Crave Me (The Good Ol' Boys #4)(74)

My eyes widened not expecting his response.

He killed Hector?

“It was my warehouse. Next time you decide to pull this shit. Finish the f*cking job. I don’t like wiping up shit, especially if it didn’t come out of my own f*cking ass,” Uncle warned.

I looked back and forth between them. My eyes couldn’t focus on either one of them for very long.

“No one f*cks with me, Austin. And if you don’t step the f*ck back, you will find out why.”

“Austin…” I grabbed his arm, hoping it would help.

It took him a second to gain control. He slowly backed away not taking his stare off my uncle.

“Briggs, next time you want to be a cock tease, make sure it’s not with someone who actually wants to f*ck you. I’ve taught you better than that,” he warned, stepping toward me until he was right in front of my face. Narrowing his eyes at me.

“Judging from this filthy f*cking room and the amount of drugs spread out on the table,” he paused, letting his words linger. “I’m going to assume that neither one of you were in the right state of mind today. Which tells me I need to re-evaluate your place in my f*cking business. Pack your shit. You’re coming home with me.”

He looked over at Austin and sneered, “You’re not f*cking invited.”

Austin opened his mouth to say something, but I interrupted him, “I’m not going anywhere without him. He goes where I go and vice versa, Uncle.”

I could see it in his eyes, he wanted to tell me no. He wanted to order me around like I was still the little girl that lived under his penthouse roof.

“We’re going back to my apartment. I’m not going back to your home,” I simply stated.

I f*cking hated that penthouse.

It wasn’t my home.

It never was.

He leaned in close to my face. “We’re done playing it your way, peladita,” he breathed out. Turning around he left.

Leaving me to wonder what the hell he just meant by that.





Chapter 22





<>Austin<>



It had been three days since we flew back to New York and we had yet to talk about what happened in Columbia. To be completely honest, we barely talked at all. I was still pissed about the situation and how everything went down. The fact that she never f*cking told me that Martinez was her uncle. Not that I ever asked, but who the hell would ask something like that. It never even crossed my mind to find out anything about him.

He was irrelevant.

The signs were all there. I just didn’t pick up on them. That pissed me off more than anything.

I was too caught up trying to find out her real name.

As luck would have it Martinez was in Colombia because Hector had personally asked for Briggs to take the meeting. Which had never happened before. Martinez had a feeling and that was why he set it up in his warehouse. If shit went down, he would know about it. Briggs was never in danger.

I wanted to ask her all sorts of damn questions, but she seemed so f*cking lost in her own head. As if she didn’t know what to do with her life now. Like her uncle had taken everything away from her. I finally realized that this wasn’t just a job for her.

This was her life.

It was all she’d ever known.

She barely talked to me other than small banter about what I wanted to eat for dinner and meaningless conversations, never addressing the elephant in the room. She hadn’t smiled or laughed once since we arrived back in New York.

It was killing me not seeing her face light up. The only time I felt close to her in the last few days was when we were in bed. She still let me hold her every night.

I woke up from a bad dream about my family. I never dreamt about them. It was the worst feeling, the worst f*cking anxiety and I didn’t know why. I summed it up to being worried about Briggs and overwhelmed with everything that had gone down recently.

When Briggs left the apartment that morning to go grab the mail from the mailroom, I found myself grabbing her computer. Every once in a while I would check the online Oak Island newspaper and something told me that I needed to.

I clicked it.

After three years of being gone, there before my very own eyes was the headline news.

Savannah Ryder, beloved wife of Dr. Robert Ryder, esteemed member of the community dies at age forty-nine, losing her four-year long battle to breast cancer.

My heart dropped.

I couldn’t f*cking breathe.

The ground beneath me swallowed my body whole.

She will be laid to rest at noon today at the…

I immediately shut the laptop unable to keep staring at the truth that was blatantly in front of my eyes. I don’t know how long I stood there with my emotions bleeding out of me. Trying to come to terms with the fact that I didn’t get to say goodbye to a woman who had raised me like her own.

A woman I was proud to call a second mom.

I wished I had kept in touch with her. I hadn’t felt homesick up to that point, but the news hit me hard. It was a reality slap that made me doubt some of my choices.

I couldn’t stop the tears that formed in my eyes. The pain in my heart was ripping at my soul and eating me alive.

I faintly heard Briggs open the door and walk in with the mail, it was like I was there but I wasn’t. The emotions crippling me in ways I had never experienced before, not even after the accident. The guilt was too much to bear.