“That’s me,” I say, crouching down and ignoring the bolt of pain through my hip. “I’m Lola.”
He takes a step closer and studies my face with the kind of intensity only children have.
“You made me smile when I was crying,” he says softly. Like it’s a secret between us. Like that moment at the party mattered to him as much as it mattered to me.
My throat closes and I swallow hard against it. “I remember,” I whisper.
He looks at Beau, then back at me. Something shifts in his expression.
“Can you read me a story?” he asks me. “Instead of Beau?”
I glance at Beau, whose face gives nothing away. But he steps back.
“I’d love to,” I tell Wyatt.
He reaches out and takes my bandaged hand. Then stops. Looks down at it. Back up at me. “Does that hurt?”
“A little bit.”
He very carefully takes my other hand instead. And something inside me breaks in the best possible way. He leads me toward the stairs, the dog trotting behind us. This little boy, in his dinosaur pajamas, lost his mother and watched his father get taken away on his birthday. He should be terrified of strangers right now, should be clinging to the people he knows. But instead, he’s holding my hand.
And I will hold his for as long as he lets me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
HUNTER
Song- Glass Houses,Bad Omens.
I don’t speak for the entire drive.
Ace knows better than to fill the silence. He sits in the passenger seat with his gun on his lap. The window is cracked, letting the night air cut through the cab. He’s watching the road. Watching me. Reading the temperature of what’s about to happen, the way he reads a bull before the gate opens.
He knows this isn’t going to be clean.
Reese’s house sits at the end of a gated lane on the outskirts of town. He bought it three years ago. A six-bedroom show home with a wraparound porch, a three-car garage, imported Italian tile in the bathrooms, and a kitchen that costs more than most people’s houses. He renovated every inch of it. Hired designers from Scottsdale. Put in a wine cellar, a home office with mahogany bookshelves, and a pool he barely uses.
It’s his pride and joy. The physical monument to everything Reese thinks he is.
I park across the driveway and kill the engine. The house is dark except for a warm glow behind the downstairs windows.
He’s home.
“Rules?” Ace asks, tucking his gun into the back of his jeans.
“Don’t let me kill him.”
“And if he pulls something?” Ace questions.
“Then you can let me kill him,” I reply coldly.
And whatever mess we make, Enzo’s team can help us clear that up. But I hope it doesn’t escalate to that. I don’t need more heat on me.
Ace nods like I’ve just told him the weather.
We cross the driveway. I know the code to his gate. I know the spare key he keeps under the third planter on the porch. I’ve known for years. I’ve sat in his living room, drank his whiskey, and listened to him talk about cases and women and money as if those were the three pillars of a meaningful life.
I’ve known Reese since I was four. That’s how long I’ve called this man my brother.