And I'm not naive enough to think they'll just trade one for the other.
They'll kill us both.
Probably Elfe and Mom too, just to make their point.
Some secrets have to stay buried.
Even if they're killing you from the inside.
I feel his eyes on me again.
I can't help it—I look.
The Texan is still watching me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
Not leering like the drunk assholes who hit on me at Cactus Jack's.
This is different.
Like he's trying to solve a puzzle, figure out what makes me tick.
Like he recognizes something in me.
The same thing I recognized in him when I walked in.
Two people with dead eyes and too many secrets.
"Who is that?" Elfe asks quietly, following my gaze.
"No one. Just another MC asshole passing through."
But even as I say it, I know it's a lie.
There's nothing normal about the man at the end of the bar.
Runes and Fenrir approach our table maybe twenty minutes later.
I see them coming and my whole body tenses.
I haven't seen Fenrir since the night Dad interrogated me about the leak.
The night everything fell apart.
He'd been there in the room, watching while Dad realized his youngest daughter had betrayed everything he'd built.
The disappointment in Fenrir's eyes had been almost worse than Dad's anger.
"Helle." Runes stops beside our table, hands in his pockets. Casual. Except nothing about this is casual. "Didn't expect to see you back."
"Family emergency." My voice comes out flat. "Here to help however I can."
"That so." It's not a question. Fenrir's studying me with those sharp VP eyes, probably cataloging every tell, every micro-expression that might reveal I'm lying.
Which I am.
Always am.
"We appreciate you coming back," Fenrir says, but there's no warmth in it. "Your father needs all the support he can get right now."
