Beauty was subjective, but there was nothing questionable about how good-looking Judson was. He was the prettiest of all of them, although I’d place on money on his hating that description, so I’d never use it. His brown hair looked like it had gotten sun kissed which told me he’d been spending a lot of time outside, his skin was tanned to follow up that look. He might have been on vacation except that his greenish, blueish eyes were haunted, tired. Dark circles were visible even through the deep tan.
He moved before he said anything. It wasn’t until his arms were around me that he spoke again. “Everly.”
Judson pulled me so close up against him that it would have been hard to breathe if I’d cared at all about oxygen right then. He smelled like coffee and cinnamon.
“Everly.” He said my name again, sort of choking on it. “How are you here? What’s going on?”
His arms shook as he embraced me, and I held on as tightly as I could. “Hi, Judson.”
He pulled back to look at me, his hands traveling up my body until they cupped my cheeks. He breathed hard. “Hi, Everly. You’re okay? I’ve been really, really worried about you.”
“I’m okay.” I brushed his hair out of his eyes. He needed a haircut. For Jud, he was downright disheveled. “Are you?”
“The last time I saw you… fuck. There is so much to say. Not here. Not on this plane. You came home. I’m so glad you came home. Where have you been?”
We did need to talk about all of what he’d just said, including the home comment. And it seemed he hadn’t been following me through the art of stalking like the others. “Jud, before we do any of this, and there is a lot to say, we need to help Warden.”
He ran his thumbs over my cheeks as his face got tight. “We can’t help him, Everly.” He kept saying my name, and I didn’t mind hearing it spoken from his voice. “He’s dead.”
I shook my head. “He’s not. He got away. He came to me. That’s how we’re here. Derrick appeared. It’s a long story but Warden needs help. He didn’t get the proper care when he got shot. He can’t feel his hand sometimes. He needs help. Derrick said to come to you, that you’d help if he asked. Will you? Please.”
His face softened. “You’re serious about this? Warden is alive? Where is he? Where is Derrick?” I watched as clarity came back into his gaze. The shock of seeing me was wearing off, and the doctor was taking over his mind again, but he still didn’t let go of me.
I grabbed onto his shirt. “Derrick got off in Maryland to lead them away. Warden is in the luggage compartment in a duffle bag.”
“He’s in a duffle bag?” He looked around like he might see it. “They’re loading him into the van. Fuck. Okay. Yes, I can help. Not me particularly. It’s not the kind of medicine I practice. But there’s an underground hospital network. Most of the doctors left the Alliance with me. We’re trying to do what we can to rebuild, and we have each other’s backs. If it’s not simple, there are techniques we haven’t released to the general public.”
I nodded. “Like my face. Like how they fixed my face when I was little.”
“Yes, how they fixed your beautiful face.” He kissed my cheek where the scar should have been but never was because of a procedure most people would never have. A huge number of my problems in life could be traced to that day I decided to pet a dog I should have left alone. Funny how one decision could so concretely lead to so many others.
I trembled as his mouth touched my cheek. “There are so many things to say, but we need to check on Warden.”
“Yes. Come.” He dropped his fingers only to link them with mine. “I hope they listened and didn’t drop the bag too hard into the van.” He sighed. “I really did think he was bringing me a bomb.”
“Well, it is Derrick.” I couldn’t deny he might bring a bomb.
Judson stopped abruptly. “What is that?” He pointed at my neck, and my free hand went straight to the necklace I’d all but forgotten was there.
“Oh.” I let it go. “My graduation present from Derrick.”
Judson tugged me closer, and I went, following him down the stairs. “What graduation?” he called over his shoulder.
We got to the bottom of the stairs before I answered. “I finished school. Not a big deal.”
We both climbed into the back of the van. Like a limo, there was a barrier between the driver and us. I couldn’t see who it was. We sat in a row of seats, and I was relieved to find Warden had let himself out of the duffle and was in one of them himself. Still, he was bent over, and I could see sweat on his forehead. I didn’t think it was there because of the duffle bag being hot.
Judson stared at him for a second before he put a hand on Warden’s good arm. “I thought you were fucking dead.”
“That was the idea.” He nodded. “Sorry about that.”
“I’m really relieved to see you’re not. And that however it happened, you got here. Plus, you brought Everly with you so that’s a bonus.”
Warden grinned. “I thought it might endear me to you. Did she give you the speech yet?”
“Speech?” Judson looked over at me, nodding toward the seatbelt he clearly wanted me to put on. I strapped myself in, and he did the same. “What speech?”
“I didn’t.” I kissed Warden’s cheek. “I will. I promise it won’t just be you and Derrick who get it.”
Judson knocked on the divider, and it opened slightly. “To the warehouse.”
The divider closed, and I had to ask an obvious question. “Do you not trust the driver?”
“We trust each other as much as we need to. I think that’s true for all of the Alliance.”
I sighed, and Warden shook his head. “Have the talk with him.”
Judson shifted slightly to look at me full on. “What talk? And can I pause that for just a second? Warden, did you see what Derrick did here? It’s half a million dollars’ worth of diamonds. Would have been nice for him to have maybe alerted the rest of us that he was going to do this so we could all have known it was graduation, and I could have bought her something, too.”
My whole body froze. “How much money?”
Oh, I had to get this off my neck just as soon as I could find a safe place to store them. I was not a person who walked around with half a million dollars of anything. What if I ended up having to hide in the dirt somewhere? I couldn’t have half a million dollars of something I had to take care of.
“You just panicked her.” Warden put his hand on the back of my head. “I actually bought her a gift. She likes it although she only got to use it once since I’m so fucked up right now.” He grabbed his head. “I’ll get it wherever we end up staying, beautiful.”
“You bought her a gift?” This time Judson raised his voice. “I don’t love you less than they do. I just didn’t know. You said stay away. You’d been through hell, so I respected your wishes. For now. I was coming back. After enough time for you to decide you didn’t hate me. Fuck, now I’m the only one who didn’t buy you a gift? What did you get your degree in? I’m two steps behind. No, I don’t accept this.”
Warden side-eyed me. “I told you he was going to hate those diamonds.”
Judson hated them, and I was practically afraid to move lest something happen to them. “First of all, this isn’t a competition. I don’t need gifts. I’m overwhelmed with them, and I… please don’t buy me anything. We need to talk about things. What Warden keeps talking about. This isn’t ideal.”
Warden shook his head. “Don’t mind me. I’m going to close my eyes. I’m really wishing you would let me have another pain pill.”
I winced. “Judson is the doctor. I just suggested it had been very little time.”
“You probably have the wrong one.” Judson sighed. “We’re ten minutes. Can you hold on? I’m not carrying any. Derrick didn’t tell me to bring my medical bag. I expected more to be defusing a bomb.”
I tilted my head. “Is that something you can do?”
“If I have to. But not as well as Kade.”
Hearing his name panged my heart. I missed him. And Trace. This really was only going to work if they all wanted to be with me. Otherwise, it was just me being some sort of psycho that couldn’t be satisfied with what she had—what she shouldn’t want to begin with.
“Judson, I don’t know if you want to pick things back up with me or not. Derrick and Warden seem to want to do that. I’m not pressuring you. The thing is, I’ve had a lot of time to consider what happened. A lot of time to think.”
He met my gaze. “I have, too. Believe me. I have a lot of things to say to you. I’m deeply, profoundly sorry. Maybe the most I’ve ever been in my whole life.”
That was saying a lot because Jud had been through a lot of huge life events that he carried guilt for. I squeezed his knee. I’d worked Warden and Derrick over sexually when I’d done this, but they’d both made overtures that way. Judson had been affectionate but made no moves on me.
“Everly.” He started to speak, and I interrupted him.
“I need to finish. Please. I’ve changed a lot. I’m really dark inside.”
Warden’s eyes flew open, so the idea that he wasn’t paying attention really was bullshit. I’d not thought otherwise. He opened and closed his mouth, maybe rethinking whatever he was going to say.
“But if you do, what I told Derrick and Warden, is there’s just one thing I cannot live with from before. I need you to swear, to mean it, that you won’t betray each other. I can’t be in whatever this relationship is with the five of you if I think you have any plots or plans behind each other’s backs. I can’t. It’s a non-negotiable thing to me, and I have to have your oath on it. I have to know you mean it. I need you to all be as good to each other as you are to me.”
It was hard to read Judson when he had his guard up, but he didn’t right then. He tilted my chin until I looked him straight in the eyes. “I can do that, Everly Marrs. I can be that guy. I can do that. For you.”
He kissed me, square on the lips, softly at first and then harder. I moaned against him, and he dragged me closer, hindered only by the seatbelt he’d silently ordered me to put on. Warden stroked my back, and for those quiet seconds, I felt as adored as I ever had in my entire life.
When Judson finally pulled back, it was Warden who spoke. “You’re not dark inside, Everly.”
I leaned back, taking deep breaths to try to calm my heart. “I am, Warden. Know that up front. I’m very dark inside now. Or maybe I always was and it’s just less hidden. I don’t know.”
Warden winced but managed to kiss me on my shoulder where my shirt had moved down to expose part of my skin. “We like all your messy parts.”
Judson pushed our foreheads together. “For sure we do.”
“I wanted to stay away. To be done with all of this, all of you. And then I was so lonely for you and I didn’t know what to do about it. I was going to run farther away.”
“We would have found you,” Jud whispered. “I can promise you that. I might not have been invading your privacy yet, but I would have. Shortly.”
Warden laughed. “I have no patience.”
The car slowed and Judson nodded. “Time to go, Warden. We’ll get you fixed up. I promise you. It’s a day for that.”
* * *
The warehouse was just that from the outside. On the inside, it was a hospital like any other I’d ever seen. Doctors and nurses, all male, ran around treating patients. It seemed like there were a lot of injured. Things must have been really bad. Maybe my pilot was right. My guys needed to get back in charge.
“Kade.” I was alone, and I spoke to no one unless Kade happened to be monitoring me. I hoped he was. “I miss you. Come and find me. Please. Unless you don’t want to. In which case, I’ll respect that. The trouble is that I don’t know if you can hear this so I may bother you one more time. This is crazy.”
Trace was probably not listening. That wasn’t really his style. He was more of an in the room guy. I missed him, too.
Judson rounded the corner, meeting me in the waiting room. He drew me to him like he had on the plane. We hadn’t really done this before. Touching was tricky with him, but he seemed to really like it now, need it almost.
“He’s going back. The right surgeon is here. They just botched the whole thing. There is this technique… it has to do with nerves. Do you want to hear the science?”
I shook my head. “No, not ever. I don’t do medical all that well.”
“I’ll spare you.” He laughed. “Everly, you needed me, and I was giving a fucking speech to a room full of psychopaths and assholes.”
I laughed, the description striking me as so funny I almost cackled from hearing it. “It was a little bit like you were there. You were over the speaker from the television. You were talking the whole time, actually.”
“Fuck. Really?” He shuddered. “I’m sorry that happened. How are you doing with it?”
I leaned back. “Not well. But I’m sleeping. That’s a plus. I’m functioning. I finished school, held down a job. Managed to get back to running. I’m… making do. And now I’m back here which should feed my need to do evil things. A very real problem for me. Every person has become a person I might potentially stab in the eye.”
He blinked. “Marcus is doing a lot of destruction. I’ve all but stepped away entirely. I don’t understand it. He was a non-entity on the council, nothing to the leadership. Now he’s sending people to try to kill Warden, destroy the financial markets, and leave death and destruction everywhere? I don’t get it. All of this to say, you may get your chance to stab people in the eyes.”
I kissed his chin. “How long will Warden be out?”
“Couple of hours. Then he’s going to stay here mostly out of it for two days. Then we can bring him home. Come on, you can see him before they put him under.”
He took my hand and led me back. It really did seem like a working hospital and no one blinked about me being there. “Jud, is this okay? This is Alliance stuff.”
“Everyone on our side knows you’re with us. The other side might act like you can’t know. I don’t know. I can’t understand them.”
Warden turned his head when I entered. He had an IV in his arm, and his eyes were cloudy. They’d clearly already given him something. “Hey there, beautiful.”
I leaned over and kissed him on the lips. “Hey, handsome. I’ll see you soon. And you might not feel better but you will again.”
“I’m kind of floating right now. I’ll see you soon. Don’t come back here. I’ll come home. This is no place for you. Okay? Judson, keep her home.”
Judson stood over my shoulder. “I’ll do that. Thanks for bringing her back, Warden.”
These were some of the kindest things I’d ever heard them say to each other.
I watched as they wheeled Warden away and tried not to panic. The last time I’d been in a hospital setting I’d ended up killing assassins. Judson drew me back against him again.
My little apartment and my job at the bar already felt really far away, and I couldn’t say I minded. That was just how fucked up I was.
5
Judson’s house was a wreck. That was my first thought as I walked through his door. He was such a fastidious person it really struck me as wrong. “Where is Marco?”
“I asked him to stay in my property in France. I’m worried about things here. I don’t want him in the crosshairs.” He looked around. “Pretty obvious I’ve let things go, huh?” His eyes twinkled. “Spoiled kid grew into an entitled adult who can’t clean up after himself.”
I reached up to kiss him on his cheek. His breath caught, and I whispered in his ear. “Maybe. And I’m not cleaning up after you. Wrong girl. I’m more likely to drop my clothes on top of your clothes and call it a day.”
“When it’s safer, I’ll get a maid service in.” He smiled at me. “I do have food. Hungry?”
My stomach grumbled right on cue. “I’m always hungry.”
“Then I’m going to feed you.” He put his for
ehead down on my shoulder. “What would you like?”
I didn’t know if I’d ever seen Judson so tired. “How about if you go sit in your living room and I’ll make us grilled cheese sandwiches?”
He lifted his head. “Will you do something else for me?”
“Sure, what do you need?”
He cupped my cheek. “Take off the diamonds. Put them in my safe.”
I laughed, throwing my head back. “They’re really bugging you that much? I swear by the universe that I am not looking for gifts. This is not a competition.”
He ignored my statement. “The safe is in the kitchen. It’s next to the back door. Code is 8 numbers 19864905.”
“I’ll take if off because I’m uncomfortable with the idea of wearing such an expensive gift. Although Derrick may ask me to put it back on when he gets here. He wants to see me in it.”
Judson groaned, but didn’t say anything else. I left him to go sit in his living room. The kitchen didn’t look like anyone had cooked in it in a long time. There was a slight bit of dust over the chairs but despite that there was food in the fridge. Someone was keeping him stocked. I doubted he went to the grocery store. This was probably food delivery.
I took off my necklace and placed it in his safe. There wasn’t anything else in there, which told me Judson didn’t really use this safe for keeping his valuables and secret stuff. There was probably a basement somewhere holding all of that. Maybe he’d even buried it. I smiled at the thought. Judson with a shovel…
Fortunately, he had cheese, bread, and butter. I was able to cook up some grilled cheese sandwiches—a favorite when I’d had a long day—fast. There were pretzels in an unopened bag in the cupboard that I added to the plates. Judson and I both loved food. It was one of the things we had in common. I didn’t know that we’d ever done this kind of eating together. He tended to take me to expensive places where we drank slightly too much.
I poured us both water and managed not to spill anything on my way to his living room. Halfway there I wondered if he’d be asleep when I walked in. I’d seen Jud conk out on that couch before, and he was tired, strikingly so.
Deadly Truths: Kiss Her Goodbye #3 Page 5
