The Punk and the Plaything (When Rivals Play #3) - B.B. Reid Page 0,95

don’t think that maybe he’s just hunting Fox?” I didn’t know Wren all that well yet, but I was willing to bet that he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of being a sitting duck. No, he was a predator and always would be.

“I know he is.”

I waited for her to elaborate, but she was too engrossed in her phone. Wren had been blowing it up with text after text. When I finally pulled into her driveway, I grew frustrated when I didn’t see Wren’s car. It had been two weeks since their bootleg dinner party, and I was too fucked up then over the way Bee fled that night to get the answers I’d come for. At least now, I had the ones that had plagued me for five years. Shutting off the car, I opened the middle console and dug out the smokes I stashed inside.

“You couldn’t wait until I was out of the car?” Lou bitched.

“We need to talk.”

“Then, you need to put that out.”

“Nope.” Taking a drag, I blew the smoke in her face and laughed when she coughed and frantically waved the smoke away. “That night we rescued your not-so-prince-charming, we had help…”

“Yeah? And?” Her tone was defiant, but I noticed she had a hard time meeting my gaze.

“Who was the shooter?”

“Does it matter? You’re still breathing, aren’t you?” She then gave my cigarette a pointed look. “Maybe not for long,” she added, rolling her eyes.

Releasing smoke through my nose, I chose to ignore that. My body, my business.

My father died from lung cancer, but so what? He could have just as easily been taken out by a bus. I ignored the pain in my heart at the reminder that my father was gone forever and chose to focus on something I could change.

“Who was the shooter, Lou?”

“A friend.”

It was the same answer she’d given that night when she met up with someone. Twice.

Ever and I had been reluctant to let her out of our sight, but we’d learned that night just how stubborn Lou could be. And while Wren was being rescued, Ever and I had been ordered to wait at the edge of the woods where it was safe like some chumps. Before leaving us there, however, she’d pressed a memory card into Ever’s palm and said we’d know what to do if she didn’t come back.

Lou had indeed returned, though, empty-handed. The only explanation she’d given was that Wren was alive and that he was safe.

“Does this friend happen to be Sean Kelly?”

She paused, but then just as quickly recovered. “Who?”

It was all the confirmation I needed. “Tell me how you know him and for how long,” I pressed.

“Sean Kelly is dead.”

My gaze narrowed at the confidence in her claim when only seconds ago she’d pretended not to know him. “How the hell do you even know that?”

“His mother told me so at Thanksgiving. I was there, remember? Nice woman that Claire.”

I remember a lot of things. Including Lou’s boyfriend pressing a gun to my kneecaps under the dinner table to protect someone he barely knew.

“Sean Everson Kelly is dead,” Lou repeated. Done playing games, I was ready to kick her ass out my car when she said, “But Crow is alive.”

“Who the hell is Crow?”

“He’s Exiled. Or he used to be. He’s also Wren’s father.”

My head spun as the wheels began to turn faster. If Sean and Crow were one and the same… Just as the last puzzle piece clicked into place, Lou nonchalantly set off the bomb.

“Four seems to think he’s Ever’s father, too.”

I’d only just recovered from the blow Lou had dealt when Wren suddenly materialized in the passenger window. Thanks to the large hood he’d thrown over his head, I couldn’t see his eyes, only his rigid jaw and the hard set of his lips.

Lou’s back was turned to the door, completely oblivious to his presence. Before I could warn her, the door was ripped open, and she was plucked from her seat. The look he gave me before he slammed my door shut would have made me snort if I wasn’t still reeling.

Wren set Lou on her feet, and while they stood in their drive arguing, I threw my Jeep into drive before backing out and heading home.

The second I reached home, I went in search of Four and wasn’t surprised to find her in the garage. I was surprised, however, to find her crying.

I swallowed hard, wondering what the hell Ever had done now, and then I