Stepbrother Thief (51 page)

“I love you, Regi. I love you so goddamn much.” I open my mouth to tell him the same when he steps back, suddenly and without warning; a coldness settles over me. I'm not sure exactly what's happening, but I'm smart enough to know that it's bad. Really bad. “Aveline,” Gill begins as he takes another step back and my body starts to tremble.

“I've got her, babe,” she slurs, appearing in the doorway as Gilleon moves away from me with a finality that scares the shit out of me.
No. No. No.
They exchange a look of their own, and even with the damage to her face, I can see the same resigned melancholy in Aveline's expression. “I'll take care of her, Gill. You have my word.”

Take care of me?

That sounds … an awful lot like Gill's giving up. But he's not, right? He has a plan, doesn't he?

With a nod, Gill steps away from me and I follow, only to find Kayla's fingers wrapped around my upper arm. Surprisingly, she leaves the revolver in my hand. Luckily for me, she's not as smart or as perceptive as my stepbrother; she doesn't think I'm a threat. Or maybe like Maxine, she
wants
something to happen.
She left that revolver there for a reason, right?

I stare after Gilleon, taking in the angry look on Karl's face, the harsh jerk of his chin. One of the men that's appeared in the foyer steps forward to take Gill by the shoulders and shove him to his knees. He winces but goes down without any resistance, blood staining his jeans, his blue eyes faraway and broken.

“This clears the air between us then?” Max asks, reaching into her pocket and emerging with a cigarette. There's no sign of a gun in her hand, no blood anywhere at all on her person. But on the floor at her feet, Ewan lays sprawled and motionless.

One look is all it takes to tell me that he's dead. Dead. He is as dead as the man lying next to him, the man with the bullet wound through his skull. The man that I killed.

My stomach roils again and my gaze snaps back to Gill as Karl hefts a revolver of his own in his long, pale fingers.

“It certainly doesn't hurt,” Karl says, lifting up his gun. But I saw him before. I
saw
him. This is a man that doesn't hesitate, that doesn't care. There won't be a speech or a long drawn out instance. The second that muzzle levels with Gill's skull, it's over.

Gilleon is gone.

Gilleon is dead.

My elbow snaps up and back, right into Kayla's face, some leftover remnant of the
Fight for the
Night
self-defense class that Katriane made me take. Revolver up, finger on the trigger, silver gleaming.

Not even a breath passes between my lips as I squeeze.

Karl won't hesitate; neither will I.

My thumbs press together, my left numb but still able to obey my body's commands.

Never underestimate the blonde in the designer dress.

I squeeze the trigger; the bullet hits Karl right behind the ear.

Blood splatters Gilleon's face like wet paint.

That's the last thing I remember.

“Are you …” Leilani pauses for a moment and sits back in Cliff's armchair, the color draining from her face as she looks me over like she's never seen me before. I try to smile, but my face hurts from where Kayla hit me, knocking me out cold. I hear she tried to shoot me, too, but Aveline got her ten times better than she got me. Guess
she
didn't mean to leave that revolver in my hand. Maxine though … I guess I'll never really know.

“Going to finish that sentence?” I substitute for Leilani, taking small, slow breaths. It still hurts to inhale. I glance up at the sound of footsteps and smile as Cliff hands me an iced tea with a straw and a lemon bar on a tiny plate. “
Merci beaucoup, Papa,
” I say, squeezing his hand as he steps back. He knows I'm thanking him for a whole lot more than dessert.

“Don't push yourself,” Cliff warns, giving me a look and then switching it over to Leilani. I might be in my thirties, but the parental warning still makes me feel guilty. Or maybe it's just the memory of Cliff's face when I first woke up, freshly washed sheets tucked up around my chest, the smell of laundry detergent tickling my nose. Gill and me, we scared the shit out of the old man.

Outside, the sun gleams bright, drying up yesterday's rain. I'm almost disappointed, as nice as it is to have a break in the storm. Just a few more days until Christmas, and since there's no way I'm getting a white one, at least a grayish wet one, please?

“Are you …
fucking crazy?
” Leilani finally gasps, brown eyes moving to the staircase to check for Solène. But nope. She's upstairs unpacking some of our boxes from France, almost as excited as I am that we're staying here.

Almost.

Although nobody's as excited as I am, especially not after what Gill and I went through. If I'd had any doubts about getting back together with him—I didn't, but that's beside the point—they'd be gone now.

“You could've been killed, Regi.” Leilani puts her fingers up to her temples and shakes her head, dark brown ponytail flopping back and forth. “Don't tell me anymore or I'll feel obligated to call Anika. She calls me everyday now to check up on you. I think she's too afraid to call you herself.”

I glance down at my lap and smile, poking at the powdered sugar on the top of my dessert.

“I was wondering why she hadn't called me back.” I feel my lips twitch with a small smile and then groan, pressing the fingers of my right hand against my face. It hurts too much to lift my left right now. At the very least, the bullet just barely missed a major artery of mine. I could very easily have bled out in Maxine's fancy ass safe house.

Bleh.

I don't want to think about it.

Right now, all I want to think about is Gilleon. He and Aveline are meeting with Maxine today. What about, I don't know yet, but I'm sure he'll tell me. It better be about his retirement though because I think what we just went through is a once in a lifetime situation. Not sure I could survive another.

With Karl dead, there's nobody around to give two shits about our hundred million dollar heist. Maxine can keep the diamonds, we can get our promised cut, and I'll get to start a new life here in Seattle. No, it's not as glamorous as Paris, but it rains a hundred and fifty plus days a year, and the people here buy reusable paper towels that other people here made from recycled hemp plants. What can I say, but that it's home?

“Anika misses you, Regi. Sometime soon, you guys should get together. Go there or bring her here.” I nod because I'd already planned on doing just that. The way things are going, I'll probably head down there, visit my grandma … get a dog off the reservation. I can't wait to tell them both about Solène. Finding out your sister actually has a nine year old daughter … priceless. Anika may very well kill me for not telling her sooner.

“Do you two need anything else?” Cliff asks from the direction of the kitchen, leaning around the archway to smile tightly at us. I know he's still mad at me although I think he's more pissed about my almost dying than about getting back together with Gill. Go figure. Cliff's as stubborn as his son, so maybe I should consider that a positive? As far as negatives go, I've been avoiding the main staircase and I keep waking up in the middle of the night.

But every time I do, I wake up next to Gilleon.

That makes it all worth it. So, so worth it.

“I can't … are you sure you're not making any of this up? Did you really shoot some semi-famous crime lord?” I smile at Leilani, but I don't have to answer. She can tell, I know she can. It's written all over my face.

I fought; I struggled; I survived.

I fell back in love with a second chance.

“Oh my
God,
” Leilani murmurs as she sits back with a slump and a sigh. “You are a special sort of crazy, you know that?”

“Now that I've told you everything, can we watch
Supernatural
now? I could use some Sam and Dean in my life.” Leilani raises her dark brows at me.

“With Gilleon? I think you have more than enough man cake to deal with.”

“Man cake?” I ask, trying to stifle a laugh. Laughing hurts ten times as much as breathing right now. “Did you just make that one up?” She grins at me and shrugs, a breeze from the window teasing her hair around her face.

“He's cute, I can agree to that. Everything else about him, eh.” Leilani shrugs her shoulders. “He'll have to prove himself again. Leaving you, that was bullshit, even if it was for the right reasons.” We exchange a look, the kind of look you can only get from people who know all your secrets.

Did I say I was sad about leaving Paris? I've got Leilani back. Kind of makes it all worth it.

We both pause as the front door opens and Gilleon appears, his eyes immediately straying to mine as he steps inside and closes it behind him. As soon as I see him, something bursts open inside of me, that font of love and admiration and tenderness that I feel towards him, that I've always felt, that I'm sure I always will. Okay, and maybe there's some relief in there, too. I have to keep reminding myself that he's safe, that we'll be okay.

“The meeting with Max …” I begin, but Gill's already smiling, nodding his chin at Leilani and moving around the couch towards me. I set aside my tea and lemon bar, abandoning them on the coffee table. With Gill around, who needs sugar?

“It went well,” he says and then, acknowledging Leilani, “I take it you two had a good afternoon together?” Leilani rolls her eyes and adjusts her
Legend of Zelda
T-shirt.

“Yeah, well, based on the story she just told me, I can tell Regi needs me in her life. I can be the voice of common sense.” Gilleon laughs, his gait just a little off from the wound in his thigh as he comes to sit next to me, sighing in relief as he takes the weight off his leg and sinks into the sofa.

“I can agree with that,” Gill says and then looks over at me, love filling his blue eyes. “You be her common sense, and she can be mine.”

I roll my eyes, but … he has a point. Gill needs me in his life. Today, tomorrow, forever.

“Oh God,” Leilani groans in anticipation, but what can I do? I'm in love. And love is selfish.

When Gill leans over and presses his mouth to mine, I wrap the fingers of my right hand in his hair and let myself get swept away into a memory.

A memory of
us.

“
Hey Gill?” I roll over onto my side, Gill's hoodie wrapped around me, his spicy scent drifting up from inside the folds of the ebony cotton, heady and dangerous and mysterious. We barely know each other, but … it feels like he's been living with Mom and me for years.

Gilleon turns to look at me, that beautiful dark hair of his falling over his forehead into his eyes. He might be seventeen, but he has a gaze that goes deeper than any of the other kids at my school, like he's been places, done things. It's not a bad look, but I think it makes him weigh what he says, what he does, carefully. He's still goofy sometimes, still has a sense of humor, but there's a darkness there that's he cautious about.

I should ignore it, treat him cordially, like the acquaintance he is, a stepbrother who will never feel like a brother, not when we didn't grow up together.

But today, I forgot my jacket; he gave me his sweater. I can't stop sniffing it. Does that make me crazy?

“Yeah?” he asks, grinning at me from his spot on the floor of my bedroom. His arms are covered in bruises from the mother he still loves, the one he had to leave behind. I can't even imagine. “What's up?”

I swallow hard, toying with the strings at the neckline of my borrowed hoodie.

“What do you want to do when you grow up?” I feel a red blush color my cheeks and struggle to correct my statement. What am I, five? “I mean, like, what do you want from life?”

Gill turns to face me, wrapping his arms around his knees, his blue eyes bright as sapphires, his perfect mouth twisted to the side in a smile. Our faces are so close we could kiss. We don't, but … we could. Just a few more inches …