Long Way Home (Thunder Road #3)(62)

“You are doing this, hence why you’re sitting here next to me.”

“No, do you want me to do this for the both of us? In the end, only one of us needs to point them out.”

“I’m sure the boys in the white shirts will be happy with that. I believe their words were something about a stronger case with both of us pointing fingers.”

“Ask me if I fucking care.” The unusual harshness in his tone grabs my full attention. “Their happiness isn’t my problem.”

“Then what is your problem?”

He runs a hand over his head, kicks out his legs and stares straight out into the room. “Anything that bothers you.”

I continue to watch him. He knows it, and from the way he stays still, he doesn’t like it. Yes, Chevy knows me, but I know him just as well. Chevy’s smooth, a trickster, and has a way of bringing things up without anyone else really understanding the underlying conversation. I rode with him in the truck on the way here and he was quiet. Mom was with us, but still he was too silent.

“Did something happen?” I ask. “More football problems?”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me why you were wound so tight to return home and don’t give me the bullshit on freedom. I know you, Violet, and you’re hiding something.”

And there it is. Chevy played his cards and played them well. Waited for the moment when I’m too frayed to lie well.

“It is about freedom,” I hedge.

“But that’s not all. There’s more and you’re keeping it to yourself.”

He’s right, he’s aware he’s right and now I’m the one who’s quiet.

“Someday, I hope you’ll trust me again,” he says softly.

I flinch. His words a knife straight into my windpipe and I can’t breathe.

“Mr. McKinley?” With a file in hand, one of the officers working our case appears in the doorway. “Will you please follow me?”

The officer leaves, Chevy rises to his feet, and before he walks out, I blurt, “Be careful.”

Chevy glances at me over his shoulder. “It’s just a lineup.”

I hold his dark eyes and wish I could find words to explain how this sixth sense crawling underneath my skin tells me that there’s nothing “just” about anything involving us anymore. But there are no words and any that I could possibly think of are stuck on my twisted tongue.

I stand abruptly, so quickly my heart pounds. Chevy’s forehead furrows. I don’t want him to walk out this door and for this to have been the last moment alone before I go home and ruin either my or Eli’s life. I don’t want my last real memory of the two of us to be of a magic trick and conversation on the Riot.

I will my feet forward, practically tripping with how heavy my body feels under the burden of what’s to come, and before I can overthink, I plow into him. My arms around his body, my head into his chest and I squeeze, inhaling deeply, and try to memorize everything about him. His scent of leather and dark spices, the hard plane of his chest, the sound of his heart against my ear, the heat rolling off his body.

A strong arm around my waist, another tunneling into my hair. Chevy lowers his head and kisses my forehead. The sensation of his lips against my skin causes thrilling goose bumps.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “We’re okay. I promise. I know things are complicated now, but it’s going to get better.”

It’s not. “I trust you.” Just him. “I do. I don’t know how to trust me.”

I used to trust myself. Never doubted my decisions, had the confidence that could move mountains, but I lost that. Lost myself. Way before the kidnapping, it happened after my father’s death, but now I’m spiraling.

Someday, I hope to trust me again. Trust my emotions. Trust my instincts. Trust that I’m going to be able to live with the fallout of the choices facing me.

“I trust you,” he says. “I always have.”

He shouldn’t. No one should. I lift my head and Chevy tucks strands of my hair behind my ear. He does it once, twice, a third time, and each time he brushes his fingers against the side of my neck. His light touch is warm and causes tingles that reach my toes.

“Talk to me, Vi,” he says.

I open my mouth, but there are still no words. No way to explain why my pulse beats so hard and why my mind is running at a thousand miles per hour and how I feel that the world has tilted in the wrong direction and is picking up speed. “I’m scared.”

“If it’s the lineup, I meant what I said earlier. We’ll tell them they have to deal with me being the only one doing the fingering.”

Fear is clawing at me, eating me from the inside out. Fear of the Riot, of their reach, of their rage, but that’s not the fear festering in me now. If I get the account numbers and betray Eli, I’ll never be able to look Chevy in the eye again. Eli is like a father to him, a friend, his mentor. Betraying Eli means betraying Chevy.

If I don’t fulfill my duty, then maybe I’ll pay the ultimate price. Maybe I’ll die, because that’s what would happen before I ever let anyone touch my mother or Brandon.

The blood drains from my face and my bad knee starts to give. Chevy uses his strength to hold me up. “Violet?”

I love him. I never stopped and it’s hard to describe when it began because he’s always been a part of my life. Loving him was easy. It’s life that’s hard.