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Tanner must have known about the men following us but didn't tell me because he was concerned about my well-being.
Shit! I fucked up.
They must have all known about this when I told them about my pregnancy. It makes sense that they had dismissed the information; more like adjourned it to face a more pressing matter.
“All that can wait. There are other time-sensitive matters to deal with.”Tanner's voice resounds in my head as I put the pieces of this puzzle together yet again.
So this is the time-sensitive matter he was talking about. No wonder the others didn't caution him. He was right after all. They were right and I was wrong.
I feel a light pinch on the side of my neck, and I wince at the sting. I pull out a tranquilizer dart, and suddenly the world around me begins to swirl. My head is light and my feet can no longer carry my weight.
I fall freely to the ground as I struggle to no avail to stay conscious. My vision becomes blurry as a pair of Timberland boots approach me.
The voices around me echo as I drift off into an abyss of nothingness.
Chapter 24
Josiah
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
It’s been over thirty minutes since the altercation. Tanner had walked away in anger after she slammed the door, slamming the door to his room as well.
Rueben, on the other hand, looks a mess. To others, he might not look like he cared about what had just transpired, but Tanner and I have known him longer than anyone, and we know how to read him.
He sits heavily on the sofa, placing his head on the headrest and a hand to his face with his eyes closed. His constantly ticking jaw is a testament to his annoyance about how things had gone.
When she’d told us about her pregnancy, I hadn’t known how to react to it at first, and so I had stayed silent, unable to get the right words out when I tried. At least, until Tanner interrupted me and went on to ruin things.
I can't fault him for how he handled things. It’s always been Tanner’s way to be brash and rush into things without thinking about it. While the man is proficient in handling business, he knows nothing about handling a woman.
I should have said something. I should’ve tried to salvage the situation before it got out of hand.
The one thing we hadn’t bothered to do was explain to her exactly why we wanted the stash in the first place, and now, it has cost us and we’ve ended up hurting her when it wasn’t our intention.
“How could she say that we are only after the stash and care nothing about her?” Tanner says, bursting out of his room.
I roll my eyes and look at him.
“Do you read minds now?” I ask him, considering he’s just blurted out exactly what I was thinking.
“What?” He looks at me with irritation. I hold up my hands, shaking my head.
“It’s nothing,” I respond. “But maybe an explanation would have done her some good, instead of simply rushing her through everything and disregarding what she said.”
“But how could I have known that she would react—” He stops when I raise a brow at him. “We didn’t have time for an explanation. We needed to move immediately.”
“And yet, here we are,” Rueben says, joining the conversation. “No time for an explanation, but time enough to wait until she’s no longer angry after the way we handled things.”
I sigh. “It’s been almost an hour. Do you think she’s calmed down enough to speak to us now?”
Rueben shrugs. Tanner looks away, clearly reeling from Rueben’s words.
I shake my head in disbelief. Who would have thought the day would come when I would be the one trying to resolve a situationlike this? With a groan, I get up from the couch and head in the direction of her room.
“Amelia, can we talk?” I ask, knocking on her door lightly. “Look, I’m sorry about the way we handled things. I know you must have been scared to tell us in the first place, and our reactions to the news must have come as a shock to you, but please, give us a chance to fix this,” I plead through the door.
My knuckles rap on the door once again, and my lips turn down in a frown. “Amelia?”
