Chapter 27

27

Abel

“Do you believe him?”

I stare at the beer bottle dangling from my fingers. I don’t drink much these days, not when any blurring of the senses can be the difference between survival and death, but today just flat-out called for a beer. “I don’t know.”

I’ve spent hours going through the compound with Broderick to oversee the changes and ensure all the security features are up and running. Tomorrow we’ll officially get our answer from Old Town, but from Finnegan’s spy tech, we already know what they’ll say.

They won’t fight us.

That public support will go a long way to smoothing the transition of power, and having Eli and Harlow publicly at my side will go even farther. I should be feeling victorious right now, should already be considering what changes I want to implement.

Instead, all I can think about is the past.

Broderick’s the only one of my brothers I can talk to about this. He’s the most level-headed of us, the one who likes to weigh all the facts before making a decision, the steady one that keeps all seven of us grounded. It’s why I gave Monroe to him; if anyone can handle her dangerous recklessness, it’s him. I have no right to be leaning on him now, but fuck if I can get my thoughts in order.

He pops the cap off his beer bottle and sinks onto the chair next to the desk. We’ve co-opted Eli’s study for our own, but really it’s Broderick’s now. I’ve never been comfortable being idle for long, and being locked in a room with a shit ton of paperwork is my idea of hell. Another way that we’re fundamentally different.

Finally, he says, “That’s one thing about that night that never sat well with me. Or at least our version of events. No matter what else Eli is, he was your friend.”

“You know as well as I do that friendship doesn’t mean shit when it comes to power.”

Broderick sighs. “Yeah, I know. I just think that it’s entirely possible that he’s telling the truth. It seems like some roundabout shit that Eli would do.”

That’s the crux of it. Killing my father so I wouldn’t have to is exactly something the Eli I knew would have done. Some high-handed bullshit designed to save me from unnecessary pain. “It doesn’t change the end results.”

“No. It doesn’t.” Broderick leans forward and looks at me. Where some of our brothers take after our mother’s red hair and freckles, Broderick and I are purely our father’s sons. Sometimes I wonder if looking at me bothers him the same way sometimes I see the ghost of our father’s face in one of his expressions. He frowns. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” It seems to be the answer of the day. No matter how confidently I projected to Eli, the truth is that this isn’t playing out at all like I expected. I didn’t anticipate Harlow, and I sure as fuck didn’t anticipate feeling anything but loathing for Eli. “If I were smart, I’d kill him now.” The words ring hollow.

“You can’t. Maybe you could have before you made him a Bride, but if any harm comes to any of the Brides, we’ll have the entire city howling for our blood.”

I give a mirthless smile. “They’re already howling for our blood.”

“Harming one of the Brides will give them the ammunition to strike without worrying about the consequences.”

“I know.” I drag my hand over my face. The truth is that I don’t want Eli dead. I did when I came back to Sabine Valley, but that desire died within the first twenty-four hours. No matter how angry, how hurt, how betrayed I felt, the truth is that this man was my best friend for more than two-thirds of my life. My father might have been cold enough to strike him down without hesitation, but apparently I retain enough of my soul that it’s an impossible ask.

Maybe that makes me weak. I don’t know anymore.

Eli isn’t the only one I have to worry about, though. “Harlow wants us to figure it out.”

“Harlow, huh?” Broderick shakes his head. “She could be playing you.”

“She could be,” I agree. “But I don’t think so. She’s not great at lying, and her priorities are the Raider faction above all others. She’s an asset, and she could be one hell of a leader if she had a long enough leash.”

“You’ve let her negotiate with the Brides on your behalf.” His tone is careful, but he can’t hide the tension there. Not from me.

I look at him. “Yeah. You got a problem with that?”

“Only that Monroe came back to the rooms happy as a pig in shit earlier today, and that can only mean she’s about to unleash some chaos to make my life harder.” He takes a pull from his beer. “She’s still spending a lot of time with Shiloh.”

Ah. That’s one complication I should have seen coming. I knew Broderick held a flame for Shiloh, even if he never made a move to morph their friendship into something else. Giving him a Bride was destined to fuck with that, but I didn’t expect Monroe to pick up on that unrequited situation so quickly—or to use it as a pressure point against Broderick. “Like I said the other day, there’s an easy enough fix for that.”

“No, there isn’t. Shiloh is my friend, and even if I wanted to do something about it, I have a Bride now.”

“A Bride who’s an enemy. All that you had to do was consummate the handfasting Lammas night. You never have to touch Monroe again.”

“I won’t.” There’s something there, something haunted in those two words.

What the fuck happened between him and Monroe on Lammas night?

I can’t ask. He won’t thank me for prying, and if it’s not something fixable, it will just rip open a barely closed wound. Still… “You have shit handled?”

“Yeah.” Broderick gives a steady smile that doesn’t fool me for a second. “Don’t have a choice, do I?”

“It’s only a year.”

“Only a year,” he repeats. He takes another pull from the bottle, a longer one. “So the only question is what you’re going to do about Eli. Rekindle the friendship, or spend the next year tormenting the fuck out of him?”

When he puts it like that, it turns out I’ve already made my choice. I don’t know if I can trust Eli again, but sometime in the last few days, I’ve lost my desire to see his head on a platter. “I’ll figure it out. The one person who most deserves to suffer is Deacon Walsh, and that fucker is already dead.”

“Not only him.” Broderick’s blue eyes are stark. “Both Aisling and Ciar have blood on their hands because of that fire. Maybe Eli knew about it, maybe he didn’t, but we know those two did. The drugs that put everyone to sleep came from the Mystics, and the Amazons set the fire. We know that as truth.”

“I know.” I drain my bottle and set it on the desk with a clink. “First we get this faction in order. Then we start looking to their borders. We have the year to prepare, to put our plans in motion. No matter how things fall out with Eli, we won’t be turned from this. I promise.”

“Good.” He pushes to his feet and sets his bottle next to mine. “Honestly, if you can bring Eli around to our side, it would simplify matters. The less time it takes to bring our faction to order, the faster we can move on to the next part of the plan.” Broderick turns and walks out of the office without looking back.

He’s been the steady one for eight long years, so I don’t know why it surprises me so much to see the hairline fractures in his control. I’ll have to keep an eye on him. The pressure he’s under is already astronomical—and that’s without Monroe adding gasoline to the situation and gleefully lighting a match.

A knock sounds before I can leave the room. I grab the bottles and toss them into the trash under the desk. “Come in.”

Harlow slips through the door. She gives a little smile when she sees me, and fuck if that doesn’t brighten up my whole day. I hold out a hand. “Come here.”

She walks into my arms without hesitation and, yeah, I like this a whole hell of a lot, too. I kiss her, and she goes soft against me for a long moment before she steps back. “I know this might be hard to believe, but I didn’t come here for a quickie on your desk.”

“Sweetheart, you wound me. There would be nothing quick about it.”

She shakes her head, that little smile still pulling at the edges of her lips. “Did you talk to Eli?”

“First I want to hear about how things went with Fallon and Monroe.”

She gives me a long look. “I didn’t peg you for a man who avoids hard topics.”

“Play your cards right and you can just flat-out peg me.”

She blinks. “You have yourself a deal.”

I motion for her to sit. “Tell me how the meeting went.”

“Fine.” Harlow takes the seat Broderick had earlier and gives me a quick rundown. It’s about what I expected. Having multiple members of the family is the only way that will ensure anything resembling good behavior. The Amazons and Mystics might have little in the way of honor when it comes to dealing with us, but they won’t fuck over their own. I eye Harlow once she finishes. “You threw Broderick under the bus.”

“Correction: I assumed Broderick was more than capable of dealing with anything Monroe brings to the plate and negotiated accordingly.”

She has me there. Before my conversation with my brother, I wouldn’t have doubted that, but there’s a lot about this situation that I didn’t anticipate. “We’ll figure it out as we go.”

Harlow studies me for a moment. “I’m assuming that the required escort will be planting more of those fancy listening devices like the ones you used with Old Town.”

I allow myself a satisfied grin. “That would be telling.”

“They’re paranoid enough to sweep the place after your group leaves every day.”

I shrug. “At first. But human nature is always to do as little as possible, and familiarity breeds even more laziness. After a few weeks, they won’t be as diligent. Our people will just be another normal occurrence in the other territories.” I should leave it there, but Harlow’s operated in good faith to this point. “And where do you think Fallon and Monroe are going to get the clothes they wear to all those meetings?”

Surprise and appreciation flare in her dark eyes. “You’re going to bug their clothes.”

“Yes.” Not a foolproof plan on its own, but cast the net wide enough and we’ll pull something useful. We have a year to play this game, and once our faction is stabilized, we can afford to use up every bit of that time.

“Clever.” She sits back and crosses one long leg over the other. “Now, about that conversation…”

I bite back a sigh. I could kiss her and let sex distract us, but Harlow’s too stubborn to let this go, and we’ll just be having an identical conversation when we finally surface from the orgasms. “Eli and I talked.”

She’s back to watching my expression closely. “He never would have hurt you or your brothers.”

“No, he just facilitated my father getting his throat slit.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Do you know what it was like living in the faction under your father? I’m not talking Old Town or those in his immediate circle. I’m talking about the rest of us.”

Guilt bites at me, but I shove it down. “Yeah, I know. I would have moved on him within the year. I was just getting things into place.” And, if Eli is to be believed, he moved first so I wouldn’t have to.

The fucked up thing is that I do believe him.

I just don’t know if it changes anything.

“Eli’s father was just as much a monster as yours,” she says quietly. “Things didn’t get better right away, but once he died and Eli took over… He’s done a lot to help the people who most need it. Not just funneling resources their way and enforcing the laws. He’s set up programs and funding and all sorts of things.”

The programs she mentioned this morning. The same ones that Eli and I spoke about all those years ago. Eli fulfilled the promises we made in a way I wasn’t able to once my brothers and I were driven out of Sabine Valley. It’s a strange sort of relief to realize that the people have benefited even if I wasn’t here to see it. The only ones who bore scars from that coup are me and my brothers. And, I’m now beginning to understand, Eli.

Some would say it’s a small price to pay, that the benefit of the faction outweighs any pain we experienced.

I can’t quite argue that they’re wrong.

“Harlow,” I finally say. “If I told you to simply forgive Eli for all the shit he’s pulled in the last five years, for all the times he’s pushed you back to safety instead of letting you stand on your own, you’d shove those words right back down my throat.”

She opens her mouth, seems to reconsider, and finally sighs. “Probably. I still care about him, but that doesn’t change the fact things are complicated.”

“Things are complicated with me and Eli, too. I talked to him. I’ll think about it. That’s all I’ve got right now.”

She looks like she wants to keep arguing but finally nods. “I guess that’s fair.”

“So kind of you to realize it.” I take her hand and pull her to her feet. “Let’s go find something to eat and go to bed.”

“Abel, it’s like six.”

“Yeah, I know.” I tug her against me and slide my free hand down her spine to cup her ass. “I haven’t had you naked in twelve hours. I’m going through withdrawals.”

“You poor thing.” She slides her hand up my chest and loops her arms around my neck. Harlow goes up onto her toes and presses her body against mine. “If you’re that deprived, I suppose we could have a little appetizer before dinner.”

“How thoughtful of you.”

“Mm-hmm.” She brushes her lips against mine, and then she’s sliding down my body until she perches on her knees. I hold still as she undoes my jeans and pushes them down enough to free my cock. She gives me a slow smile, and then she’s sucking my cock down, my length disappearing between her red lips as the wet warmth of her mouth encloses me.

In this moment, I can admit what I really want. Harlow as a full partner. Eli as a full partner. The three of us together in a carefully balanced trio that is all the stronger for the fact that it’s not particularly traditional. From a purely analytical point of view, our strengths balance one another’s perfectly. My brutality to Eli’s twisty brain to Harlow’s moral center. We could bring this faction to new heights.

We will do it.

Together.