Zee and Sloane go back into their apartment without saying a word. I wonder—I hope for the love of god she can help him through this. I hope he will let her.

The first thing I see when I open the door to my own apartment is the box of Lucky Charms I picked up last night after I’d dropped Zeth off at the shrink’s place. I just stand in the doorway, staring at the smug Irish bastard on the box, too afraid to blink. Too afraid to move a muscle. Charlie dead. Lacey dead. It’s all too surreal.

My phone starts ringing. Not the one I had with me this morning. That one blew up in the car. No, this is the spare I left sitting on the kitchen counter. I pick up the box of Lucky Charms and toss it down the waste disposal chute, and then I answer the cell. I don’t look at the caller ID. I don’t care who it is; I just need the distraction so I don’t snap and start trashing the place. “Yeah.”

“Where have you been, fucker? I’ve been calling you all day.”

Oh, shit. Rebel. “We were kidnapped. We lost Lacey.”

“What? Kidnapped? And I already know you lost Lacey. Weren’t you going to get her back?”

“No, we lost her, lost her. She’s dead.” I can hear my cousin breathing on the other end of the line. Probably can’t think of anything to say. I know I can’t.

“Was it Charlie?” he eventually asks.

“No. One of his boys shot her after she…Lacey…Lacey stabbed Charlie in the carotid artery with a fucking fork.”

Rebel stays silent, taking this in. “That’s fucking badass,” he says softly. This, for Rebel, is an accolade of the highest order. “I’m really sorry, man. I know you cared about her. How’s Zeth taking it?”

“Not too well.”

“Oh. How you taking it?”

“Also not too well.”

“Fuck. Well I suppose now’s a bad time to tell you that Alexis is in town and she wants to see her sister?”

Bad time doesn’t even cover it. I shrug out of my torn suit jacket—it smells of smoke and the iron tang of blood. “I would give it a couple of days, man. Sloane’s just as fucked up as we are right now.”

Rebel sighs. “Okay, fine. We have our deal with Julio tomorrow. I’m supposed to hand over my files to him. Shit’s definitely gonna go down. Can you be there?”

I scrunch up my face, trying to think of a way of politely telling him to go get fucked. Instead I find myself saying, “If Zee or Sloane don’t need me, I’m your man.”

“Sure? I don’t want you if your head’s not in the right place.” By in the right place, he means in the killing zone. And I am most definitely there. “Don’t you worry about my head, Rebel. I’ll let you know in the morning if I’m in.” I already know I will be, though. I need to punch something. I need to fight. Zee and I are very similar in that beating the crap out of something generally makes us feel better, but this is more than that. This is an unquenchable need that won’t be satisfied until I’ve caused someone severe bodily harm. It doesn’t matter that I killed Sammy when he came to try and kill me. It doesn’t matter that I killed O’Shannessey, plus those other two guys who showed up out of nowhere. I’m still wound with fury. I’m going to have to use my bare hands in order to release it. I’m going to have to rain carnage down onto the heads of those who pose a threat to us, because I can’t go through this again. Fuck knows what would happen if Sloane died. It doesn’t even bear thinking about. There would be no way of stopping Zee. He would murder everyone he could get his hands on whether they were involved or not, and he wouldn’t care if he got sent down for it. It would be worth it for him. Hell, he would have done the same for Lacey had I not have already killed O’Shannessey before the boss realized what was happening.

I will never, never forget the look on his face when he saw Lacey fall.

I hang up the phone, wondering if Julio Perez is going to die tomorrow, too.

******

I’m so lost. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. Ever since we arrived back at the apartment, Zeth’s been sitting in an armchair, staring out the window that overlooks the city, and I haven’t been able to get a word out of him. Not that I’ve tried to. I know he needs to be alone; I can tell that just by the edge to the atmosphere in the room, but I don’t know if I should leave. I could go and sleep in Michael’s apartment, but I somehow don’t know if that’s a good idea either. I think…I think something terrible will happen if I leave him alone.

I decide to stay. I can handle the tension in the room. I can handle it, because I love this man and abandoning him now, even if it’s what he thinks he wants, is the wrong thing to do.

I sit on the vast leather couch across the other side of the room, just listening to the silence. How would Pippa deal with this situation? How would my dad? Pip’s trained in grief counseling, and my father has an abundant supply of compassion that always serves him well when trying to comfort others. He just always knows the right thing to say.

The answer to my worrying and wondering comes in the most surprising of forms. Ernie. The Schnauzer’s claws make soft clicking sounds as he appears from one of the back bedrooms. His huge brown eyes travel over me briefly as he approaches us, but it’s not me he heads for. He heads straight for Zeth. The dog pushes his small body between Zeth’s legs and then he bumps Zeth’s hands with his wet nose.