Page 45 of The Triangle

They stare at each other for a few heated seconds. Then Danny looks at me and nods. “She’s the reason I’m going along, van den Berg. Not you.”

“Noted,” Alec says. “Come on, Christine, luv. You’re gonna like this place, I promise.”

I don’t wait for Danny’s inevitable huff of frustration and anger. He’s protective of me. To the point where it feels a little like ownership.

And I don’t mind that one bit.

So I smile as I trek down the metal stairs behind Alec, the cache of weapons in the black bag bouncing against his broad back, and think about everything that just happened.

And figure… I’m right where I want to be. Doing the thing I do with the two men I do it best with.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - DANNY

“So how much do you remember now?” I ask Christine, once we’re back on the road heading into the dark woods that lead up into the rolling mountains.

Christine just stares out the window. She took shotgun and I’m in the back seat, hand in pocket, finger lying patiently against the barrel of my Sig Sauer. Aiming it at the driver’s seat in front of me just in case…

Alec is still the liar I once knew.

Still the weak link in the chain.

Still the asshole he was bred to be.

I’m having a hard time believing… well, pretty much everything that’s come out of his mouth since that phone call from out of nowhere.

“Remember?” Alec says, eyes darting to mine in the rearview. “What are you on about?”

Christine looks over her shoulder at me. “I’m fine. Just drop it.” Then she turns back to staring out the passenger window.

“She lost her memory, bru.” I sneer that stupid word. A brew is something you drink. Bro is the word he’s looking for and never seems to find. “After that job you sent her on went horribly wrong and she got hit on the head with a blunt object.”

“She didn’t get hit on the head. And there’s nothing wrong with her memory. Seems all in order to me, yeah, Christine?”

Christine’s fingers slide up to the back of her head, feeling for the stitched-up gash. “If I didn’t get hit on the head, then what did happen?”

“What?” Alec says, taking his eyes off the winding wooded road to stare at her for a second, before returning them to navigate a hairpin switchback turn up the side of the mountain.

I smile. Because the moments when Alec has to admit to himself that he’s not some all-knowing, all-seeing god give me pleasure.

“I did lose my memory. Just for a few hours yesterday when I woke up. It’s back now, so don’t worry,” she adds quickly. “But how did I get the gash on my head?”

Alec’s eyes dart to mine in the rearview again. “We can talk about that later.”

“Of course we can,” I say. “Later is your favorite time to deal with everything.”

“Why are you so hostile, Danny? I saved your ass back there in your quaint little garage.”

“Saved my ass?” I laugh. “My ass would’ve been fine without your help, trust me. And we wouldn’t even be in this mess if it wasn’t for you. What did you do? Why is Christine fucked right now?”

“I’m fine,” Christine insists again.

“You’re not fine, Christine.” It comes out harsher than it should, but I don’t care. We’ve been out of danger and stuck in this car for almost an hour and the way the two of them just accept that mowing down a half-dozen people in my place of business is part of our normal everyday routine is starting to piss me off. “You’ve got a pretty spectacular gash on your head, you lost your memory, and just had to shoot your way out of a building wearing nothing but a t-shirt. None of this is fine. And all of this is linked directly back to Alec van den Berg. So I want a fuckin’ explanation. And I’m not gonna just sit back here like a good little van den Berg minion and pretend it’s all cool. It’s not cool. He did this to us. And you always give him a pass. Even though the whole reason we haven’t talked in almost four years was all his fault. Everything bad that happened when we were younger is all tied to him. Why can’t you see that?”

Alec huffs out a laugh. “I don’t recall you complaining when we lived on a yacht off the coast of the Cook Islands.”

“See? This is what I’m talking about. You think money fixes everything.”

“It does.” He laughs again. “That’s why they make it. What can’t money buy?”