Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,73

smart thing to do would be to leave first. She was asleep, I wasn’t. I knew where the car keys were. I could just go. Forget about this mess.

I had options. Jacksonville. Arizona. I could even go to my brother’s mountain for a little while. Soak up some of that man’s good life. With the money I’d put aside, I wasn’t desperate for work.

I could make up a new plan for the Skulls. Leave a legacy that wasn’t soaked in blood.

Joan was a big girl. She could figure it out. She’d figured out harder things.

But still, I didn’t fall asleep.

And I didn’t leave.

Don’t trust me. Don’t care about me. Don’t even like me.

I stayed because it was too damn late.

I cared.

Finally, once the birds started making a racket, I got out of bed. I slipped on my swim trunks and a T-shirt and went into the other room.

She was so tiny on that love seat. Smaller with all her attitude turned off while she slept. I knew how attitude could work to make a person seem bigger. Tougher. But she was just a woman. Human and fragile in the end.

And unbearably alone.

Fuck.

I picked her up from where she was curled on the love seat. My ribs made it uncomfortable, but she was small. She curled up even tighter in my arms, as if even in sleep, she was trying to minimize how much we touched.

I had to give her credit—Joan was Joan, no matter what. And I don’t know why I liked that. Why it turned me on and intrigued me while at the same time had me worried.

It just did.

I set her down on the bed and she rolled away from my arms, over on her other side. She must have slept like shit out there on the love seat. I pulled the blanket over her and headed out to the kitchen.

I was going to have to work fast.

On the counter were our phones. She wouldn’t leave without hers. And she probably intended to steal mine. Which, again, Joan being Joan was pretty easy to predict. I was going to have to start hiding my phone.

There were plenty of good and valid reasons to not do what I was planning, but I didn’t listen to them.

I grabbed the phones off the counter and went down one floor to find Fern.

It was quiet this early in the morning, but I could hear morning news broadcasts turned up extra loud behind all the doors. The smell of coffee filled the hallway and made every single vein in my body crave some caffeine.

I stopped in front of the condo that was exactly beneath ours and wasn’t shy about pounding on the door.

Fern, wearing a bright green robe and no makeup, opened up right away.

“What are you doing?” she asked, all furrowed brow. She glanced up and down the hallway as if people might be watching us.

“Can I come in?”

She pulled the belt on her robe a little tighter, her eyes wary. Got it. Not welcome.

I lifted my hands, the phones in each. “I just need the name of the guy who cracked my phone.”

“Why?”

God, suspicion ran deep in this family.

“I’m trying to keep your niece from doing something stupid.”

“Good luck,” she said, the sarcasm apparently a habit.

I blew a hard breath out my nose. I did not have time for this. “Look, you want to pretend you don’t give a shit, great. Keep up the good work. But in the meantime, why don’t you lend a hand to the people who do give a shit?”

She tucked her robe again, a nervous tick. A tell. But she was silent.

She didn’t want to help. Fine. Fuck her.

I stepped back into the hallway away from the door, my eyes still locked on hers so she knew whatever was about to happen was—in part—her fault.

“Help!” I yelled. “I could use some help!”

“Stop it!” she cried and reached forward, grabbing the front of my shirt. She yanked me inside her condo and shut the door behind us. “What are you doing?”

“What needs to be done.”

She eyed me for a long time, like she had a chance of making me back down. I just crossed my arms over my chest and waited for her to realize she wasn’t going to win. Not with me. I got what I wanted. Part of the perks of being a conscienceless outlaw.

“Wait here,” she finally sighed. “Just let me get dressed.”

“I don’t need you to come with me. Just give me the