pissed at you for getting caught.”
Not for committing the crime. Never that in my family, I thought wryly.
Not wanting to talk about it, I just grumbled, “I know.”
“Well, I had no choice but to cancel the visit—”
“Why?” Before he could finish, I leaned in and demanded, “They’re saying the Sinners are at their weakest in here, the cunts. Making out there was some kind of bomb, but I ain’t heard shit from any of you.” I pulled a face. “My phone ran out of credit so I couldn’t call.”
“Shit. I’ll get it loaded up. The burner still working? I know those things are old and clunky as fuck.”
“It’s fine.” I wafted a hand. “Is it true?” I demanded.
“We’re never weak,” was his arrogant answer, then he winced. “But the compound… we were bombed, Quin.”
“What?” I snapped, jerking upright in surprise.
“Keep it down,” he hissed, and I immediately slouched in my seat, reacting to his command like a soldier on patrol. “You know I’m not supposed to talk about shit like this, but I wanted to keep you in the loop.”
“Christ,” I whispered back. “Who the fuck would even dare?”
“We’re working on it. But…”
“How is everyone?” I interrupted. “What the fuck is going on, man?”
“We lost Jaxson, Matty, Kingsley, Jingles, and Jojo. As messed up as that is, Bear’s…”
My eyes flared wide. “Please tell me he’s okay.” Rex’s dad was like my fucking grandfather. “Jesus, please tell me he’s okay, Nyx.”
“I can’t, Quin. I can’t. He’s in a bad way.” His chin tipped up. “Look, we can talk about that after—”
“After? We’re talking about my fucking family here, Nyx. I need answers!”
But he plodded on. “I have to ask you something. Maybe even tell you—” Another hiss escaped him. “Indy’s gotten together with a biker. Remember Cruz?”
“Course I remember. It ain’t been that long.” Plus, that fucker had the coolest negative ink going.
“Well, they’re together.”
“Shit, and she didn’t tell me?” I complained, pissed again.
“She’s coming to terms with it,” he said wryly. “When the blast happened, I knew she was one foot out the door. We found out at the hospital that night that Giulia was pregnant, so when I heard her about to leap out of the life, I just… man, I couldn’t let her go back to New Orleans.”
My mouth turned down at the corners. “Agreed. That place wasn’t good for her.”
“No. It wasn’t,” he said with a nod. “Anyway, I told her, and she stuck around, but you know…” He cleared his throat. “You know my hobby?”
I frowned, but it didn’t take much to figure out what he was talking about. Nyx wasn’t exactly the kind of guy to knit, nor was he the type of man to whittle in his spare time.
He meant the pedos.
The killing thereof.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Indy pleaded with me not to do that anymore. She said I needed to stick around to protect my kid, because…” He gulped, then closed his eyes like he was about to reveal something horrendous, where I was just clutching in the dark trying to figure out where the fuck he was going with this. “Because,” he repeated, chasing down air like it was tequila, “I needed to do for my kid what our mom and dad didn’t do for her.”
For a second, the words hung around me like a toxic gas. They didn’t disperse. Didn’t disintegrate. They just hovered there, choking me, poisoning every breath I took.
Then, as the realization of what he was saying hit me, I rasped, “No.”
He dipped his chin. “Yeah, Quin. Yeah. Kevin got to her.”
In my ears, I could hear a kind of howling that I was too self-contained to allow past my lips. But inside my head, the screams were there.
Fuck, was this what Nyx had to cope with?
This endless scream?
I stared at him blindly, blankly.
“Not Indy. No.” I shook my head, needing to believe that fucker hadn’t gotten to her, but Nyx’s eyes were goddamn wet.
Fucking wet.
He was crying.
Jesus fuck.
It was true.
My skin prickled with tingles of sensation as I stared at him, willing him to take it back, to say it was some kind of messed up joke, but it wasn’t.
He started talking, but my ears weren’t listening. My head wasn’t on the conversation. It was on my older sister. The one I was closest to. Who had been there for me when I’d been sick, who’d watched over me before and after my transplant operation. Who’d protected me, who’d defended me…
Then I thought of the time I’d caught her