Move the Sun (Signal Bend #1)(53)
“What the f*ck, Lilli?”
She fought to out from under him, but he was determined, strong, and probably 100 pounds heavier than she. He grabbed her wrists and forced them to the ground on either side of her head. There was a fire in his eyes that bode an entirely different kind of passion from the kind he usually had for her. He was enraged.
“Why are you fighting me? Did you f*cking know Hobson is connected to the Horde? Is that why the secrets?”
She didn’t know why she was fighting. She didn’t know why she couldn’t stop, but she was still trying to find a way to get free of him. Focused on that, she didn’t answer his question. He yanked her arms roughly over her head and manacled both wrists in one of his large, rough hands. With his other hand, he grabbed her jaw. She could feel the tension of his anger in his fingers digging into her cheek. “Lilli, goddammit. You talk to me. Did you know? ”
“No! I didn’t know!” His hold on her face slackened instantly, and he let her arms go. Just like that, he believed her. She pushed on his shoulders, but he still wouldn’t move off of her.
“Fuck, Sport. Fuck. We have to talk. You see that, right?”
The familiar pressure of Isaac’s body on hers was beginning to calm her, and her brain kicked back into gear. She could feel the jangly edge of the panic receding, and she realized that it had fed itself. She took a breath, as deep as she could with his weight on her chest, and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah.” He pushed back to his knees and then stood and held his hand for her. She took it, and he pulled her up and then to his chest, folding her in his arms. Surprised, she didn’t return his embrace at first, but she could feel the calm in his body. Responding to it, she relaxed against him and clutched his kutte in her hands.
He kissed her temple. “No lies, baby. It’s time to come clean. Fuck the risk. Looks like our lines are gettin’ tangled up. We gotta try to get them straight.”
Lilli’s brain was turning fast, trying to catch up and recover from her freakout. If Hobson was one of Isaac’s brothers, then this was a f*cking calamity. He was right. Everything had to be out in the open between them. Her head still pressed to his chest, tucked into his kutte, she nodded.
“That’s my girl.” He shrugged back from her and raised her head. “I love you. Let’s work this out.”
She nodded again and took his hand. Time to sit down and talk.
When they got inside, she went straight to the kitchen and got them each a beer. She glanced at the digital clock on the range: 12:15pm. Good enough. She considered getting the tequila out instead, but she didn’t think getting drunk would improve the situation much. At least not yet.
Isaac was already sitting on the couch, his kutte off and folded over the back of an armchair. He’d sat in a corner, his arm stretched over the back of the couch. Lilli handed him a beer and sat facing him, kicking off her shoes and tucking one leg under her ass.
He took a long swallow from his bottle and said, “Tell me why you’re gunnin’ for Ray.”
Not yet. She shook her head. A hard look crossed Isaac’s eyes, and he opened his mouth to protest, but she put her hand up. “You first. I’m sure my story is longer. Is he one of the Horde?”
“Not a patch. A patch’s brother. Wyatt. I don’t think you met him yet.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Not exactly. I know why he’s gone and about when he’ll be back. But you’re not gettin’ that until I hear your story. Talk, Sport.”
What Lilli heard first and foremost was that Hobson was still local. She didn’t have to leave. That lightened her heart so dramatically that for a brief second she almost forgot that her plan to kill the cocksucker had just had an enormous wrench thrown in it. What would she do if Isaac and the Night Horde got in her way?
Fight one fire at a time. She told Isaac the story of the day she disobeyed a direct order, the day a whole squad was wiped out and she was blamed for it.
He never interrupted her, and she never stopped until the story was told. Her beer had gone warm in her hand. She told it the way she’d told it to Colonel Corbett on the day it happened, the way she told it to the review board, which ruled to discharge her, allowing her the dignity of an honorable discharge and retaining her rank only to keep a lid on the story. They didn’t want cable news to get wind of the hotshot female combat pilot who lost her nerve.
She told it flat, without emotion. She had to. The emotion was too big, even now, to let loose.
When she’d got that far, she stopped and drained her warm beer. She knew she wasn’t done, but the rest was something she hadn’t told to anyone who wasn’t part of this mission. And now she was about to break that seal.
Isaac spoke up during her pause. “Christ, Lilli. That’s awful. But I don’t understand why you’re after Ray.”
“Because he f*cked with my ride. He got those men killed. And he got away with it.”
Isaac stared, his eyes hot. Lilli wished she could know his thoughts. “That’s a f*cked up accusation.
You better know it’s true.”
“I know it’s true. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now.” She stood. “Fuck the beer. I need tequila.
You?” Isaac nodded slowly, and she took their empty bottles and went into the kitchen to pour a couple of tall glasses of Patrón. She came back, handed him his glass and sat down exactly as she had before. Isaac hadn’t moved.