Locke 2 (Blackwater Boys #4)

Twenty-Nine

Locke

“W hat can I do to help?” Conor asked.

Locke watched the dog roam the room. He’d let her out almost immediately, hating her confined in that cage. She wasn’t a wary dog. Her tail wagged the closer she got to him, but she didn’t respond in the same manner to Conor. She looked bored of him, sniffing him only once before returning to Locke’s side to drop down and yawn.

He couldn’t help it, but fuck, he felt special to this animal, and it warmed the cold parts of him.

“I’m taking care of it,” Locke simply answered.

Conor’s expression tightened. “Locke, I want to help.”

“You were going to take her from me again,” Locke hissed back, his voice dripping with betrayal. “I don’t want your help. I want nothing from you right now, Conor.”

“I’m sorry.”

But Locke shook his head. “Don’t.”

“You’re going to shut me out again, aren’t you? I can’t live like that. I need you. We need each other.”

Locke stared calmly at Conor, his words tinged with melancholy. “No, Conor, you have Charlotte. You have your girls.”

“What about my brothers?”

Locke nearly lost his breath. A pain tore through his chest so unexpectedly, he might have hunched over if he’d been alone. But he wasn’t alone, and Conor couldn’t see him in that way. He didn’t want anyone to see him in that way: vulnerable and bleeding and so fucking hurt.

Just like that damn boy that sat at the bottom of the fucking hole, hoping for the light not to hurt when the door opened.

He couldn’t be that boy again.

No.

Conor needed to stop talking. To go away. Why didn’t he just go away?

“Give up on me,” Locke said sternly. “I won’t change for you, Conor. This is who I am.”

“Okay, so don’t change for me,” Conor returned swiftly. “But what about for her? The girl you keep chasing. The one you can’t fucking shake.”

Irritation flared through Locke. “That’s not your business.”

“If it’s not my business, whose business is it?” Conor’s voice boomed now with frustration. “If you don’t have us, who the fuck do you have, Locke?”

For once, Locke didn’t respond. His head hurt. The pain in his chest intensified like fire. “Stop it,” he gritted out. “Enough, Conor.”

“No,” Conor retorted. “I didn’t fight hard enough for you when we were kids, but I’m fighting for you now. I’m not going anywhere.”

Locke didn’t growl, didn’t seethe. He simply whispered, “Damn you, Conor.”

Conor’s eyes shined with emotion. He pointed at Locke, his voice dripping with anguish. “I changed. Because Charlotte needed me to. The same goes for you. If you want her, you have to change, too. It’s worth it, Max. It’s fucking worth it when you’re on the other side.”

Locke shook his head, fighting the defeat as he stared down at the dog. “You could have used that pitch on me when I walked through the door.”

“You can’t fault me for thinking you were going to pull the same stunt as last time.”

Locke looked at Conor. “You weren’t technically wrong, Conor. Except this time I thought she wanted it, too. When she called for me, I thought it was her surrender.”

“She wants to surrender.” Conor looked up at the ceiling, like he could see Kali. “She did from the start. She was torn when we helped her, but she wasn’t ready. She wants it. She’s just better than you at hiding it.” He looked back at Locke. “You’re doing it wrong. You have to make her trust you. Let her in. She’s not something you can drag back to Blackwater and contain.

“If you truly want her, Locke, you have to fucking fight for her. Once she knows you’re genuine, and that this isn’t one of your fucked up games, only then will she put down her walls.”

“Was that what Charlotte did?”

Conor chuckled dryly. “I was the one with the walls up, Locke. When I came back, I was screwed up and hiding from her, from everyone, from myself. I thought she’d judge me and wouldn’t want my ugly, but…” His eyes went distant, and a faint smile pulled at his lips. “But she wanted every dirty part of me. Still does.”

Locke listened intently. He had no reason to believe Conor didn’t know what he was talking about. He got to have Charlotte after all. He was raising a family. He got to have his happiness, but he’d worked for it. He’d gone through his own hell. Had paid with blood and sweat and time—so much time—for his mistakes.

He deserved his happiness.

Locke needed to stop wielding his resentment like a loaded gun, ready to fend Conor away at any moment.

It was just…difficult.

It felt foreign and uncomfortable and confronting. This was an area he had no control in, and what was Locke without control?

Locke’s voice was stiff, the question harder to push out of his mouth than he’d anticipated. “How do I do that?”

His true question was more like how could he get Kali to want him? To love him like Charlotte loved Conor? Jealousy didn’t even twist at that thought. It was a soft envy and a hot pain. Hell, he sadly admitted to himself, Kali didn’t have to love him as hard as Charlotte loved Conor. He could live with half that love. Maybe even a quarter of it. A sliver of it.

Any fucking love, really.

Locke was tired of it all. The darkness and the lonely nights. The secrets he wore like armour. The mask of a man he tried to believe he was: emotionless and cold.

But it had been a lie he couldn’t believe in anymore.

“First things first,” Conor answered with a faint smile. “You don’t have to hide in the shadows in this town. You can change your appearance. No more fucking suits, Locke. For once, try and blend in. That way you can take her out.”

“Like a date?” Locke tasted the foreign word on his tongue.

Now Conor chuckled. “When was the last time you took a woman out on a date?”

Locke simply stared at Conor. The bastard knew he’d never once courted a woman before. He could count on one hand how many women he’d been with in his entire life. Locke had never operated that way. Had never craved it. Never sought it. Never imagined it…

Not until Kali’s wicked tongue and defiant eyes.

She did something to him.

But he was keeping the suits.

Conor’s grin widened. “Fucking hell, Locke, we got work to do.”

Locke frowned. “But the boy—”

“The boy is your number one priority, but so is Kali,” Conor firmly stated. “Both of them. Understand?”

Locke looked back down at the dog as she relaxed her chin on his shoe, dozing off to sleep. “I understand.”

“Now after I tell you this, I’m not going anymore. I’m in this, too. I want to help.” Conor’s tone hardened. “Agree to my help, Max.”

Locke refused to look back at Conor. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling powerless. The last time he found himself in such a situation was a year ago when Charlotte had cornered him, forcing him to make a promise he never wanted to make.

“I agree,” he finally whispered.