Hard to Love

14. Seth

What about the chair in the living room? I text Derrick and wait. All I can hear is the sound my foot was making earlier. The tapping on the leg of the steel chair as I stared at Wright's body.

Four hours of digging for information with Connor's blade, and he swore he didn't tell Mathews. He screamed it, he begged for us to believe him. But I didn't. Hours later, at home in the kitchen, my foot's motionless but the anxiousness is still there.

The black sedan doesn't belong to one of Mathews's men, it belongs to one of Fletcher's.

I don't want to believe it. More than that, I still don't believe Wright, not even his dying words.

I don't know. It's in rough shape. It takes me a moment to remember what Derrick's talking about. Right, the wreckage from the fire.

Try to save it, I text back and inhale as deeply as I can. I can't even salvage a fucking chair, let alone this fucked-up situation.

If Wright didn't tell Mathews, and it was Fletcher...

Are you ready?

Ready to find out if Fletcher double-crossed me. Yeah, I message him, I'm ready.

How is she? he messages before I've even set my phone down. The whole crew knows; they all know someone wanted Laura dead.

We assumed it was Mathews, but thinking it might be Fletcher... fuck, that means we have no one to back us up. Leroy won't go after Fletcher. We can't trust Mathews.

Derrick's the only one who knows we're not okay. I lean forward on the counter, my forearm brushing the beer, which is now warm and still full. I can't move from this spot. I can't do it.

She was trying to leave me last night. She's never done that before.

I could see it in her eyes that I'm losing her, so I lie to him, I can keep her; she's just going through shit right now.

To my right, I picture her there, sitting on the rug and looking up at me with goodbye in her eyes and I lose it. Tears pricking at the back of my eyes, I slam my fist down on the counter.

She loves you.

Derrick's message means so little. She does love me, and I thought I could keep her forever because of it. But love isn't that easy. It's not that strong either.

I lay with her in bed until she fell asleep, and then I took out all that pain and rage on Wright. He didn't feel enough of it though. Even with his dying breath, he didn't feel loss like I was feeling.

Maybe Fletcher's henchman will feel it. Luke Hartley. The owner of the black Audi with license plate number 175632. The fucker who took off. Something tells me I'm not going to believe him either. It'll be more than four hours though. It's going to take more than four hours to make him feel this pain that's inside of me right now.

Leroy's guy said 220.

Derrick's text forces me to move to the bedroom. Every step is careful and quiet and I don't look to my right as I pass the living room. I swear the ghost of last night is there, watching me.

Two hundred and twenty thousand for him to send up four men in case we need them to go after Fletcher. The code to the safe is our anniversary date. It's three days and one year after the shit at Hammers went down. It took me that long to get her to love me enough to give in.

I only get the first two numbers punched in before I rest my forehead on the safe, feeling the cool metal against my hot skin.

Derrick texts something else, probably asking if he should tell Leroy's guy it's a go or not. I have to enter in the rest of the code and check the tally inside. There's a pad of paper I use to track it all.

It'll be close and it'll slow down business, but we can manage.

I text him confirming it's a go, and that I'm on my way before slamming the safe door shut and getting out of this house as fast as I can.

When I start the car, I sit there for a moment, staring at the damn house I had built in the middle of nowhere to protect us. She would have been safe here. If she'd listened to me. I need to remember to tell her that. I can convince her.

If she'd listened and moved in with me by now, she'd have been safe. I should have made her move in. I should have told her she needed to let go sooner.

Fuck, it's my fault. It's all my fault.

A series of pings comes through on my phone, and I have to calm myself down, shaking off this regret, this feeling like I'm losing her to read what Derrick's telling me.

They've got Luke, but more importantly, Fletcher's warehouse was broken into, their stash stolen.

Mathews? I question him. Mathews went after Fletcher? Mathews thinks Fletcher is the one who screwed him over.

Derrick's reply back sends a chill down my spine.

I don't know, but Fletcher thinks it was us.