Page 120 of Pucked Around and Found Out

We're going to get out of this cell.

After that, everything else.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

TOREN

I pause on the stairs and notice it the way I notice most things these days…sideways, without meaning to, while I'm focused on something else entirely.

Pope hands Harper a coffee without being asked.

Not the communal pot from the counter. He made it separately, took the time to do it the way she has it, too much sugar and barely any actual coffee, the kind of drink that requires a specific patience that Pope does not display for anyone else in this house.

Harper takes it without looking at him.

He doesn't look at her either.

It is the most careful non-interaction I have ever watched two people execute, so deliberate and so practiced and so thoroughly unconvincing to anyone paying attention that I have to look away before one of them catches me watching.

I file it under things I'm not asking about right now.

Harper has her own story. I learned that recently. Pope clearly has a chapter of it. I trust her to tell me when she's ready, the way she has always done things worth doing, bluntly and without apology.

I leave everyone downstairs in the living room—voices mixing together as they plan tonight's briefing.

Carnage called them all over an hour ago. Ezekiel, Pope, Vivian, Halo, Harper, and at least a dozen others I don't recognize. Denver Kings members. Filthy Few. All of them coordinating how to present Masen to the cartel soldiers, how to maintain control, how to show strength.

They think tonight is about stabilizing the organization.

I have to stand up there in front of two hundred men and act like me and my brother are a united front. The thought alone churns my stomach, Masen is my brother by blood. Nothing more.

I told them I needed to lie down.

That the baby was making me exhausted.

The others barely looked up when I excused myself but Carnage, he tried to follow and make sure I was okay. I waved him off and assured him I just needed to lay down and nothing was wrong. I know he knows I’m lying but I’m grateful he didn’t call me on it.

Now I'm alone in the room I claimed as mine when we first came back to town. I’m so detached from myself that I can’t even focus on a single thing, I can’t formulate a coherent thought. I’m numb to everything right now. There are so many thoughts spiraling through my head and I can’t focus on a single one.

I never pictured my life turning out this way, this was not the plan. I had dreams and wants and now they seem so redundant and pathetic.

Masen is locked in the room at the end of the hall. Two guards stationed outside his door.

My phone sits on the nightstand, dark and silent.

I stare at the ceiling, my hand on my stomach, trying not to think about tonight.

About walking into that mansion with two hundred cartel soldiers.

About standing beside my brother and pretending everything is okay.

A soft knock on my door makes me jump.

“Tor?” It's Masen's voice, low and urgent.

I sit up, confused. “How did you⁠—”

The door opens slowly, and Masen slips inside, closing it quietly behind him.