Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 72969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Yeah, sure,” Jordan says.
Gina and Lavender exchange a glance.
“Sure,” Gina says after a moment. “That would be a blast.”
“We’ll set it up sometime,” Jordan says.
But he says nothing more.
Awkward.
Then again, my whole life has been awkward.
What’s another minute of it?
19
HAWK
After another minute, though, Eagle puts down his controller again.
Fuck. What now?
“I can’t shake it off,” he says. “It’s like Dad changed or something. The Dad I know would never try to take his own life. He’d never let himself be cornered, as you said.”
I let out a long sigh. “I’m done with this conversation, Eagle. You can either get back to the game, leave, or change the damned subject.”
Eagle stares at his controller, fidgeting with the buttons.
I get ready to start the game again, but he turns to me.
“Fine,” he says. “I want to talk about that night at the barn.”
The fuck?
My jaw nearly drops into my lap.
We never talk about that night.
Eagle knows it’s off limits. We three brothers swore an oath that night that we would never mention it again, not even to each other.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Actually, I’m not.”
I shake my head. “What the hell is going on with you, E?”
He doesn’t respond right away. Until, “I think about it every day. Even now, eight years later, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about it.”
His confession doesn’t exactly surprise me. Sure, we haven’t talked about it, but Eagle has had more than one relapse over the past eight years. It eats at him, I’m sure. It eats at all of us.
“Don’t you?” he asks. “Think about it, I mean?”
I take a deep breath in, sigh it out. “I try to live for the present. I have to.”
He has no idea how much I have to.
“So you never think about it?” he asks.
I huff. “I don’t let myself think about it. If I did, I’d think about nothing else.”
Again, he has no idea. That night at the barn was bad. Really bad. But is it the worst thing I’ve ever seen? Ever lived through?
I’m not sure.
“You’re better at compartmentalizing than I am,” Eagle says.
“I don’t let myself dwell on the past. I’m the one everyone depends on. I have to stay whole, E. I don’t have a fucking choice.”
He gulps audibly. “Yeah, I suppose.”
That’s it? No offer of gratitude? No sympathy for how I’ve been forced to shove everything to the back burner of my mind so I can fucking take care of him?
Of course not.
I shouldn’t expect it. I haven’t gotten it in the last eight years.
I change tactics.
“Why do you want to bring this up now?”
He gulps again. “The other night I heard Vinnie and Raven talking.”
“And?”
“They were in Ray’s old bedroom. The one where…”
The one where Brick Latham was found dead several months ago. I can’t blame him for not wanting to say the words. It’s left a stain on our house that no amount of scrubbing can get rid of.
“Yeah. And…?”
“I was on my way to the bathroom, and I was walking on by, but I stopped when I heard the name Diego Vega.”
My heart drops to my stomach.
Diego Vega was a drug kingpin. And he’s buried beneath our old barn near the border.
Fuck.
Why would Vinnie and Raven, of all people, be talking about Vega?
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Of course I’m sure. Do you think I wouldn’t know that name? So I stopped and listened.”
This time I gulp. “What did they say?”
“Vinnie said that his source in Colombia had finally confirmed Diego Vega’s death.”
“What?” I demand.
“I’m not even kidding,” Eagle says, “though I wish I were. Then Raven asked if there was a body, and Vinnie said he was supposed to get photographic proof later that evening.”
Fuck.
Diego Vega.
“You must have misheard,” I say.
“Fuck off, Hawk.” Eagle rises, letting his controller drop to the floor. “Do you really think I would mishear that name? Of all names in the damned universe? That name sends chills down my spine every time I think it. So when I actually heard it spoken, I nearly shit myself.”
My mind races, and I rise as well. “Vega is a common Spanish surname. Diego is a common first name. They could have been talking about someone completely different.” I rub my hand over my face. “And why is he talking to our sister about men being dead? What the hell is going on?”
Eagle paces around the man cave. “You don’t know what that motherfucker was like, man. He was evil. He was one of those men who never had to raise his voice or his fists to get what he wanted. He could make you want to jump off a cliff just by looking at you.”
The memory of Vega’s face—those cold, calculating eyes and the venomous smile—still haunts me sometimes, even after all these years.
“But he’s dead, Eagle. We saw it with our own eyes,” I remind him.