all if she was going to be good marriage material.
Easier to focus on her little brother’s problems than her own. She’d have to talk to him soon, to let him know she knew the sacrifice he was trying to make for them. He was selling his soul in the process—once the feds got their claws into you, you were never truly free—and that was the best-case scenario. If their father found out…
He’d kill Teague.
The realization settled in her chest, an added weight to the anvil she currently carried. Father might say family before all, but what Teague was doing was a betrayal no matter which way they spun it. He was a rat, and Father was famous for saying “Thou shall not suffer a rat to live.” He wouldn’t suddenly develop a forgiving streak just because it was his own flesh and blood slipping secrets to the enemy.
She closed her bedroom door behind her and sank to the floor. “God, Teague, what are you doing to us?”
* * *
Callie pushed the button on the treadmill to bring her speed up, desperate to outrun the thoughts and worries plaguing her. She would have preferred to run outside, but her father had forbidden it, given the situation with the Hallorans. Three days in this house and she was on the verge of going mad. Every time she turned around, there was some sort of furtive movement or quiet conversation—all of which stopped the second she walked into the room. She knew her father was trying to protect her. But she should be right there in the middle of all the planning instead of relegated to hurried updates from Micah between his running her father’s errands.
Papa told her to use this time to plan her wedding. As if picking out the perfect flowers and catering options were somehow more important than—or even equally important to—dealing with the Halloran threat.
She ran faster, until her breath sawed through her chest, and her legs felt like they couldn’t manage another step without toppling her onto her face. Only then did she hit the button to stop. She needed to get out of here, even if only for a few hours. If she didn’t, she was liable to start screaming and never stop—not the actions of a leader.
God, she was so incredibly tired. Tired of wearing the mask and pretending she was okay. Tired of fighting a losing battle with her father. Tired of acting like she wasn’t waking up every hour on the hour, sweat-soaked, with a cry just inside her lips, the memory of Brendan’s hands around her throat imprinted on her waking mind.
Her body shook as she climbed the stairs to her room, and she comforted herself by blaming it on the workout. But she couldn’t lie to herself as well as she seemed to be able to lie to those around her. Her once steady hands had become as jittery as an old woman’s. Once upon a time, Callie had thought herself a woman with nerves of steel.
Now she knew better.
She stripped and stepped into her shower, turning the heat up until it nearly scalded her skin. She ducked her head beneath the spray, her mind going to the single bright point in the last week. Teague. They’d texted here and there over the last few days, enough that she knew he was thinking of her, even though he was busy. She envied that ability to keep occupied, but he never failed to make her smile and help her forget her frustrations, if only for a little while.
Though continuing to talk to him only made other frustrations more apparent.
She closed her eyes and pictured his face, painting those wonderful cheekbones and that strong jaw with her mind, moving over his sensual mouth and to those soulful dark eyes. Eyes that had looked at her as if he wanted her more than he wanted his next breath. And his hands, wide palms and long fingers, knuckles decorated with tattoos that she fully intended to explore at the first available opportunity. Those hands had felt deliriously good on her skin, but they were nothing compared to his mouth between her legs.
Her hand coasted down her body as she took a step back into the memory. God, the way he’d touched her, a strange combination of tenderness and animal need, stoking a fire inside her that burned hotter than she could have dreamed. Callie slipped her hand between her legs, letting the water beat against her