Page 13 of Cherished By the BRATVA Grump

“I don’t want out,” I say. “I just want to be me.”

Eduard nods. “Okay. Figure out what that looks like and let me know.”

I follow him out and lock the door behind me. Looking back at the building from my car, I can see why it surprised Eduard so much. It does look a little rough around the edges, and I do have a gym in my building. I just never felt comfortable in it. This gym is for the everyday guy who wants to work out. There are no phone calls being taken on the cross trainer, no TV’s hung on the walls reciting the latest news or stock numbers. It’s nothing more than exactly what it is. And I like that.

I climb into the car and check the time. It’s just after five, which means I’ve somehow spent almost fifteen hours here. My body feels like it too. Everything aches from the workout this morning, and my shoulders are stiff from spending most of the afternoon hunched over machines with a toolbox.

For the first time in days, though, I’m tired enough that I might actually sleep.

I stop by my apartment to shower and change before heading to the yard. Most of the guys have gone home by the time I get there, leaving only the night crew loading two trucks that are heading out before dawn. I find the delivery Eduard mentioned in the office, three boxes stacked beside his desk with Purr & Pour written across the top one in black marker.

I could leave them here. Jasper will be back tomorrow. Natan could take them. There are probably twenty people I could ask to drive three boxes across town without anyone thinking twice about it.

But that would mean admitting I’m avoiding the café because there’s a chance Tamsin might be there. Even though by now the place will be locked up tight.

I grab the first box and take it to my car.

By the time I pull into the parking lot on the corner, the street is mostly quiet. The gallery is already dark, and the lights in the bookstore are off. A few people walk along the sidewalk bundled in coats and scarves, their breath clouding in the cold air.

The café still has lights on. I check the clock on the dash. Six twenty-three. They closed almost half an hour ago. I get out and open the trunk.

The first box weighs next to nothing. Mugs, according to the label on the side. I carry it around the corner and approach the café, keeping my eyes on the door rather than the windows.

This is ridiculous.

I’ve broken into buildings full of armed men without my pulse changing. I’ve had guns pointed at my face. Knives pulled on me. I once had a guy try to run me over with my own fucking car.

Yet walking towards a café has my stomach tightening.

Those things are easy. If someone wants to hurt me, I hurt them first. If someone threatens my family, I remove the threat. There are rules to my world. Ugly ones, but rules all the same.

Tamsin doesn’t fit into any of them.

I slow before I reach the door.

For a moment, I can see her sitting across from me at Patricia’s table again. The way her entire face changed when she understood what I was telling her.

Good people don’t kill people.

She wasn’t wrong. That’s the part I can’t get past.

I could tell her every man I’ve killed deserved it. I could explain what they did and who they hurt. I could tell her there are people walking around this town right now who are safer because certain men aren’t breathing anymore. Including Delilah.

It wouldn’t change what I’ve done. And I don’t want to be the man who convinces her to move the line she has drawn just so I can stand on the right side of it.

She deserves to decide what she can live with. Even if that means she can’t live with me.

I pull the key Eduard gave me out of my pocket while balancing the box against my chest. I push it into the keyhole, but it doesn’t go all the way. I try again, wiggling it from side to side. Then it hits me. The key is for the front door.

For fuck sake.

I consider leaving the box outside, but Sammie would probably kill me if several hundred dollars’ worth of whatever Christmas shit she ordered disappeared overnight.

I take the box back to the car, stack the other two on top and carry all three around the front of the building.

Music reaches me before I get to the door. Faint. Muffled by brick and glass. Someone is still inside.

Sammie, presumably. Though I thought Eduard said he was taking her out this evening.