I didn’t make it three paces before André stopped me.
“Doc.”
“Unless you’re offerin’ somethin’ better’n tequila, I got nothin’ to say.” I was done talking.
“Sit,” Blaze ordered.
My jaw clenched then throbbed. “I’m your bitch now? I didn’t even get fucked first. You losin’ your touch?”
Ice-cold nothingness stared at me.
I shook my head. “Goddamn, Deer Hunter, you takin’ lessons from Neil?”
“Cállate,” André swore. “Sit your ass down.”
I glanced around the table and smirked. “So a Cuban, a Gunny and a Dane walk into a bar…”
Three pairs of eyes looked at me, all pissed off.
I laughed. “Don’t hold back on my account. By all means, show me your perfectly laid plans, solve my fuckin’ problems.” My grin turned malicious. “Or better yet, get the fuck outta my house and don’t come back.”
“You are selfish,” Neil stated.
I glared at him. “I’m selfish?”
“You always have been,” he said calmly.
Despite Neil saving my life, in that moment I hated him. “You got somethin’ to say about Hawaii, say it.” We’d danced around this shit for two years. “Right fuckin’ now.” I was done having him hold this shit over my head. “I never asked you to fly there and rescue my ass.”
“What did you think I would do?” he asked pointedly.
I lost it. “I was holdin’ my wife’s ashes! Her motherfuckin’ ashes! And you wanna know what the fuck I thought you’d do? How ’bout, I don’t give a fuck! Or better yet, I wasn’t fuckin’ thinkin’ shit except how the fuck do I make the goddamn pain go away,” I yelled, laying out the sad fucking truth of my suicide attempt with a bottle of Percocet after my wife died.
Neil stared at me.
“Goddamn it!” I shoved a chair up against the table.
Neil wordlessly pulled it back and inclined his head at the seat.
Drunk, pathetic, I sat.
“HAWKINS, CARTER, THE WOUNDED GIRL and Maldonado’s successor, am I missing anyone?” Neil asked calmly.
“Nope,” André answered. “Those are the major players.”
I felt Blaze’s eyes burning a hole into me.
“Your wife?” Neil asked Blaze. “Is she safe?”
“Maldonado was the one who put out the hit. He’s dead.”
“André, use your connections. Confirm the hit is dead.” Neil pushed an envelope toward Blaze. “You and your wife leave in one hour. Everything you need is in there.”
Blaze opened the envelope and pulled out a set of keys. “Copenhagen?”
Neil nodded once. “I maintain a residence in Odense, the address is in the envelope. Take a train from the airport. André will let you know when it’s safe to come back.”
Blaze thanked him in Danish then turned to me. “We straight?”
I wasn’t a warrior, not like Blaze or Neil. I wasn’t even cut from the same cloth as them. I was a fucking scrapper. Yeah, I had money now and a half dozen real estate ventures with Neil, a history like brothers with Blaze but I was still the same hotheaded, dirt-poor little shit kicking dust in the Texas summer heat. So no, Blaze and I weren’t straight. We weren’t even on the same fucking playing field.
“All good,” I lied.
He nodded and stood. “Can we get an escort to the airport” he asked André.
“Roger that.” André pulled out his phone and made a call. “Your ride’s in the driveway,” he confirmed when he hung up.
“We’re out.” Blaze beckoned Layna over and spoke quietly to her as he stroked her hair.
A hazy image of my dead wife popped into my head then vanished. Rubbing my hand over my face, I closed my eyes for a brief moment and reached for my crutch. Pain, grief, the future I’d lost, I grasped for my drug of choice and willed the image of my dead wife to flood my head. Drunk, stupid, I wanted her big brown eyes and her sweet smile to fill my mind so I could fall into the familiar pain I’d learned to live with.
But nothing happened.
My eyes popped open and a slow burn of panic started to seep through the cracks.
I knew what she looked like. I knew there was a mole on her right shoulder. I knew the silky feel of her thick black hair. I knew the top of her head had barely reached my pecs. I knew it. But I couldn’t see it. Any of it. For the first time in two years, I couldn’t see Leigh.
Because I was seeing a blonde-haired, blue-eyed siren.
My heart pounding, my muscles screaming for release, my gaze darted around for purchase and landed on them.