“Warden.” I reached him before he turned the corner. “Where are you going?” He stared at me for a long second, and it was instinct that had me grabbing him around the waist before he fell. “You had a lot more to drink than what I gave you, didn’t you? Come on. I’ll get you wherever you’re staying. My car is over there.”
“No, it’s not.” He shook his head. “Your car is in front of the bar.”
Did he not think I knew where I parked? I managed to get him into my father’s four-door sedan. The only thing I’d kept from him as it was useful and I’d needed a car. I would leave it here when I left. I didn’t intend to ever find out what happened to it.
Warden got in the passenger side, and in the thirty seconds it took me to get around the other side of the car, he was snoring with his head against the window. I laughed, couldn’t help myself. This was lunacy.
“Warden.” I shook his arm gently. “I don’t know where you’re staying.”
His eyes opened to slits. “A house, gorgeous.” Having delivered that nothing statement, his head flapped back down to the window and he snored again.
I sighed. Okay. Surely somewhere there would be written down the address of his hotel or the house he rented. I felt around in his jacket for his wallet, but I didn’t find anything, and I wasn’t going into his pants to check. That would have been too much. I didn’t have permission to touch him there and drunk guy was the same as drunk girl as far as I was concerned. The answer needed to be an assumed no.
We could stay in this car until he sobered enough to tell me or we could go to my apartment. I didn’t feel like sitting in a parked car until possibly tomorrow at lunchtime, depending on how long this took for him to sleep off.
Fortunately, I lived in a ground floor apartment. Much as I might have liked the safety of an apartment on an upper floor, I liked the idea of being able to run out and escape any time I wanted even better. I‘d only looked at ground floor options.
Warden managed to rouse himself enough to walk with me inside. I didn’t own a couch. Everything here was disposable. All would be left behind when I vanished. It hadn’t seemed like a good idea to waste money on something I wouldn’t use.
It looked like Warden was sleeping in my bed.
He lay back, his eyes still the glossy, unfocused gaze of a man truly out of it. W lifted his hand and managed to touch the side of my face as I took off his shoes. “You took them away.”
“Took what away?” I didn’t know if he’d answer me, if he’d even know we were having a conversation or if he was basically dreaming.
“Your eyes. You took them away from me. They haunt me.”
In the seconds it took me to think of something to say, he was out cold again. I sighed. Warden White was in my bed six months after I’d told him and the other Letters to leave me alone and let me go.
I turned him onto his side and grabbed the garbage can, just in case he needed it. When I finally fussed over him enough, I climbed in next to him. I thought I’d probably not be able to get to sleep because he was in my bed but that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, it was the morning rays and the sounds of his deep breathing that roused me. I hadn’t even dreamed as far as I could remember.
I’d sprawled out over his chest in my sleep and he now rested on his back, one arm over his head. One or both of us kicked the covers off, which didn’t surprise me at all. It was hot in my apartment. The whole building was old and the small window AC units weren’t great for a Louisiana summer. The two of us sleeping so close to each other would have only added to the problem.
I climbed out of the bed and made my way into the bathroom to shower, half expecting him to be gone when I came out. He’d floated back into my life, not making any sense, and he might disappear like that, too. But Warden was still out of it when I left the bathroom showered, and fresh, which meant it might be lunchtime before he roused.
That was okay. I had plans to make. I’d stepped into my small closet when he let out a long sigh and I heard the bed creak. The sigh was followed by more of a moan and then a groan. Yeah… I bet his head hurt. Badly.
Still in my pink bathrobe, I regarded him from the closet.
He looked around, confusion coloring his features, before he spotted me and must have realized where he was. “Hi.”
“Hi, yourself.” I marched over and sat next to him on the bed so I could get the painkillers out of my bedside drawer. He was going to need them. “How much had you drunk before you got into the bar?”
“It wasn’t booze that was my undoing last night.” He sighed. “Let me take these and I’ll… explain.”
I cleared my throat. “That sounds ominous.”
He held his head in his hands. “I just need a minute.”
“I’ll go make us something to eat.” I wasn’t running from the room. I refused to consider the idea. Things were different for me than they were six months ago. Just because Warden busted his way into my bar didn’t mean I had to fall back into my old ways of constantly doing things on their timetable. I was hungry so I would eat. Now.
If I walked a little fast, I just hoped he didn’t notice.
2
Plato once said that necessity was the mother of invention. For me, that had proven to be true for cooking. Wanting to live off my cash, and not the money the Letters helped me with or my father’s hidden millions, meant I cooked a lot more than I ate out. I didn’t have expensive food in the house, but I did have enough eggs to feed us.
I scrambled them up. It was the only way I could cook an egg. I’d destroyed too many good ones trying to learn how to do it over easy one day. Simplicity was the only way I could function. Warden walked out of my bedroom, shirtless.
I almost spilled the eggs all over the floor. At first, I couldn’t see anything but the fact that he was shirtless and beautiful. But that quickly faded as my gaze zeroed in to the massive wound on his right shoulder.
That hadn’t been there before.
“What happened to you?” I strode over to him and almost touched it before I thought better of it. Scars hurt. I knew better than most. “Warden?”
He held up a bottle of pills. “I’m going to take these instead of the ones you gave me. They work a bit better but only a little bit.”
“Warden?” He wasn’t going to deflect this.
“I got shot. About three weeks ago. It really sucked.”
My body went cold. I touched his arm, right below where he’d been hurt. “You got shot? Who shot you?”
“I decided I was out. When you were done I was done. I walked away. You wanted space. I gave it to you. I had a date in mind for when I would reach out and see if you were ready to see me again. To let me… well, there’s no way to make it up to you, Everly. But to see me again. To let me try to make you happy. They didn’t want me to leave. If I hadn’t happened to be armed right at that moment I’d have been dead. They got a shot in but so did I.”
I hugged him to me tightly. “Warden.” I didn’t know why I kept saying his name, but I did. He’d been hurt, could have died, and I’d have had no idea. “Who ordered this hit on you? Judson?”
“No. Judson hates me but he’s gone as missing as the rest of us. This is the new Alliance. It’s not the gentler, friendlier Alliance Judson dreamed of. They want me dead because I know where Marcus Petrone hides all of his money. The good news is he thinks I’m dead. He’s the only one from the original crew still alive. I let him think I was dead.”
I squeezed him tighter. “Warden.” I really had to come up with something else to say. “Are you okay?”
“Yes and no. Things could have been a lot worse. I could be dead. But right now the feeling in the tips of my fingers are coming and going. They still work, obviously.” He stretched his hand to show me. “But I keep losing feeling in some of my fingers. When it comes back on, it feels like a rat has bitten me. It’s weird. And I shouldn’t have been drinking at all on the meds. But poor choice.”
I touched his hand. “
Can you feel that?”
“Right now I can.” He brought my hand to his lips, and he kissed it. “I know you said stay away, but the achievement had to be recognized. You graduated. That’s huge. You did have someone watching.”
His body slightly shook. Okay, Warden was not okay. “What do the doctors say?”
“I haven’t really been able to see the right ones. I’m dead, remember?” That would be a problem and I didn’t like it. “You’re not at risk. They’re not looking for me on satellite anymore. I’m dead.”
I had to think but I also had to hug him. He’d been shot. I pulled him against me, and I held on for a second as I tried to still my racing heart. If one of the Letters were dead, I’d really have no idea. Going off the grid would mean even less contact.
“I’m going to be okay.” Warden spoke to the top of my head, his mouth pressing down on my hair. “Did you like the car?”
Car? I lifted my head. “What car?”
He blinked rapidly. “The car I gave you for your graduation. I did give it to you, right?”
I stepped away. “You handed me a box. I didn’t open it. You bought me a car?” I’d left the box on the counter and opened it now. Two sets of car keys and a picture of a black SUV were inside the box. It was beautiful, but it was way too much. “Warden, this was not… necessary. Why did you do this?”
“Because I love you, too.”
I set down the box and stared up at him. “What?”
“Before you left, you told us in the hotel room that you loved us. None of us answered. There was so much going on and… I should have told you that I loved you, too. I do. I love you, too. You graduated from college. I wanted to get you something you could use on your going off the grid plan.”
How did he know that? “What gave me away?”
“The working for cash, the not having stuff things. You haven’t looked in your bank account since you deposited your inheritance and paid tuition. Not a glance. It tells me you’re doing something else.” He looked around. “You’re in a small one bedroom with no furniture and you’re a multi-millionaire. You’re getting ready to go. Take that car.” He cleared his throat. “And me.”
If he were Trace, I’d think he was manipulating me. But this was Warden. He only dealt in serious. “You came to me because you’re hurt and you wanted to be with someone you loved who loves you, too. I’m so angry at you Warden, at all of you, but I do love you. That was real. Fucked up but real.” I pressed my forehead against his chest. “You didn’t have to bring me a car to get me to take care of you, to be here for you. How did you even pay for it? You’re dead.”
He winced. “I have bail out money all over the place.”
“And you used some of that to buy me a car?” I shook my head. “Thank you. But you could have shown up and said, Everly, I’m hurt, and I love you.”
He visibly swallowed. “It’s not easy for me to be needy.”
I actually understood that perfectly. “Go sit down.” I nodded toward my tiny table. “I’m going to feed you and then we’re going to figure some things out.”
He nodded but he didn’t move. I leaned up and kissed him. It was instinct, and I didn’t overthink it. Warden had clearly been through hell. My back was straight and anger made me clench my jaw. I didn’t want to be around the Alliance. I didn’t want anything to do with that. But how dare anyone come after what was mine?
I wasn’t sure I one hundred percent understood my own feelings. I could work it out later.
Warden kissed me back. His lips were the same. I recognized him, the feel of him, the way he tasted. I pulled back to look at him, both of us panting, and it was just from a kiss. My nipples hardened. I could have lost my head right now and push him down on the floor, fucking him until we were both somewhere in oblivion. I wasn’t going to do that.
Somehow.
I stepped back. “Go sit down. Eggs.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
I spooned eggs on to the plate and tried to make myself think. I had to… function. Warden’s presence was a giant elephant in the room and taking up all the space in my brain. I brought him the eggs and set them down in front of him. “They’re not going to be wonderful, but they’re not awful either.”
He furrowed his brow. “Are you going to eat?”
“What? Oh. Yes. I am.” I jumped up before I grabbed myself a plate and returned to the table. I sat back down and Warden picked up his fork.
He smiled as he ate the eggs. “That was an apt description of them. Thanks for the pretty good eggs.”
I laughed, nearly choking. “You’re welcome. Warden, why can’t you go to Judson? I think he would help you.”
He shook his head. “Somewhere along the lines in the years we plotted together, the five of us stopped trusting each other. When you spend all your time with other people showing just how awful, just how completely untrustworthy you can be to the rest of the world, there comes a threshold upon which you can’t go back. They know I’m an accomplished liar, a ruthless person, and I know they would sell me to the highest bidder if it reached some kind of agenda for them.”
I touched his hand, squeezing it. “Would you do that to them?”
He seemed to consider my question for a long moment. Sweat had broken out on his brow so he either was in a lot of pain or the medicine he was taking had that effect on him. Of course, he might have been hot because the apartment was and I’d just sort of adjusted during the day when I wasn’t trying to sleep.
Finally, he spoke. “I wouldn’t. I know that the others had plans in place, but I always sort of took it for granted that to save myself I could take them out financially. I never wanted to do that. I wouldn’t have, unless they struck first.”
“So maybe they feel that way, too. Maybe there’s an assumption of mistrust that isn’t real?” I really didn’t know. This was one of the things that had exhausted me when I hung out with them all in a large group. Where was their loyalty, and if they couldn’t be loyal to each other was there any chance of them having that sort of feeling for me?
He set down his fork. “I really don’t know, gorgeous. You know if I was up to par, I’d be all over you right now.”
I linked my foot with his under the table. “Judson is loyal to me.”
As I spoke the words, I realized they were true. He absolutely was. His feelings might not be the same as Warden’s. He might have been pissed and never wanted to see me again. I wouldn’t blame him for that. I’d announced I was done with all of them. He was entitled to be done with me.
But he wouldn’t hurt me. I was sure of that. Judson had his own morality, his own ethics. They didn’t necessarily match the rest of the worlds. Even knowing that, I was sure Judson would help me if I asked him to.
If for no other reason than he was sorry I’d ended up in that basement.
“I need to go for a run.” I could think better after I exercised. I’d started doing it again a month after I’d returned here. If I ever had clarity, it was after I’d moved my body to the point of exhaustion. “I’ll run to work.” That would be a good five-mile exertion. “And get the car you bought me. Where did you park it?”
He pointed to the box. “That’s why I left you the picture. So you’d know which one it was. Right in front of the bar. I wasn’t sure if I was going to just walk in, hand you the box, and leave.”
“Instead you stayed and drank on pain meds that then made you stumble around so you might have hurt yourself more? Or left yourself vulnerable if there was someone looking for you?”
Warden shrugged and then winced. “Not my smartest move.”
It turned out Warden White didn’t do pain or neediness very well. I kissed his chin. “Maybe take a nap. You’re three weeks from taking a bullet.”
“I’m trying really hard to not insist I drive you in your car to the new car and we both drive back together. I want to protect you, Everly. I’m always going to want that.”
I sighed. “I’m not a child. I don
’t need protection. I did when I first got out of Ben’s basement, but I’ve lived on my own for six months now. I’m fine to run. You’ll just have to get used to it if you’re staying here.”
He tilted his head. “I’m not leaving unless you kick me out.”
“Then don’t do anything to piss me off, I guess.” I winked at him. I was really only half kidding. I could love a person and also want them to leave me alone. These were all gifts from Ben and his basement. I wasn’t sure I could love exactly the right way for most people anymore. Maybe that was how W could love, too. We cared about each other but we were really pretty fucked up, too.
* * *
Halfway through my run, I’d decided we had to get in touch with Judson. There was no question about it. He’d know someone Warden could see and still be safe. The problem was how to do that. I didn’t have my phone anymore. I’d use Warden’s and hopefully Jud wouldn’t let me down.
By the time I’d gotten to the car, I’d changed my mind. We weren’t going to call, we were going to show up in Boston. It would be a lot harder for Jud to decide to not help Warden in person than it would be over the phone.
Why was I even worrying about this? It would never have occurred to me that Judson wouldn’t help until Warden put that idea in my head. So much for my mental clarity.
“Ms. Marrs.” A man I’d never seen before said my name. He came out of nowhere, and I wondered if he’d been standing in the shadows waiting for me. I had a knife taped to my back, I never went anywhere without it. I didn’t like carrying a gun. I’d shot my father without meaning to. With a knife, I had to look before I struck.
I put my hands on my hips. “Who are you?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
I shook my head. “Listen, buddy. I don’t talk to nameless assholes who come out of nowhere on the street. You’re going to want to back off.”
Deadly Truths: Kiss Her Goodbye #3 Page 2
