Me: I didn’t need to know about the industry. I believed in you.
What fucking part of that did she not understand? I couldn’t be any more clear, not now, not ten years ago when I said the exact same thing to her.
Songbird: You wanted me for yourself while you left and gave everything you had to a military that saw your life as disposable.
Tired of a decade-old argument, I tamped down my anger and typed a reply.
Me: I gave you what no one else had.
I’d given her my heart, but it hadn’t been enough.
Songbird: Promises weren’t going to keep you alive. How did I know if you were going to come home?
Me: You were my home. I was always coming back.
One way or another, I would’ve come home to her, but she was missing the point.
I’d never left her.
She still owned me as much as she did ten years ago. Not even infidelity, my horrible mistake, a war and a groundbreaking career changed what was etched into my fucking being. One look at her fourteen years ago and I’d fallen so deep, I still hadn’t surfaced.
Songbird: Alive or in a box?
Did it matter?
Me: Go to sleep, Sanaa.
She downed her third drink.
Two fucking days of rotations with all of us on edge and nothing. No notes, no suspicious activity around the hotel, no suspect passengers flying in from the UK or anywhere else, and no personnel had left the tour. Trefor even had management up the practice sessions to keep everyone engaged in London.
But there’d been no movement.
No movement except the dance Sanaa and my brother did around each other.
Two hours into my first post when Vance had come and gone out of her suite three times to argue with her behind closed doors, I resigned myself to the fact that they fed off each other.
Then I’d shut everything down except the mission.
She hadn’t sent any more late-night texts, and I hadn’t spoken to her unless absolutely necessary. Vance kept a watchful eye on her, she stared at me, and I kept the perimeter secure.
Luna came and went. Trefor had left yesterday, and Ty, Harm, Tyler and I rotated on twelve-hour shifts. Except for today. We were all onsite because she had the bullshit meeting with some executives about a charity concert that she’d used as the excuse for coming to the States. The meeting was taking place downstairs in one of the hotel’s event rooms, and even though I’d protested at the stupidity of her showing her face downstairs, she was going through with it. And Vance and Trefor had agreed with her. They wanted her seen at least once in the hotel.
Dangling her as bait made me fucking irate, and I never would’ve allowed it, but I wasn’t in charge of this shitshow.
Holding her tumbler, Sanaa pointed at me. “You should relax. Take a seat.”
I hated her drunk.
Not bothering to reply, I stared straight ahead. An hour ago, when I’d heard her hit the bottle in her suite, I moved from my post in the hall to just inside the door where I could monitor her.
Steady on her heels despite the scotch, she sauntered up to me and the offending finger landed on my chest. “What’s your problem? You used to be laid-back.”
I was never laid-back.
Vance was.
My gaze locked over her shoulder, knowing I shouldn’t, I spoke. “You’re mistaking me for my brother.” Again.
She snorted out a laugh. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” Her speech quick and lilting, the accent she usually held back came out. “But that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?”
His attention on his cell, Vance strode into the room. “We’re all set, love. Hotel security has been briefed, and Luna’s men are all in position. The meeting’s a go. You ready?” He looked up.
Sanaa watched me glance at Vance, then leaned in closer to me. “Told you.”
Vance’s gaze shot between me and Sanaa, and he frowned. “Little early, pet, don’t you think?”
“What I think…” Sanaa spun dramatically. Holding her glass out toward Vance, the offending finger still pointing, she made a sweep from him to me. “Is that nothing’s changed.”
When neither of us reacted, she snorted.
“And there it is.” Glancing at her empty glass and sneering in disgust, she dumped the tumbler on the bar. “The great Conlon brothers. Two halves of the same whole.”
Furious, I let my gaze cut to hers.
Leaning toward me again, her dark eyes bright with anger, she lowered her voice. “You’re both cold bastards.”