Me too, but now, thanks to him, I don’t think that’s something we can count on. “You should have asked for help,” I point out to him, but when his face falls, I can’t hold on to the annoyance for long. Look at me. Between him and Perry, I’m a total pushover. “You have us too now. And we’re going to figure this thing out.”
He takes my hand, and at first, I think it’s in support, but then he speaks. “Are you aware you’re missing an ear?”
Even though he’s being totally serious, I laugh. “Yeah. That’s a really long story. And it starts and ends with a guy named Perry …”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
PERRY
The secondwe get to Tommy, lurking at the bottom of a set of metal stairs, I draw back my fist and swing. It hits his face with a satisfyingwhackand a very unsatisfying sting that shoots through my hand.
“Ouch!”
“I’ll say!” Tommy stands, hand covering his cheek. “What the hell, Perry?”
I give him my most menacing stare, ignoring the way I’m cradling my hand in front of my chest like a kicked puppy. “Don’t ever pull that shit with my boyfriend again.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“Well … not … officially, but it’s going to happen. So consider yourself warned.”
Instead of looking scared, I’m pretty sure he’s going to laugh at me. “Okay, okay, I’m warned.”
I don’t appreciate the way he’s blowing me off. I’ve never had fear like I did in that second. I’d thought he was serious, that he was actually going to kill one of the two most important people in my life, and if Ever hadn’t taken over and explained to me what Tommy was doing, he probably wouldn’t be standing here.
“I almost killed you.”
“I’d believe that if you’d ever killed anyone.”
“That’s how angry I was. If Ever didn’t tackle me, you’d be dead right now.”
Some of the humor dims. “Got it.”
Lars and Arlie take that moment to join us, escorted by two men with the type of muscle you don’t want to test.
“Where’s Reilly?” Lars asks.
I’m about to tell him I don’t know when Tommy points up the stars. “With his brother.”
“You found Colin?”
“Sure did.” Tommy drops into a bow. “You’re welcome.”
I consider telling Lars what Tommy did, sure he’ll give my friend a matching bruise on the other cheek, but I hold off. We still need the baddie bunch.
The door at the top of the stairs opens, and St. Clare walks out, followed by his brother. I’m stupidly relieved to see St. Clare is okay, and my eyes follow every step he takes down the stairs as I hold back from pushing past the others to get to him. His blond hair is a floppy mess, butdamn, it looks good on him. That, and this all-black getup we’re wearing, makes him look like even more of a badass than his suits do.
“We need to find Carson” are the first words out of St. Clare’s mouth. “This is all on him.”
Ever grunts. “Even if I wanted to be involved with that, no one knows his location.”
“Luther would.” Everyone turns and looks at me. “He works with him a lot. You can’t tell me he doesn’t keep tabs on these kinds of things.”
“He’s not just going to tell us though,” Arlie says. But while she says that, I can tell things are working madly in her brain.
“Another option is Yanni,” Colin adds, and it throws me how different his voice is to his brother’s. St. Clare’s is full of life, Colin’s is … like a robot. I’d been expecting them to be similar versions of the same guy. “They work together. Don’t know how we’d get it out of him, but if that’s our only option …”
Before they can follow that train of thought, I jump in too. “I don’t think he’s an option. Yanni was clear that if he had to see meagain, it wouldn’t be pretty, and he was borderline scared of Carson Alexander too. Next?”
