“You think that’s what this weekend with you was about?” I ask her. “I just wanted to be with you! That’s it. There was no ulterior motive.”
“I wasn’t a distraction from the wedding?” she asks me softly without taking her eyes off the road.
“No!” I exclaim. “Yes, you did distract me from that shit, but you also made me see that I already care about you more than I ever cared about the woman I married!”
“Now you’re just trying to get off topic,” Lucy mutters.
“That’s not what I’m doing. And I didn’t tell you about the warrant because I didn’t think you would want to be near me once you found out!”
“So you just decided you weren’t going to even try and trust me enough to be honest?”
“I haven’t exactly had the best of luck in the trust department, have I?” I remark.
“I’m not Ellie! I don’t expect you to be a freaking saint, Nash. All I want is for you to be honest with me and trust that I can handle whatever it is that’s going on in your life.”
“There’s no reason for me to put this on you, baby. It’s my mess, and I don’t want you to have any part in it.”
“That’s it then? I’m gonna drop you off at Malcolm’s tonight, and then we’ll go our separate ways?”
“I wish that wasn’t the only option, Lucy, I do,” I tell her. “Just trust me when I tell you that I’m going away for a long time, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. This weekend with you is probably the only thing that will get me through the hell I’m about to go through. It meant everything to me, but it’s over and done. You deserve better than this, better than what I can give you, and it won’t take you long to see that for yourself.”
“Fuck you, Nash!” she shouts at me when we come to a stop and I realize we’re already here, sitting in front of Malcolm and Naomi’s old farmhouse. “Get out of my car!”
Even though she’s angry and it will likely get me slapped, I still grab the sides of Lucy’s face and kiss her mouth hard. After a second of my lips working over hers, she finally opens up and lets me in, our tongues colliding like it’s the end of the world. In a way, it is the end for me.
I don’t want to end it, but eventually I make myself pull away and then tell her, “Forget about me. Find someone else to stalk. I was nothing but a waste of your time.”
Climbing out of the car before I do or say something stupid like ‘Come visit me behind bars’ or ‘I’ll write you every day,’ I open the door to the backseat to grab my bag and then slam the door shut without another word.
Malcolm walks out the front door with his little girl on his shoulder right around the time that Lucy puts her car in drive and throws dust on me as she peels out down the gravel road.
“Lucy didn’t want to join us for your last supper?” Malcolm asks as I walk up the porch steps.
“Nah, it’s best to make a clean break,” I reply.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You fell hard for her, didn’t you?” he asks with a cocky grin as he rubs circles on his daughter’s back.
“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Why the hell else would you drag her into our shit?”
“I didn’t drag Lucy into anything,” Malcolm counters before pausing. “Okay, so I did persuade her initially, but the rest is on you two. I can’t lie, though. I figured you two would end up together.”
“How the hell did you know that? She’s the opposite of Ellie in every single way that counts.”
“You’re my best friend. I know what you needed – someone to kick you in the ass and not be afraid of their hands getting dirty.”
“I sort of hate you for throwing us together right when I’m done.”
“You’re not done,” Malcolm grits out. “And I was joking about this being your last supper. Keep the faith, brother.”
“Easier said than done,” I mutter.
Lucy
That dick!
I can’t believe he wouldn’t just come out and tell me the truth about what’s going on after how close we were these past few days.
He deserves to rot in jail!
Except he doesn’t.
I don’t care what charges the police may bring against him; if Nash hurt or killed people, it was for a damn good reason and they were bad men.
And I know that I won’t be able to sleep until I know everything there is to know about the case.
As soon as I get home, I get to work looking up the search warrants. I want to know the dates of offense and all of the gory details to see if there is anything I can do to help, even though Nash made it clear that he doesn’t want me to wait for him.
I can’t give up on him, though.
That’s what Ellie did and his parents. All of his life, people have walked away and abandoned him when he needed them the most. The only constant in Nash’s life has been the guys in the Dirty Aces MC. They’re like a close-knit brotherhood who would do anything for each other, which is why Nash most likely did what he’s suspected of doing.
Wrong or right still matters to me. But I know Nash, and he’s not some psychotic killer who goes around hurting innocent people.
Within a few hours of research, I’ve connected the victims’ names to the fire at a mansion a few miles away that was owned by Harold Cox, the same victims Nash had me find addresses for their families. The autopsy reports showed that they were all killed by bullets before
