I will get him out—’
‘He’ll kill Xander,’ Max states coldly, all his emotion smothered into bitter-ridden detachment. ‘He’ll kill him because he can, and I’ll kill you because I can’t stand to share your fucking air.’
Seconds later, the door slams into my spine, sliding me across the floor. Wincing, I climb to my feet as Max’s formidable body appears in the jamb. He steels when he notices me, nothing but venom in his assessing grey eyes.
Then he strides away, his body taking him quickly from the thing he despises. Me.
I exhale hard, shaken to my core by his hatred.
It looks familiar—the disdain. A look so becoming I’m prickly and self-conscious like the old Fawn again. A Harlow. Not a Nerrock. And definitely not a Butcher… My fingers meet the cool surface of the Monarch butterfly pendant hanging around my neck.
I brush my fingertips over it.
My dad can’t hurt me. No one can hurt me except Clay. Nothing will hurt more than to see my everything’s eyes flash with that familiar contempt-filled look.
Needing to see his eyes—
See reassurance.
See love.
With my breath uneven and forced, I walk on hesitant legs to the opening and stand there unnoticed. No—ignored.
Bronson has his shoulder against the wall, so motionless he could be a sculpture as he stares at Clay while lost within his own green gaze. He’s a little frightening like this…
And Luca is sat, silent, his eyes glazed over as though he is staring at something far in the distance.
I shift my sight across from him to the other side of the desk where I once watched footage of my own assault. Carter is conversing with his boss, earning himself all of Clay’s attention. Clay rubs his jaw in contemplation, but he’s glacial in every inch of his powerful suited body. His eyes are glued to the monitor ahead. He’s getting the job in order.
Dutifully, without emotions.
So very Clay Butcher.
And he doesn’t look up.
Not once. But he knows I’m here. He always does—
My stomach twists.
He’s ignoring me on purpose. Maybe… he knows he is making the wrong decision but simply can’t bring himself to change it… maybe? He’s so heavily wrapped in the promises that binds him to me.
To protect me.
To keep me.
To choose me.
‘I’ll always choose to protect you, little deer.’
That he can’t see what needs to happen. I gaze at him, adrift for a moment in his beauty, the tense lines of his sharp jaw, the gravity of his blue eyes. He’s spectacular. I was half right: belonging to him is the sweetest of existences but being loved by this man… I sigh. It’s like starting anew with wings.
My eyes well up.
I can’t accept his choice. God, I wanted Benji to choose me, my mum too, anyone, but I can’t accept his choice, not when it’s at his own expense and not at Xander’s.
It’s a cruel fucking joke, but I’d rather lose him, lose myself, lose this whole wonderful life than have him lose Xander and blame himself. He already carries enough guilt. I can’t allow it. I’d rather be a sweet memory in his mind. A sweet girl who he was very fond of once…
Who he loved…
I smile at that.
I won’t allow him to endure Xander’s death. Won’t let it start another sequence of bad things. Not this time.
Moving away from the door, I find myself walking in the direction Max disappeared, Henchman Jeeves as my shadow.
