Sparrow(68)

Catalina told Brock everything.

About the promises my dad made me make.

About Sparrow.

About f*cking everything.

She put me in a vulnerable position, and jeopardized everything I’d ever worked for.

I wished Cat had never told Brock about it. I wished he’d never told me that he knew. On a drunken night when the two of us got back from the cabin after detoxing one of my client’s daughters, Brock had revealed that Cat had spilled every single secret I let her in on. Brock had promised to keep mum.

Because it wasn’t a friendly promise—it was a threat.

“So here’s the deal.” I rested my arm above Cat’s head as I locked eyes with her. “I’m going to walk away from here. Next time I see you, it’ll be on Brock’s arm, playing the dutiful wife. You will never speak to me, mention this, or try and reach out to me again, got it?”

I admit I’d taken my revenge too far. Fucking Catalina under her husband’s roof just to feel better about myself? About everything I had lost? Making her one of the endless women on my speed dial? Reducing her to nothing but a warm * to bury myself in occasionally? Below the belt, but I’d needed to rebuild my ego. I’d needed to make sure I was leaving her just as broken as she’d left me when she cheated, married someone else and spilled my secrets in his ears.

“She knows,” Cat said, smiling a crazy, hateful smile. “I told Sparrow about us. Your wife knows.”

“Go near her again, and I will kill you with my bare hands.” I took a step back, watching her slide down the wall and collapse on the grass as she wailed.

I’d played this scene over and over in my head for years. Me leaving Catalina for good. Stepping away from this mess while I had the upper hand.

I’d imagined feeling triumphant and elated as I dumped her, breaking her heart, but as I left the graveyard, all I felt was incredible emptiness and an unbearable fury about her talking to Red.

I hoped Cat wasn’t coked up again. Poor Sam didn’t need two f*ck-ups for parents.

And as thunder cracked the sky open above me, another downpour on its way, I slipped into the Maserati and turned on the stereo all the way up. “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” by The Smiths blasted through the speakers. I knew that this time the rain would wash away most of my memories with Cat.

We were done. Through.

I couldn’t wait for my next chapter.





TROY


FLYNN WAS DEAD.

He was still among the living when I left him at the cabin with Brock on Saturday. The detox after Miami hadn’t stuck—not much surprise there. I’d received a call from George Van Horn, complaining that his son had relapsed big time. I’d hauled Flynn to the cabin again and put Brock in charge over the weekend.

As planned, first thing Monday morning, I drove up to check on them.

Flynn was sure as f*ck dead now.

Guilt ate away at my insides. It wasn’t that I was particularly fazed by death. I was even responsible for the horrific ending of two men, finished them without even blinking. But Flynn was innocent, and he’d died because his dad was too proud to seek professional help for his son at the hospital.

He also died because I cared more about the paycheck than doing the right thing.

Flynn was Sparrow. Everyone failed him. His parents. His family. His friends. The only difference was that Sparrow had me now, and I wasn’t letting anyone harm my little lovebird. If she was going to be ruined, it would be by me.

The smell around Flynn told me he had given up the ghost, but not so long ago that he stank. Which also made sense, because if Brock left him alone, it wouldn’t have been too long ago.

I rolled him from his stomach to his back with a shove, placed two fingers on his neck and checked for his pulse again.

Yeah, the kid was gone.

Looking around the cabin, I sighed and raked a hand through my hair. Brock was supposed to save him. He may have been a shithead, but he was also a badass when it came to detoxing. Why the hell has he abandoned ship without telling me, and how the f*ck was I going to explain it to George?

I brushed my thumb against Flynn’s eyelids, shutting his eyes. His lost-puppy eyes were staring at me, and I needed a breather from feeling like shit.

I made the call to George Van Horn, breaking the news in code. The parcel got lost in the mail. Can’t be retrieved. What does he want me to do next. I was hoping not to hear what he answered.

“I see the post office is still overpriced and unreliable.” He took a dig at me. “Just make sure nobody else finds the parcel.” Then he hung up.

Van Horn wanted me to get rid of Flynn’s body discreetly. Didn’t even have it in him to stage an accidental overdose and give his son a proper funeral, a service of some kind. Of course, the latter would kill his political campaign. But the thing about the George Van Horns of our world, the ones who compromised their morals—who did nasty shit they don’t feel at peace with—was that they woke up one day to discover they’d became a monster.

I myself didn’t feel like a monster. Wholeheartedly believed that the people who killed my father deserved to die. I was cruel, but I wasn’t unjust. I wouldn’t off someone from my family, or deny them a respectable burial, just to get ahead in the game.

Other than Sparrow’s mom, I reminded myself. She was still very much on my conscience, and I knew that Sparrow would never forgive me if she knew.