“And what if I can’t?”
“You mean what if you won’t?”
“Maybe I do mean that. Tudor and Redcars gave me a second chance, made me see myself as something better than I was. I owe them for that.”
“As a lawyer who can help out every so often, not fucking one of the ex-cons with their dubious pastsand ties to gangs and sealed fucking juvenile records!”
“I’ll control Jamie?—”
Caleb snorted. How will you control him?”
“He listens to me?—”
“You gonna take away his matches?”
“Fuck you, Caleb!”
“No, fuck you for messing this up by not thinking. Are you stupid?” Caleb rounded on me as he spoke, his hands in fists, but Levi stopped him with a firm grip, and Caleb backed off. This wasn’t who we were. We were a team—united, focused, built on trust. We had each other’s backs, worked toward the same goal. We didn’t fall apart like this. We didn’t turn on each other.
Everyone fell quiet, but it was Caleb, with his brutal honesty, who laid everything on the table. “If you get in trouble, it’s the end of our team and the list. Using what we found, taking people down the legal way needs you out there clean as a fucking whistle, not getting your rocks off with some random ex con.”
“Caleb—”
“We don’t take the bad people out by killing; we do it the right way!”
“I never signed up for murder,” Sonya interjected.
“You say that, Son, but we all agreed to give whatwe knew to Redcars so they could take out John Mitchell,” I said.
She blanched and shook her head, “That’s not fair, Killian.”
“Life isn’t fair, Sonya,” I said.
Caleb shrugged off Levi’s hold and stood between us. “Don’t you fucking dare turn on us, asshole!”
“We’re accessories to murder, already. You don’t think some of what we’ve found and leaked hasn’t led to some of the perpetrators committing suicide? Aren’t we complicit in their deaths?” I was on a roll, but I knew in my heart none of it made sense. What the fuck was I saying?
Sonya crossed her arms and fixed me with a look that could melt steel. “You want to play both sides, Killian? Then own it. Don’t come at us with half-baked moral outrage, then justify dragging an unstable man out of a fire you knew he started. You act like you’re the only one with skin in this game, but we all bleed for this team. You fuck up, and we all burn with you.”
I opened my mouth, but she wasn’t finished.
“You think you’re the only one who’s been tempted to cross lines? The rest of us didn’t just magically grow a conscience. We make choices. Every damn day. And yes there is a side of me thatfeels guilt, but you know that Jamie would have found John Mitchell if he’s as good as you say he is.”
“I’m sorry?—”
“Don’t interrupt me!” she snapped. “If you want the team to survive, you better start remembering that your actions don’t just affect you.”
Regret flooded me. “I know. Shit, I didn’t mean that, Son, I’m sorry. I don’t know where my head’s at.” I peered past Caleb to see her expression.
She closed her eyes briefly and nodded. “It’s okay,” she said.
But it wasn’t okay.
What would my life be like without the team? I was the vigilante dressed in three thousand-dollar suits to fool everyone; I had my place with the team. We did good things, but Jamie…
“I couldn’t letanyoneburn,” I defended one last time.
Caleb sighed. “Not even if they were the one who started the fire?”
