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“Even an asshole can be right every once in a while. My point remains, Wilson. Instead of healing you’ve locked yourself in your head, convinced yourself you’re a worthless failure who doesn’t deserve to be loved.”
Damn if that wasn’t the truth.
“You’re right. Jack’s right. Atlee was right. I fucked up and if she’ll let me, I’m going to fix it.”
“From what Jack told me, that might mean groveling.”
Speaking of Jack, he walked back in the room with a frown deeper than the one he’d been giving me all morning.
“I’m prepared to fall on my sword and bleed,” I told Rhode while I kept Jack’s eyes. “Listen, I have to go talk to Jack. I’ll call you back.”
“Don’t bite his head off, he cares about her.”
“Not as much as I do.” I disconnected and asked, “What’s wrong? Atlee okay?”
Jack was silent as he made his way to the chair he’d vacated earlier. I didn’t take it as a good sign when he sat on the edge, clasped his hands, and left them dangling between his knees.
“Is she—”
“She’s leaving Vegas for a while.”
Jack’s announcement cracked through the room like a bullet, reverberating and ricocheting until there was nothing left of my already shattered heart.
She was leaving.
Leaving me.
Us.
“When?”
“She called from the airport. She’s going to stay with a friend in Montana.”
There was a small sliver—the part of me who was the leader of Takeback that was pleased she’d be far away from Vegas while the takedown happened. But the much larger part—the man who was in love with a woman who he’d hurt and now had no access to her to fix his fuck-up—was destroyed.
“Did she say when she was coming back?”
“A week.”
My jaw clenched.
She wasn’t coming home until she thought I was gone.
“You’re gonna stay and wait for her,” Jack guessed.
“Yes.”
“That’s the smartest fucking thing you’ve said since this shit started.”
He’d get no argument from me.
“You love her?”
“Yes,” I pushed out through my regret.
“Glad to see you’re not a dumbfuck after all. What’d Rhode have to say?”
I filled him in on Dale Weaver. When I was done, his apprehension matched mine.
