Page 60 of My Cruel Salvation

As I hoped, she laughs. And because we’re both overly sad, overly tired, and overly stressed, that one little burst of laughter turns into a full-on fit of giggles, then snorts, then tears, until I’m on the couch beside her and we’re hugging each other and cursing all relationships across the board.

“I can’t even look at you and be jealous,” she says. “I mean I’m jealous of where you are now with Devlin, but you had to go through hell to get there.”

“I know. We did.”

“But you’re together now, and all your issues have just gone away. I mean, I know you had to work to get through them, but at least their gone.” She shrugs. “I guess I’m a little jealous, after all.”

“Well, you’re right that it was a long time coming.” But she’s also right that Devlin and I are a team now. I may not ever be Saint’s Angels biggest cheerleader, but I’d be a hypocrite to say it shouldn’t exist, not when I’m cheering Joseph Blackstone’s demise this very moment.

“The truth is, every relationship has problems. Although I’ll grant you this one is a lot more complicated than most.”

The corner of her mouth curls up, but I don’t get a full-on laugh. I probably don’t deserve it.

“Do you think I should have seen a sign?”

“No. I already told you. I really believe that he loves you. I think this is just one of those star-crossed relationships where everything else in his life works against you. What would you do if he came back?”

Her eyes widen. “Oh, God, do you think he will? He tried to kill you. Surely he’s gone, right?”

“Probably,” I say, and honestly, I hope so. I don’t think he’d try to hurt Brandy, and now that Joseph’s dead, he’s probably not interested in hurting me. But unless he’s behind bars, I don’t want to see him again.

Brandy’s shaking her head. “Wow. If he came back. That’s—that’s just a no. I mean, unless he could somehow prove that he wasn’t driving that car, then we are absolutely done. I can’t think of any explanation that I could get behind, not even that he was coerced by his brother.” She looks at me and meets my eyes. “I need a guy with more integrity than that. And honestly, I need trust. How would I ever trust him again?”

“I get that,” I say. “And I don’t think you had any reason to see anything weird.” I bite my lower lip. “But I think maybe I did.”

Brandy nods. “That time you walked in on him and Anna, and they were supposedly plotting a book and talking about a character hitting someone with a truck.” She grimaces. “I guess truth is stranger than fiction.”

I roll my eyes.

“So Anna wanted you gone so that she could have Devlin, and Christopher was helping her?”

“I think it was more that Joseph was using Anna to get information about the DSF. She was behind those security breaches—feeding him information. And Christopher was trying to get back in tight with his brother.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “But Devlin and I talked about it some. He thinks that Christopher legitimately started writing thrillers set in the kind of world that they all grew up in. But because some of his bad guys turned into good guys, he started to get an urge to meet his brother again. Then they started hanging out together more and more. I’m guessing he was a little awed. Maybe he wanted to make up for testifying against his brother. Or maybe that was some sort of long con to make it seem like the brothers were estranged.”

Her mouth twists. “Devious. But possible, I guess.”

“The bottom line is he did a shitty thing. Maybe a lot of shitty things. But I still believe that what he felt for you was real.” I hesitate, then add, “Were you in love with him?”

She sips her tea, an obvious ploy to avoid answering right away. “I don’t know. But it still hurts. Would it hurt even if it’s not love?”

I reach over and take her hand. “Yeah,” I say. “It would.”

She hasn’t touched her muffin, so I lean over to reach for it, but I’m stopped when I hear the code key being pressed to disarm the system. I turn and lean sideways so that I can see into the entrance hall. The second I see that it’s Devlin, it’s like a weight’s been lifted, and only then do I realize that I was worried he might be wrong about Blackstone’s team. They may be more than happy to take revenge instead of scattering to the wind.

He comes into the room and takes my hand, but his attention is on Brandy. “Are you hanging in there?”

“By a thread,” she says. “But I’ll get better.”

“Yes,” he says firmly. “You will.” He looks between the two of us. “Do either of you need anything? I need to go make a quick phone call.”

I shake my head. “No, go right ahead.” He kisses my forehead and gives Brandy’s shoulder a squeeze before he heads upstairs to our temporary bedroom.

As if my thoughts have conjured him, my phone rings, and Lamar’s face appears on the screen. I answer the call. “Hey, we were just talking about you.”

“Is Devlin there?”